Ever since the earliest Christian times, leading individuals from all backgrounds have converted to the Catholic Church. Since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, leading Protestants, Secularists, and Jews have become convinced of the truth of the claims of the Catholic Church to be that Church established by Jesus Christ. Many such Protestants over the years have abandoned their careers and prominence in Protestantism to convert to Catholicism. This is true now more than ever, and a large and growing body of convert literature attests to the strength of this movement. Each year, an estimated 200,000 converts are received into the Catholic Church.

From 1993-2001, 300 Protestant clergy contacted the Coming Home Network, a ministry for Protestant clergy and laity interested in becoming Catholic; two-thirds have already been received into the Church. The revival has not escaped the notice of Evangelical Protestant leaders; Larry Eskridge of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College comments: �I have been concerned about the growing exodus from evangelicalism of some of its brightest and best, for, variously, Canterbury, Rome, or Mt. Athos.� In 1998, more than 88,000 Protestants were received into the Catholic Church, and more than 73,000 adults were baptized, many of them from Protestant backgrounds (catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0252.html).

This is empirical evidence that Catholic historian Paul Johnson is right: �at the end of the twentieth century, religion [and specifically Catholic Christianity], far from disappearing, is alive and well and flourishing in the hearts of sophisticated men and women.� While it is certainly true that conversion is a two-way street and that many Catholics leave the Church for various denominations and sects, the quality conversions are almost all in one direction, i.e. out of the denominations and into Catholicism. In other words, while many poorly-informed, Biblically-illiterate, inactive, culturally Catholic people become Episcopalian or Evangelical based on preferences or without serious intellectual consideration, the converts to Catholicism are from among the sincerest, most active, best-informed, most Biblically-literate, and best-read Evangelicals, Episcopalians, etc. Put more simply still, it's easy to find numerous Catholics who were once high-level, well-respected Protestant leaders, but virtually impossible to find any Evangelicals or other Protestants who were once high-level, well-respected Catholics.

Notable Catholic Converts:

1. St. Paul.
2. Clement of Alexandria. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/04045a.htm.
3. St. Optatus. This fourth-century convert became Bishop of Milevis and is remembered for his writings against Donatism.
4. Justin Martyr. This Church Father was a convert from Paganism.
5. St. Cyprian of Carthage (c.200-c.258). Cyprian was drawn to Christianity through the influence of an aged priest, Caecilianus. He embrace celibacy while still a catechumen, and sold his property, including gardens. He was baptized into the Church c.246. He became a bishop shortly thereafter, c.248, and was martyred during the Decian persecution.
6. Count Joseph. This Jewish convert during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine built the first Christian church in Tiberius.
7. St. Hegesippus. This second-century convert became known as one of the early Church�s most important historians. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07194a.htm.
8. St. Augustine (354-430). The greatest early theologian of the Christian West, Augustine converted to Catholicism from Manichaenism in 386 at age 32. For most of his Catholic life, he served as Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. His Confessions and City of God are probably the best read of all works of patristic literature. His theological works include On the Trinity, On Free Will, and apologetic works against Donatism. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02084a.htm.
9. St. Dichu. This son of an Ulster chieftain, was St. Patrick�s first Irish convert. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/04778b.htm.
10. Aeneas of Gaza. This fifth-century convert was a Neo-Platonic philosopher. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01172c.htm.
11. St. Anastasius (d.528). This former magician converted to Catholicism, became a monk in Jerusalem, and was martyred in 628 along with seventy others outside of Cжsarea, where he had denounced Persian magic and fire-worship. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01455c.htm.
12. Nicholas of Lyra (d.1340). This convert from Judaism produced Postilla Perpetua, a discussion of canonical and uncanonical books, the senses of scripture, and rules for rightly interpreting scripture.
13. Gabriel Glaп (Barclaпus). This fifteenth-century Monothelite was converted to Catholicism by the Flemish Franciscan, Gryphone. Through Gryphone�s efforts he was consecrated the Maronite Catholic Bishop of Lefkosia in Cyprus. Barclaпus was the first Maronite scholar to attempt to demonstrate the unswerving orthodox of the Maronite nation.
