List of Catholic converts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page lists historic individuals who at some point in their lives, sometimes on their deathbeds, formally adopted the Roman Catholic faith without having been born into it. As those who converted to Christianity before 1054 may have been either Orthodox, Catholic, or a mixture of both in leanings they should not be listed without sufficient justification.

1 The List
- 1.1 A-F
- 1.2 G-L
- 1.3 M-Z
2 See also

[edit] The List

[edit] A-F

400 British Anglican priests, who with Conservative politicians Anne Widdecombe and John Gummer objected in 1993 to the Anglican Church allowing ordination of women to the priesthood (see Graham Leonard, below).

Don Adams: American actor who had a Catholic mother, but not religiously Catholic until late in life.[1]
Jeffrey Robert Adams: Catholic evangelist and apologist [2]
Mortimer Adler: editor of the Great Books series; American philosopher
Afonso I of Kongo: African king. Although politically motivated he became quite pious[3]
Jimmy Akin prolific Catholic evangelist and apologist
Leo Allatius: Greek theologian
Thomas William Allies: English writer.
Pablo Alvaro: Spanish knight
G. E. M. Anscombe: British analytical philosopher and theologian who introduced the term consequentialism into the English language
Tudor Arghezi: Romanian poet who converted to Catholicism in France, but later associated with communists
Francis Cardinal Arinze: Nigerian Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
Johann Christian Bach: German composer, eleventh son of Johann Sebastian Bach
Beryl Bainbridge: English novelist
Maurice Baring: English dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist
Binnie Barnes: British American actress, converted for her husband, Mike Frankovich
Peter Benenson: founder of human rights group Amnesty International
Robert Hugh Benson: English writer and theologian
Lennox Berkeley: English composer; converted in 1928
Jiao Bingzhen: Qing dynasty painter and astronomer
Cherry Boone: Daughter of devout Protestant singer Pat Boone who went public about her battle with anorexia nervosa
Clare Boothe Luce: playwright, politician, and diplomat
Robert Bork: former U.S. solicitor general
Clemens Brentano: German poet and novelist
Elinor Brent-Dyer: English writer
Hermann Broch: Austrian writer
George Mackay Brown: British poet, author and dramatist
Sam Brownback: U.S. senator from Kansas
Orestes Brownson: American writer
Dave Brubeck: American jazz musician.[4]
Buffalo Bill: American Old West legend
John Ellis Bush: American politician, forty-third and current Governor of Florida
Christopher Butler: English Benedictine and scholar
Thomas R.D. Byles: English priest who remained on board the RMS Titanic as she was sinking, hearing confessions and giving absolution. [5]
Roy Campbell: South-African-born, English- (later Portuguese-) domiciled poet
Kit Carson: American frontiersman
Diana Serra Cary: Child actor from the silent era, took the name Serra from Junípero Serra.
Wayne Catchlove: Prominent Australian businessman.
Nick Cave: Australian recording artist and songwriter
Jeff Cavins: Author, Theologian, and TV host on EWTN
John Chapman OSB: Benedictine scholar who'd been an Anglican deacon.
Charles II of England, King of Great Britain
G. K. Chesterton: British writer
Colin Clark: British economist who later moved to Australia, one of the first to advocate the use of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
James Collinson: Artist who briefly went back to Anglicanism in order to marry Christina Rossetti.
Elias Nelson Conway: Democratic Governor of Arkansas from 1852 to 1860
Gary Cooper: American actor
Frederick Copleston: British philosopher
Michael Coren: British-Canadian writer and broadcaster
Roger Corman: American independent low-budget feature filmmaker
Titu Cusi: Inca ruler (political conversion)
Richard Crashaw: English poet and son of a staunch Anti-Catholic.[6]
Lorenzo Da Ponte: Italian writer and poet
John Dobree Dalgairns: English theologian
Catherine Doherty: Canadian pioneer of social justice
Christopher Dawson: English independent scholar
Dorothy Day: social activist and pacifist, foundress of the Catholic Worker movement.
David-Augustin de Brueys: French theologian
Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne: French military leader
Jules Doinel: founder of the modern 'Gnostic Church', convert in 1895
Alfred Döblin: German expressionist novelist, best known for Berlin Alexanderplatz
John Dowland: English composer
Augusta Theodosia Drane: English writer and theologian
John Dryden: English writer
Avery Robert Cardinal Dulles: American Jesuit Theologian, Professor at Fordham University
Michael Dummett: British Analytic philosopher who devised the Quota Borda system.
Faye Dunaway: Oscar winning American actress.
Black Elk: Oglala medicine-man
Mark Elliot: Canadian broadcaster
Shusaku Endo: Japanese novelist
William Everson: Beat poet whose parents were Christian Scientists, he took the name Brother Antoninus in the 18 years he spent as a Dominican
Frederick William Faber: English theologian and hymnwriter
Lola Falana: Dancer and actress[7]
Ronald Firbank: British novelist
Tsuguharu Foujita: Japanese painter who took the name Leonardo on baptism
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: formerly a secular, radical feminist; Founder of the Institute of Women Studies
Antonia Fraser: British novelist (Her parents converted when she was little)
John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg: Germanic aristocrat, converted from Lutheranism, who employed Gottfried Leibniz.
Georgiana Fullerton: English novelist who converted in 1846 when she was in her 30s.

