Was James Joyce a Catholic, or not? This question is not easy to answer because he had never expressed his position on the matter during his life. Joyce was taught to accept religious instruction and to fulfill the religious duties at Clongowes Wood College. He was sent to Belvedere College when he was 11 years old and after 2 years was elected director of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. Joyce was, so to speak, immersed in a deeply religious atmosphere in his early school life. Despite this, he remained an object of suspicion to his Jesuit teachers. As a result, he had lost his faith of his boyhood on Catholicism when he grew up. Another factor in Joyce`s loss of faith was the strong anti-clericalism of his father when the Irish Catholic clergy spoke out against Parnell. And the other factor that drew him further away from the Catholic Church was his inclination to be subject to his own impulse. He wanted sex, and he thought that it was an essential experience to conduct "an experiment in living," as Stanislaus called it. And if he wanted to become a complete artist he had to complete his experience. By this time his faith was seriously in crisis. By rejecting the Church, he was free to develop a spirituality that was essence for an experienced artist. Joyce`s mood of religious conviction, in short, gave way to an increasing enthusiasm for modern literature. Though he had maintained an interest in the Church`s liturgy in his life, Joyce was not a faithful member of Catholic Church.