quality:correction
Religious views

Joyce had a complex relationship with religion. Firsthand statements by him and Stanislaus, attest that he did not consider himself a Catholic, though his work is deeply influenced by Catholicism. In particular, his intellectual foundations were grounded in his early Jesuitical education. Even after he left Ireland, he sometimes went to church. When living in Trieste, he woke up early to attend Catholic Mass on Holy Thursday and Good Friday or occasionally attended Eastern Orthodox services, stating that he liked the ceremonies better.

Some critics have argued that Joyce firmly rejected the Catholic faith. He lapsed from the Church early in life and Nora refused to allow a Catholic service when he died. His works frequently critique, ridicule, and blaspheme Catholicism, and he appropriates Catholic rituals and concepts for his own artistic purposes. Nevertheless, Catholic critics have argued that Joyce never fully abandoned his faith, wrestling with it in his writings and becoming increasingly reconciled with it. They argue that Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are expressions of a Catholic sensibility, insisting that the critical views of religion expressed by the characters in his novel do not represent the views of Joyce the author.

Other critics have suggested that Joyce's apparent apostasy was less a denial of faith than a transmutation, a criticism of the Church's adverse impact on spiritual life, politics, and personal development. Joyce's attitude toward Catholicism has been described as an enigma in which there are two Joyces: a modern one who resisted the power of Catholicism and another who maintained his allegiance to its traditions. He has been compared to the medieval episcopi vagantes (wandering bishops), who left their discipline but not their cultural heritage of thought.

Joyce's responses to questions about his faith were often ambiguous. For example, during an interview after the completion of Ulysses, Joyce was asked, "When did you leave the Catholic Church?" He answered, "That's for the Church to say."