[edit] G-L

Peter Geach: one of the foremost contemporary British philosophers
August Friedrich Gfrörer: German historian
Edward Gibbon: British historian (who became Anglican again a few years later)
Eric Gill: British sculptor, typographer and engraver
Rumer Godden: English author of children's books, novels concerning India, and books on Catholic mysticism.
Graham Greene: British writer
Julien Green: French novelist
Bede Griffiths: mystic who bridged Catholicism and Hinduism by converting to Catholicism, becoming a Benedictine, and running a Catholic ashram
Sir Alec Guinness: British actor
John Gummer: Conservative British politician, 1993
Theodor Haecker: German writer, translator and cultural critic
Scott Hahn: Catholic apologist and his wife Kimberly
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison: She wrote about being raised Jehovah's Witnesses, converted in part due to inspiration of the Catholic Worker Movement.
Robert Stephen Hawker: English poet and antiquarian
June Haver: American actress who mentioned a desire to be a nun upon conversion.
Susan Hayward: Oscar winning American actress, who converted with her second husband Eaton Chalkley
Anna Haycraft: British novelist. Raised as a Positivist she became a conservative Catholic critic of the Second Vatican Council
Isaac Thomas Hecker: founder of the Paulist order, spent time at Brook Farm
Ernest Hemingway: American novelist
Ammon Hennacy: Activist, Roman Catholic from 1952 to 1965
King Henry IV of France
Dietrich von Hildebrand: German Catholic theologian
James Hope-Scott: English lawyer connected to the Oxford Movement
Gerard Manley Hopkins: British poet and Jesuit
Doc Holliday: American gambler and gunfighter
Bob Hope: Cardinal Mahony stated he converted
Thomas Howard: American writer and scholar
Joris-Karl Huysmans: French novelist
Laura Ingraham: American conservative talk radio host and author.
Princess Irene of the Netherlands: Her conversion, related to her marrying a Falangist, became something of a national issue.
Bobby Jindal: US politician
Ernst Jünger: German writer and philosopher
Kim Dae-jung: ex-South Korean president
Sheila Kaye-Smith: English poet, and her husband, in 1929
Katharine, The Duchess of Kent: musical member of the British Royal Family
Willmoore Kendall: Trotskiyite activist who became a conservative political scientist
Russell Kirk: American historian, moralist and social critic
Ronald Knox: English theologian and crime writer
Peter Kreeft: an apologist for Christianity, professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of many books
Lawrence Kudlow: American supply-side economist and television figure
William Kurelek: Canadian painter. Convert from Orthodoxy after suffering from depression.
Mary Kusack: Irish nun and writer from 1861 to 1881, later adopted anti-Catholicism and died as a Methodist
George Parsons Lathrop: Poet and writer
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop: Nun who formed a group of Dominicans, daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne and wife/widow to George Lathrop
Halldor Laxness: Icelandic Nobel Laureate (Catholic period limited to the 1920s)
Graham Leonard: former Anglican Bishop of London
Ignace Lepp: French psychiatrist and author
Shane Leslie: Irish diplomat and writer
Saunders Lewis: Welsh writer
Paulina Longworth: Daughter of Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Arthur Lourié: Russian Composer
Arnold Lunn: English writer
Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger: Archbishop of Paris
William P. Longley: American gunfighter

