Walter Hooper, a Catholic convert best-known for his tireless work in promoting the work of CS Lewis, has died aged 89.
After serving briefly as Lewis’s secretary in the last months of his life, Hooper dedicated his life to the author’s legacy, publishing collections of his works and letters, co-writing the first authorised biography, and giving talks in which he brought Lewis’s character to life. Lewis’s current stature, as perhaps the best-loved Christian apologist of the last half-century, owes much to Hooper’s work.
The Wade Center at Wheaton College, a leading centre of Lewis studies, said in its obituary: “there is not a single reader of CS Lewis’s writings who is not deeply indebted to Walter Hooper.”
In a 1980 interview with the Catholic Herald, Hooper remarked that he had “thought of little else” except Lewis “for so many years.” At that time he was an Anglican clergyman. But in 1988 he became a Catholic, and became a familiar sight at the Oxford Oratory, arriving early at daily Mass to say his rosary.
This week Hooper’s godson, Jacob Imam, recalled the day that he, Imam, was received into the Church. When Hooper got to the church,
He ceremoniously set down his bag, stood straight up, and looked intently at me, saying, “This is the greatest thing you have ever done; this is the greatest thing you have ever done.”
Since Hooper’s death in Oxford on Monday, tributes have already appeared in National Review and Christianity Today.
(Photo: St Clare Media/EWTN GB)