I think he was probably Anglican, especially because it's hinted that his father was a hereditary baronet. For long periods in English history, no Catholic could even hold any kind of public position. It's likely that a Catholic family with a tenuous title could be stripped of it entirely. Conan Doyle was a Catholic but fell out with it later in life. I don't think this would be any reason for making his fictional creation Catholic.

HughAshton wrote:

I thought he was only from a family of "country squires" (Greek Interpreter). It's not strictly accurate to say that peers of the realm could not be Catholic, especially in the mid-19th century, though Catholics were discriminated against, it's true. For an example of a contemporary Catholic peer:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fitzalan-Howard,_15th_Duke_of_Norfolk - it might, however, have been a hindrance to Mycroft's advance through the Whitehall hierarchy, or on the other hand, might explain the "hidden" nature of Mycroft's position in the government.

I think when I say that his father was a peer I might be drawing that from an Annotated Sherlock Holmes, which are dubiously canon. My recollection on that isn't great.

That's an interesting explanation for Mycroft's position.

HughAshton wrote:

Indeed there is almost nothing canonical about the Holmes family - I've read through the relevant bits of Baring-Gould (I assume we're on the same book here). The arguments there don't sound incredibly convincing to me, though. Now if you are going to look at the family of John Clay, then there's quite a lot of intelligent detective work to be done there.

Don't get me started...lol...non-canonical stuff made to look like canon really annoys me. Like when I went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum they were selling Sherlock Holmes Family Trees which were of an entirely ficticious nature, with made up family members that were never actually mentioned in the canon.

As to this question, it's not actually something I've ever really considered before, not being a religious type myself...but I'll certainly have a read through your article.