[edit] M-Z

James McAuley: Australian poet, converted in 1952.
Ford Madox Ford: English writer, converted at age 19.
Gustav Mahler: Austrian composer
Curzio Malaparte: Italian journalist and writer
Henry Edward Cardinal Manning: Widowed Anglican priest who later became a Catholic Cardinal
Gabriel Marcel: Raised atheist or agnostic, well known as an existentialist, converted in adulthood.
Constance Markiewicz: Irish nationalist, suffragette, and revolutionary
Jacques Maritain: Neo-Thomist thinker
Raïssa Maritain: Poet and Philosopher
Basil W. Maturin: Irish-born Anglican priest who later became a Catholic priest and writer, died on board the RMS Lusitania [8]
Norma McCorvey: anonymous plaintiff in Roe vs Wade
Marshall McLuhan: Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar
Thomas Merton: American Trappist and writer
Alice Meynell: Poet, suffragist
Sherman Minton: United States Supreme Court justice
George Jackson Mivart: English biologist
Malcolm Muggeridge: British writer and journalist
Les Murray: Australian poet and literary critic
Takashi Nagai: Japanese medical doctor, victim of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki
Bernard Nathanson: American medical doctor and fetologist, fomer abortionist who now is active in the anti abortion movement.
Richard John Neuhaus: Priest, founder and editor of the journal First Things
John von Neumann: Hungarian-born mathematician
John Henry Newman: British Cardinal
Michel de Nostredame: French astrologer and physician (slight dispute as his family may have converted before his birth)
Sister Nirmala: Successor to Mother Teresa as head of her worldwide order (first generation Indian of Nepalese extraction) on behalf of the poor, the Missionaries of Charity, coming from Brahminism, the highest caste of Hinduism.
Robert Novak: conservative commentator
Alfred Noyes: He wrote about his conversion to Catholicism in The Unknown God.
Jacques Offenbach: composer and cellist
Johann Friedrich Overbeck: German painter
Henry Nutcombe Oxenham: English theologian (Some leanings toward the Old Catholic Church)
Ludek Pachman: Czechoslovakian chess grandmaster
Coventry Patmore: English poet
Walker Percy: American writer
Linda Poindexter, former Episcopalian priest, wife of former National Security Advisor John Poindexter [9]
Katherine Anne Porter: American writer, on and off convert
Vincent Price: American actor, converted after marrying his third wife
Augustus Pugin: English-born architect, designer and theorist of design
Clemente Rebora: Italian poet and Rosminian priest
Peter le Page Renouf: Egyptologist from Guernsey
Alphonse Ratisbonne: French banker
Alma Reville: Actress and assistant director who was married to Alfred Hitchcock for over 50 years and worked with him on projects.
Anne Rice: American Author
Knute Rockne: football coach at the University of Notre Dame
Frederick Rolfe: English novelist and eccentric
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Franco-Swiss philosopher, writer and political theorist
Edmund Rubbra: English composer
Siegfried Sassoon: English poet and author
Joseph Saurin: French mathematician and Calvinist minister.[10]
Max Scheler: German philosopher
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel: German poet, critic and scholar
Dutch Schultz: American gangster
Elizabeth Ann Seton: foundress of the 'American Sisters of Charity and first U.S.-born person to be canonized.
Francesco Severi: Italian mathematician
Alfred Schnittke: Russian composer
Frances Shand Kydd: mother of Diana, Princess of Wales
William Tecumseh Sherman: American soldier, businessman, and author
Edith Sitwell: Eccentric British poet
Delia Smith: cookery writer
Mitch Snyder: advocate for the homeless
Queen Sofia: Greek princess who converted to marry King Juan Carlos I of Spain
Etsuro Sotoo: Japanese sculptor
Muriel Spark: British novelist
Niels Steensen: Danish physician and scientist, pioneer of modern geology (In the Church he is currently called "Blessed Nicolas Steno")
Edith Stein: Personalism philosopher
Wallace Stevens: Modern American poet
Erich von Stroheim: Austrian actor and director
Francis Stuart: Irish novelist
Montague Summers, author, former Church of England deacon
Graham Sutherland: English painter
Italo Svevo: Italian businessman and author of novels, plays, and short stories
Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux: French writer
Alfred Tarski: Polish logician and mathematician
Allen Tate: American writer
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, daughter of a Mohawk warrior
Sir John Thompson: the fourth Prime Minister of Canada
Alice B. Toklas: lover and confidante of writer Gertrude Stein.
J. R. R. Tolkien: British novelist (Mother converted when he was eight years old)
Tran Le Xuan: Wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu
Lars von Trier: Danish film director
Margaret Trudeau: in order to marry Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Malcolm Turnbull: Australian politician and mainstay of the Australian republican movement.
Sigrid Undset: Norwegian novelist, Nobel Prize for 1928.
Sheldon Vanauken: American author
Bill Veeck: American baseball team owner[11]
Joost van den Vondel: Dutch poet
Christina Vasa: former Queen regnant of Sweden
Johannes Vermeer: Dutch painter who converted in 1653 [12]
Evelyn Waugh: British writer
John Wayne: American actor
E. T. Whittaker: Mathematician who converted in 1930, later served at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Anne Widdecombe: Conservative British politician, 1993
Oscar Wilde: Irish writer
Mary Lou Williams: Jazz pianist
Johann Joachim Winckelmann: one of the founding fathers of modern archaeology
Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick grandson of the Duke of Kent
Katharine Windsor Dutchess of Kent
Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the Duke of Kent
Xu Guangqi (Baptismal name: Paul Xu): Chinese mathematician, one of the earliest Chinese converts
Gene Wolfe: science fiction writer
Jane Wyman: Oscar winning American actress, first wife of US President Ronald Reagan
Lindsay Younce: Actress who was born as a member of the Religious Society of Friends.[13]
R. V. Young: Literary critic and columnist.
Zheng Zhilong: Chinese merchant, admiral, and occasional pirate.
Israel Zolli, later baptised as Eugenio Zolli: former chief Rabbi of Rome, 1945