Surprise Catholics

[Beinidict Ó Niaidh]

It's very rare we look at business, but back in the late 1970s, the Welsh businessman Albert Gubay made an impact on Ireland in the discount retail sector. I had no idea he was Catholic: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gubay

[hibernicus]

Florence Stoker (nee Balcombe) was never Wilde's fiancee but he did court her and she chose Bram Stoker over him. (This may not have been such a lucky escape as it seems; some of Stoker's later collateral descendants claimed that he contracted syphilis and the effects influenced his horror writing, though this is not and probably can't be proven.)

[hibernicus]

I recently saw a film about the late Victorian/Edwardian illustrator Louis Wain, well known for his humorous portrayal of cats. He suffered from mental problems, and had to support his mother and five unmarried sisters - it's a very sad story. (Those who see it should note that the film is quite consciously stylised; don't expect either an "everything in the garden is rosy" or a naturalistic treatment.) This includes some verbal anachronisms (I don't think the term "schizophrenia" was used in late Victorian Britain) as well as colour-blind casting (to a limited extent - the inclusion of black and Asian people in street scenes is quite plausible given that London was a big cosmopolitan city with worldwide commercial and imperial links, and there were Asian professionals in Britain at the time) but I wonder if some examples of this casting may give the impression that Britain and America were more racially enlightened at that time than was in fact the case.
The film begins with the funeral procession of Wain's father, which is led by a grim-looking cleric wearing black vestments and a biretta. I thought at first on seeing this that the Wain family were high-church Anglicans, but it transpires that they were in fact Catholics; their religion is mentioned several times but not explored. (Given that Wain was obsessed with electricity, which he expected would cause cats to turn blue and learn how to talk, it seems unlikely though mot impossible that he was particularly religious. He's buried in a Catholic graveyard according to Wikipedia.)

[Beinidict Ó Niaidh]

This is a story which surprised me: Löb Family

[hibernicus]

Volume 2 of Peter Seewald's biography of Benedict XVI says that Fidel Castro requested and received the Last Sacraments before his death.

[maolsheachlann]

I wrote this review of "The Life of Gregory Zilboorg" by Caroline Zilboorg.

Gregory Zilboorg was a Russian Jew who served in Kerensky's government and fled Russia when the Bolsheviks came to power. He became a psychoanalyst and wrote about the compatibility of psychoanalysis and science. He was a friend of the future Paul VI and converted in 1954, five years before his death.

irishpapist.blogspot.com/2022/07/book-review-life-of-gregory-zilboorg.html

[Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha]

There's a huge emphasis on converts from Anglicans, but I came across this remarkable story of a minister from the Kirk who became a Catholic: www.pillarcatholic.com/im-not-dying-im-going-home-the-catholic-convert-sharing-his-life-with-terminal-cancer/?ref=The+Pillar+Post-newsletter