So Rex was sent to Farm Street to Father Mowbray, a priest renowned for his triumphs with obdurate catechumens. After the third interview he came to tea with Lady Marchmain.
“Well, how do you find my future son-in-law?”
“He’s the most difficult convert I have ever met.”
“Oh dear, I thought he was going to make it so easy.”
“That’s exactly it. I can’t get anywhere near him. He doesn’t seem to have the least intellectual curiosity or natural piety.
“The first day I wanted to find out what sort of religious life he had had till now, so I asked him what he meant by prayer. He said: ‘I don’t mean anything. You tell me’. I tried to, in a few words, and he said: ‘Right. So much for prayer. What’s the next thing?’ I gave him the catechism to take away. Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature. He said: ‘Just as many as you say, Father.’
Then again I asked him: ‘Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said ‘It’s going to rain’, would that be bound to happen?’ ‘Oh, yes, Father.’ ‘But supposing it didn’t?’ He thought a moment and said, “I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it.'”
–Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited