In my Friday article on Narnia, I suggested that C.S. Lewis–in his depiction of the ape Shift, a character in The Last Battle–intended to satirize Roman Catholicism. A distinguished emailer replies:

Shift is a too-clever-for-his-own good atheist who despises & cynically manipulates the Narnians who believe in Aslan (read Christians) & allies himself with the Calormenes (read Muslims) and eventually gets carried off–presumably to Hell–by their demon-god Tash (read Allah). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some French politician ended up this way, but I don’t see that it has anything to do w/ the pope.

In defense, I will simply quote from A.N. Wilson’s biography of C.S. Lewis:

The Ape’s pretense that the people can only speak to Aslan through him reflects the Ulster author’s view of the papacy. “I’m a Man. If I look like an Ape, that’s because I’m so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it’s because I’m so old that I’m so wise. And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. … He’ll tell me what to do and I’ll tell the rest of you.”

I find Wilson’s interpretation persuasive. As a Roman Catholic myself, I don’t exactly like it. But I do believe that’s the effect Lewis was going for.