14. Papantzin. In 1525, this Aztec princess became one of the first Aztec converts to Catholicism. Her conversion precipitated a wave of conversion, which included St. Juan Diego, to whom the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared in 1531.
15. Veit Amerbach (1503-1557). This Lutheran humanist became a professor philosophy, law, Oriental languages, and Lutheran theology at Wittenberg, where he had frequent discourse with Luther, Melancthon, and other early Protestant leaders. He left Wittenberg in 1543, and was received into the Catholic Church at age 40, along with his wife and children. Thereafter, he taught rhetoric at Eichstдtt and philosophy at Ingolstadt. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01409b.htm.
16. Kasper Franck (1543-1584). Raised a Lutheran, he entered the Lutheran ministry with an intense desire for the conversion of his country. Count Ladislaus of Haag invited him to assist in the introduction of the reformed faith to his province. However, Ladislaus died unexpectedly and is successor, Duke Albert, determined to restore Catholicism. Through this turn of events, Franck met and entered into discussion with a famous convert and preacher, Martin Eisengrein. Franck began a study of the Church Fathers at the University of Ingolstadt and converted to Catholicism in 1568 at age 25. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and became a notable theologian. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/06234a.htm.
17. Fr. Kaspar Ulenberg (1549-1617). This theologian and Bible translator was raised a Lutheran. His faith in Lutheranism was shaken by reading Luther�s works and by following the disputes between Lutheran and Calvinist theologians. He converted to Catholicism in 1572 at age 23. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1575. As a parish priest, he is credited with many conversions. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15120b.htm.
18. Henry IV (1553-1610). It is often stated that Henry IV converted to Catholicism out of mere political expediency in order to become King of France. In this context, the epigram is often cited, �Paris is well worth a Mass.� However, Henry IV did take great interest in the theological controversies between Catholics and Protestants and it may at least be said that he thought it necessary to find theological justification for his conversion. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07225a.htm.
19. Ven. Ralph Milner (16^th century). Raised an Anglican, Milner converted to Catholicism and was imprisoned and ultimately hanged as a result of his unwillingness to renounce the Catholic faith. Just before his death, he wished his children �no greater happiness than to die for a like cause.�
20. St. Philip Howard (d.1589). Howard was a favorite of the English Queen, and later became one of the Forty Martyrs, whose feast is celebrated October 25th. Before his execution, Howard was imprisoned in the Tower of London for just over ten years. In 1581, he attended a disputation between some Protestant theologians and Edmund Campion and became convinced that he needed to change his frivolous lifestyle and convert to the Catholic faith. He attempted to flee to another country to escape persecution, but was betrayed and arrested shortly after his ship had set sail from Littlehampton.
21. Valens Acidalius (1567-1595). Acidalius, a German philologist, medical doctor, and Latin poet, converted to Catholicism in 1595 at age 28 just a few weeks before his death. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01104c.htm.
22. Henri Spondanus (1568-1643). This Calvinist became convinced of the truth of Catholicism through reading Bellarmine. He was received into the Church in 1595 at age 27 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1606. In 1625, he was consecrated Bishop of Pamiers, in which capacity he converted many Protestants. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/14235a.htm.
23. Justus Baronius Calvinus (c.1570-c.1606). Raised a Calvinist, his studies of the Church Fathers led him to embrace Catholicism. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1601 at age 31 and is known for his apologetic works, including Apologia (1601) and Praescriptionum adversus haereticos (1602).
