Ten Artists You Didn't Know Were Catholics

Determining someone's religion is not always an easy thing. People's views change throughout life; and for many, their deepest convictions are a very private matter. I was shocked recently to see an artist I knew as a prominent Catholic featured in a list of “Ten Atheists to be Proud Of”--based, it turned out, on nothing more than one ambiguous anecdote.

I propose a simple rule: if someone has a Catholic funeral, he is a Catholic. He is a Catholic in the understanding of those who knew him best, and he is a Catholic in good standing in the eyes of the Church. As often as not, such thing are also stipulated in one's will. And we know that, whatever thoughts he may have had previously, his own meditations upon life led him to this as his ultimate conclusion.

Ergo, for example, contrary to common claims by atheists, Hitler was not a Catholic. He may have been raised Catholic, but he showed no desire for the Catholic last rites at his death, and specified a non-Catholic funeral. He even demanded cremation, which would have been understood by Catholics at the time as a statement of impiety. Nothing could really be clearer from these circumstances than that Hitler was not Catholic.

The matter is stickier for living artists.

A nice Catholic boy from Philadelphia.

1. Andy Warhol. Born, raised, and died Catholic. He attended mass faithfully throughout his life. Funeral at Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church, with a memorial at St. Patrick's Cathedral, NY. His pop iconography is pretty plainly a direct extension of Christian iconography.

Certainly not Orthodox.

2. Salvador Dali. Funeral at Church of Sant Pere, Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. He took a good deal of flak from his surrealist pals for so openly returning to the Catholic fold in his later years.

Murder? That'll be ten Hail Marys.

3. Alfred Hitchcock. He's the one who has been claimed by the atheists, but entirely illegitimately. Besides being educated at a Jesuit school—he was three-quarters Irish--he had a proper Catholic funeral at Beverley Hills' Good Shepherd church. This ought not to be a surprise: you can't make the films he did without a decent Catholic sense of guilt. Arthur Conan Doyle, the inventor of the murder mystery, was also Catholic. Interestingly, the field of film direction is especially heavy with Catholics.

"Beat" meant "As in the Beatitudes." Dig?

4. Jack Kerouac. He's one the Buddhists regularly try to claim. He is quite properly credited with introducing Buddhism to North American culture, and making it cool. This does not mean he was ever a Buddhist. He insisted publicly late in life, during an interview with William F. Buckley, that he was Catholic. He is also on record as calling himself a “solitary Catholic mystic,” a “Jesuit,” and “a field marshall in the Jesuit armies.” I can't find him ever claiming to be a Buddhist. Funeral at St. John the Baptist Church, Lowell, Massachusetts.

A misunderstood Christian mystic.

5. Oscar Wilde. I can recall being ridiculed when I expressed my opinion, back as an undergrad, that Wilde read like a Christian mystic. He was, after all, supposed to be a hero of the sexual revolition. But this completeyl dishonours his memory; he would have been appalled. Wilde was not raised Catholic, and went to Protestant schools; but, having grown up in Dublin, he was certainly exposed to it fom an early age. He showed deep interest in Catholicism throughout his life, and formally converted on his deathbed.

Stirred, but no Shaker.

6. Sean Connery. An uncanny proportion of cinema's tough guys and “savoir-faire” types have been Catholics, by birth or by conversion. John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, Gregory Peck, James Cagney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudolph Valentino, Nicholas Cage, Patrick McGoohan, Patrick McNee, Liam Neeson, Martin Sheen, Clark Gable ... charisma comes with the territory.

If only someone would let him at the New Order of the Mass.

7. William Shakespeare. We don't know this directly. We do know his family was Catholic, and analysis of his plays has produced the critical consensus that Shakespeare's world view was that of a believing Catholic.

Catholicism? That's so gay!

8. Tennessee Williams. Though raised Episcopalian, he converted to Catholicism late in life. His funeral was held at St. Malachy's Catholic Church, NY.

Catholic? Don't make me laugh!

9. Bob Newhart. Raised a Catholic, attended Catholic schools and a Catholic university. He has raised his own children as Catholics.

A fisher of men.

10. Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway converted to Catholicism in adulthood, and received a Catholic funeral, despite being a suicide. Some have wondered about this, but it was probably doctrinally correct. It seems clear that at time of death he was not in his right mind. He apparently had a hereditary physical disease which caused severe secondary mental effects.

PS: surprisingly, in overwhelmingly Protestant England, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison were all raised Catholic. None, however, seem to qualify as Catholics now.