High profile conversions to Catholicism are a fascinating topic. Another one that caught me off-guard was that of former poodle, er, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who came out of the closet in 2007, pretty much just as soon as he stepped down as PM. According to this piece in the Guardian, Blair's Catholic leanings actually dated back three full decades to a "spiritual awakening" he experienced while still in school at Cambridge, but he put off official conversion (for half a lifetime) "due to political considerations". Catholics are by law excluded from the British throne, and also from marrying a reigning sovereign or anyone who might be an heir to the throne. Srsly. While it is not legally proscribed, no British Prime Minister has ever been (officially, at least) Catholic.
Other big-name converts have included Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, columnist Robert Novack, not-quite Supreme Court Justice Robert Bork, Plumber-in-Chief E. Howard Hunt, Kenneth lookalike Bobby Jindal, John von Neumann, Vincent Price, Bob Hope, Tony Snow, Marshall McLuhan, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jim Nabors, Salvador Dali, Knute Rockne, Jane Wyman, Aubrey Beardsley, Tennessee Williams, Jeb Bush, Anne Rice, and Arlo Guthrie. Also, two of the most prominent modern popularizers of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular were converts (which actually makes a lot of sense). For the namby-pamby liberal types (like Cherie Blair) you've got Thomas Merton and for the more solidly conservative set (like Robert Novack) there's good old G.K. Chesterton.
There was actually a flurry of speculation in the summer of '08 that George W. Bush was
2 comments:
"Also, two of the most prominent modern popularizers of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular were converts"
There is no one as zealous as a convert.
Actually, neither Chesteron nor Merton were especially "zealous".
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