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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 9, 2014 21:39:53 GMT
I thought it might be interesting to have a thread about prominent people who you'd never suspect of being Catholic, but who are. To get the ball rolling, though they may be no surprise to anyone: Andy Warhol. (The writer of this article seems to think Warhol had to 'rectify' a 'contradiction' between his supposed homosexuality and his faith-- even though he was also apparently celibate, and even though the writer says "the Bible" opposes homosexual acts rather than being gay.) Mark Walhberg, the actor-- a daily Mass-goer. Stephen Colbert, the US comedian.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 10, 2014 9:20:01 GMT
Andy Warhol's position is a lot darker than you suggest, Maolseachlainn. He may have been celibate/asexual, but he certainly practised voyeurism, produced pornography, and led others into vice. Quite a few alumni of his "Factory" wound up suffering terrible fates (though the margins of New York bohemia which they inhabited might have led them to such fates even if they had never met Warhol).
I am saying this only as a matter of public record and concerning Warhol's external acts. I am not judging the state of his soul (especially not when I think of some of the things I know about my own secret sins of thought and omission); let us hope that his regular Mass attendance was a bridgehead of grace and a means to his salvation.
Frank Duff once said BTW that on the basis of external appearances one would have thought Gladstone would be more likely to die a Catholic than Oscar Wilde (though this may say as much about Frank Duff's lack of understanding of the mindset of a High Anglican such as Gladstone as it does about its ostensible subject). I need hardly add that Duff was not saying that Gladstone was not saved.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 10, 2014 20:03:28 GMT
Thanks for pointing that out, Hibernicus. I'm glad you told me.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2014 8:35:14 GMT
The only problem I can think of with lists like this is: are they Catholic or "catholic"?
I heard somewhere John Wayne became Catholic.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 11, 2014 9:18:32 GMT
You're right about John Wayne.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 11, 2014 21:41:12 GMT
Yes, he converted on his deathbed, and one of his grandsons is a Catholic priest. He was influenced by Catholic contacts (one, possibly two of his wives were Catholic and brought up their children as Catholics).
The big problem with "surprise Catholics" is that it can smack of the numbers game - For example, the poet Wallace Stevens converted on his deathbed (this is disputed, but it seems to me more likely than not) but it doesn't alter the fact that the poetry for which he is known is expressly atheist -and implies that if X is a Catholic X must necessarily have been exemplary (which doesn't necessarily follow any more than EVERY aspect of the careers of Mary Magdalen and the Good Thief are worthy of imitation).
Alfred Hitchcock. He was brought up Catholic, lapsed for much of his later life, but returned to it some years before his death. I remember reading an account by a priest who used to say Mass for the elderly Hitchcock in his Hollywood bungalow. Because Hitchcock was unused to the vernacular Mass, he would say the responses in Latin, and as he said them he would weep. (The fact that he knew the Latin responses by heart suggests to me that he might have been an altar boy - now THAT's an intriguing thought.)
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 12, 2014 16:41:02 GMT
Well, one reason why I think the subject is of interest is because it shows the universality of the Faith. People of all different kinds seem to find the fulfilment of what they were searching for in it. Very often they are different things they are searching for-- or, at least, the same Thing from many different angles. I find this very interesting and think it could have apologetic potential. Just yesterday I read a rumour that JP Sartre converted just before his death, though I wouldn't lend a whole lot of credence to it. But who knows? bridgesandtangents.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/sartres-death-bed-conversion/
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2014 9:13:04 GMT
Not a surprise Catholic, but as we're in world cup mode at the minute, interestingly, Lionel Messi spent a low key week in Medjuourgje in the summer of 2012. Fair play to him. If anyone's been, they'll know there is not much celeb style luxury there. A refreshing counter-cultural change from the usual celeb antics the media prefers to promote. There's a long list of surprising celeb pilgrims to Medjugorje, but it doesn't fit in with the mainstream media worldview.