24. Guy Fawkes (1570-1606). His father worked in the ecclesiastical courts of the Archbishop of York and he became a Roman Catholic his widowed mother married a Catholic man. At age 21, Fawkes, infuriated by the persecution of Catholics in England, sold his inheritance and joined the Spanish army for about twelve years in the war in the Netherlands. In 1603, he went to Spain to discuss treatment of English Catholics with the Spanish King Philip II and while in Spain tried to win over Spanish assistance for an invasion of England. He returned to London in 1604 and allegedly organized the �Gunpowder Plot� to destroy the Houses of Parliament
25. Joost van den Vindel (1587-1679). This Dutch poet was a deacon with the Waterlander Mennonites before converting to Catholicism c.1640. His daughter Anna had been received into the Church ahead of him, and his nephew, Peter Vondel, followed him in 1643. His most famous poem is �Lucifer� (1664), which went through four editions in one year and was placed under interdict by Protestant preachers. Other works include �Samson� and �The Glory of the Church� (De Heerlijkheit der Kerche). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15507b.htm.
26. Barthold Nihus (1590-1657). Nihus was raised in a poor north German Protestant family. He studied philosophy, medicine, and theology at the University of Helmstedt and the University of Jena. The inability of Protestant theologians to come to agreement on central matters of the Christian faith led to doubt and ultimately reject Protestantism. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1622 at age 32. Shortly thereafter, he was ordained priest in the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross. In a letter to Helmstedt professors Calixtus and Hornejus, Bihus explained his chief reasons for concersion: the Church needs a living, supreme judge to explain the Bible and to settle disputes and difficulties. The letter initiated a notable controversy between Nihus and the Helmstedt professors. In 1655, he was appointed suffragan bishop of Saxony and Thuringia. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/11076a.htm.
27. Moritz Gudenus (1596-1680). Raised a Calvinist, Gudenus became a Reformed minister. He lost his job in Marburg for refusing to profess the Augsburg Confession when the new ruler changed the state religion from Calvinism to Lutheranism. Bellarmine�s writings proved pivotal in his conversion; he was received into the Church in 1630 at age 34 along with the rest of his family. His conversion came at a significant financial and social cost. He had five sons. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07056a.htm.
28. King Charles II (1630-85, r.1660-85). This Stuart King of England was a deathbed convert in 1685.
29. King James II (1633-1701, r.1685-88). This Stuart King of England imprudently converted before acceding to the throne. The Anglican opposition invited William of Orange to come across the English Channel and stage a revolution which overthrew James II in 1688.
30. Richard Cranshaw (1616-1650). Cranshaw was one of 55 Cambridge fellows ejected from the University when the Puritans beheaded King Charles I and forced their views on England. An Anglican, he left England for France and was received into the Catholic Church c.1645. Famous as a poet, preacher, and scholar of divinities, he wrote The Delights of the Muses, Hymn to the Adorable St. Teresa [of Avila], Epigrammata Sacra, and Sacred Poems. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/04467a.htm.
31. Lionel Albert Anderson (c.1620-1710). This Englishman converted to Catholicism while still in his teens and joined the Dominicans, in which he was ordained to the priesthood in 1665. He was later condemned to death for treason, i.e. being a Catholic priest in England. Kings Charles II and James II pardoned him, but he was forced to flee England after William III�s revolution in 1688. He returned to England in 1898, where he died 12 years later. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01466c.htm.
32. Reyer Anslo (1622-1669). Raised a Mennonite, this Dutch poet was received into the Church in 1651 at age 29. Pope Innocent X honored him with a gold medal for his accomplishments in poetry. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01551a.htm.
33. Johannes Scheffer (Silesius Angelus) (1624-1677). This son of a Lutheran Polish Nobleman was a doctor of philosophy and medicine. He was was received into the Catholic Church in 1653. In 1661, he was ordained a Catholic priest. From his monastery in Breslau, he achieved fame as a German poet. His two most important works were �The Soul's Spiritual Delight� (Heilige Seelenlust) and �The Cherubic Pilgrim� (Der Cherubinische Wandersmann), both published in 1657. In 1663, he began publishing 55 apologetic tracts against the doctrines of Protestant sects. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01488a.htm.