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Post by Cameron on Jul 26, 2014 14:40:05 GMT
I heard somewhere that Robert Pattinson was a Catholic, now whether or not he's a (C)(c)atholic is unknown to me. I don't watch anything he's acted in, but I saw Twilight and the other three films once, and once is enough.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 10, 2014 21:54:13 GMT
It is generally, known that Alfred Hitchcock was a Catholic - he lapsed for some years in his later life but returned to practice shortly before his death - this post links to a Jesuit's account of saying Mass for him in his home in his last years: wdtprs.com/blog/2012/12/alfred-hitchcock-catholic/There is one little detail in the story (not in the post directly linked to here, but in the full story you get by following the link from that post) which made me suspect that Hitch was an altar boy in his youth. The priest recalls that because Hitchcock had not attended Mass since before the liturgical changes, although the priest said the OF Mass Hitchcock gave the responses in Latin, and when he did he would weep. (Given that the OF and EF responses are not the same, I wonder did he adapt them - or did he, for example, say the Judica me at the start?) The fact that he knew the Latin responses by heart made me suspect he had been an altar boy, because when he was young it was not the usual practice for the congregation to say the responses - they were only said by the server. Last week I went to see the new release of TO CATCH A THIEF at the Irish Film Institute, and there was something in it which reinforced my suspicion. At one point Cary Grant is attending a funeral where most of those present blame him for the fate of the deceased. As the unease builds, the priest recites the MISERERE MEI at considerable length (which I believe is standard in EF funerals). It occurred to me that this might be a bit much of a good thing if Hitch hadn't expected that a significant number of his (Catholic) viewers would have a general idea of what it is that the priest is saying, and that David's lamentations over his guilt might be applied (justly or unjustly) to Cary Grant's own state of mind. So I did a little search for "Alfred Hitchcock altar boy" on Google, and it turns out that he was indeed an altar boy when he attended a Jesuit boarding school: hollowverse.com/alfred-hitchcock/How odd to think of him as an altar boy. There is a film (not by Alfred Hitchcock) which I will not name because it is evil in certain ways, though it is skilfully done. It begins with the protagonist as a schoolboy, and towards the end he is on his deathbed. As he lies there the film cuts to a short sequence in which the small boy he once was comes out of a bank of fog, runs down a street, and disappears into the fog again. I wonder if it was some similar sense of transience, of the short gap between the altar boy and his present state, that made the old Hitchcock weep when he said the responses?
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 11, 2014 19:51:31 GMT
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Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 11, 2014 19:58:01 GMT
I knew Sinise was a Catholic but I'd got the impression he was purely Catholic through marriage. Pleased to hear it's not so.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 18, 2015 9:16:00 GMT
Has anyone heard of Milo Yiannopulous? Apparently he is a young English gay Catholic who is conservative, despite being the kind of fellow you would assume would be just the opposite (comes from a technology background, dyes his hair, etc.). I can't work out if he is actually orthodox, a practicing or a non-practicing homosexual, etc. or just something of a contrarian like Brendan O'Neill. www.channel4.com/news/soho-gay-mass-move-splits-gay-catholic-opinion(After watching a short debate he was in, I assume he is a practicing homosexual, or at least he was-- he mentions a 'dating history'.)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2015 15:05:46 GMT
Has anyone heard of Milo Yiannopulous? Apparently he is a young English gay Catholic who is conservative, despite being the kind of fellow you would assume would be just the opposite (comes from a technology background, dyes his hair, etc.). I can't work out if he is actually orthodox, a practicing or a non-practicing homosexual, etc. or just something of a contrarian like Brendan O'Neill. www.channel4.com/news/soho-gay-mass-move-splits-gay-catholic-opinion(After watching a short debate he was in, I assume he is a practicing homosexual, or at least he was-- he mentions a 'dating history'.) I am aware of Milo, and I believe he is an active homosexual, while at the same time some what defencive of Catholicism. I believe he believes homosexual marriage should be legal, and as far as I'm aware he has a partner. I once saw him in on a show - I can't remember the name of it, but it was one of those shows were the audience is heavily involved in the debate - and there was a Christian leader (I can't remember if he was a Catholic priest or Protestant minister) who basically said something along the lines of all religions being different ways of worshipping the same God. Milo called him out for that and said something along the lines of "I find it worrying that a religious leader would say something like that". He's an interesting person, and certainly not striaght-forward. I once saw he wrote an article on Breitbart talking about how couples should be involved in something were they agree to let each other... err, mingle, so to speak... with other people as a way to prevent cheating in secret. This seems like an unusual thing for someone who is supposed to be more conservative leaning to write (and perhaps he changed his mind on that), but there you go. At the same time, Milo's greatest claim to fame was during the "GamerGate" scandal which is a really complex situation that basically boiled down to corruption in gaming journalism, and the supposed pushing of a "progressive", social justice agenda. It involved these journalists and their feminist/social justice allies trying to label most gamers as "privileged" white, straight, cis-gender males who are or support games that are racist/homophobic/transphobic(ha ha)/misogynistic/etc. Milo did a lot of dirt digging on these people, and became one of the recognised faces against the "progressive" agenda. He also believes trans to be a mental disorder, interestingly enough.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 18, 2015 15:37:00 GMT
I never heard of the guy until today.
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