34. Christina of Sweden (1629-1689). Christina, the only daughter of the famous Swedish Lutheran general and king, Gustavus Adolphus (1611-32), became Queen in 1644 and was the major catalyst in ending the Thirty Years War in Westphalia in 1648. She invited specialists of various fields of knowledge, including Rene Descartes, to come to Stockholm; the result was called the �Court of Learning� and earned Stockholm the title, �Athens of the North.� In 1653, she abdicated and traveled through Europe in disguise to Rome. She entered the Church in 1654 at age 25. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/03722a.htm.
35. John Dryden (1631-1700). This English convert is best known as an English poet-laureate. He studied at Cambridge and wrote the �Heroic Stanzas� on the death of Oliver Cromwell (1658), which was his first important work. In 1670, he was made poet laureate and royal historiographer. His masterpiece is the play, �All for Love� (1678) about Anthony and Cleopatra. His poem, �Absalom and Achitophel,� made him famous as a satirical poet. His �Religio Laici� (1682) presented arguments for the Anglican Church; it was the first step in his theological investigations, which led ultimately to his conversion to Catholicism in 1686. His 1687 poem, �The Hind and the Panther,� is often considered his most important work; it is an allegory of the various sects in England (the beasts), the Catholic Church (the Hind), and the Anglican Church (the Panther). He lost his laureateship following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, since he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new government.
36. Jan Vermeer (1632-1675). This famous artist was raised in the Reformed Church and converted c.1653. Considered today to be one of the Dutch master painters, his work was largely unknown from the time of his death until the late 19th century. He and his wife Catherina had 14 children.
37. Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick (1633-1714). Ulrich, a Lutheran, inherited the throne of Brunswick in 1704. Well-educated, he was considered the most scholarly prince of his time. His works include drama, hymns, and patristic studies. He was received into the Church secretly in 1710 at age 77 after long study. His most notable apologetic works was Fifty Motives for preferring the Catholic religion to all others. Two of his daughters, Henrietta and Augusta Dorothea, followed their father into the Catholic Church. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01583c.htm.
38. Nicolaus Steno (Niels Steensen) (1638-1686). This Danish geologist and anatomist converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism in 1667 at age 29. He is known for his discoveries in human anatomy, particularly with relation to the parotid gland, lachrymal glands, and ovaries. He later became a Catholic priest and bishop of Mьnster and of the Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Germany. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/14286a.htm.
39. Joshua Bassett (c.1641-1720). A graduate and later professor of Cambridge. He 1687, he converted to Catholicism at age 26. Before long, the Catholic monarch, James II (r.1685-88), was deposed and he fled Cambridge in haste. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02344a.htm.
40. Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680). The daughter of a Mohawk warrior, Tekakeitha, or �Lily of the Mohawks� is now, Patroness of ecology and the environment in the Catholic Church (together with St. Francis Assisi). She converted as a teenager and was baptized in 1676 (age 20), which brought upon her the hostility of her tribe. She left for a Christian colony of Indians in Canada where she devoted her life entirely to prayer, penitence, and care for the sick and aged. The shrines she erected at St. Francis Xavier, Caughnawage, and Auriesville, New York, have been visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and continue to attract pilgrims.
41. Fr. John Thayer (1755-1815). Thayer was the first native of New England to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Raised a Puritan and educated at Yale, he became a Congregationalist minister and served as a chaplain during the Revolutionary War. After the war, Thayer traveled through Europe and endeavored to disprove the alleged miracles accomplished through the intercession of the beggar-saint, St. Benedict Joseph Labre. His debunking attempt rather convinced him of the veracity of the miracles and the truth of the Catholic faith. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1783 at age 28. His account of his conversion, published in 1787 caused great controversy. In 1789, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and undertook the conversion of his fellow Americans. He served as a missionary in Kentucky for four years and lived out the last years of his life as a priest in Limerick, Ireland.
42. Daniel Barber (1756-1834). Raised by strict Congregationalist Puritans, Barber became a soldier of the American Revolutionary War and converted to Anglicanism 1783 at age 27. In 1786, he was ordained a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. After 30 years of faithful Episcopalian ministry, he happened on a Catholic book which explained the faulty nature of Anglican orders. None of his Episcopalian colleagues could answer the objections and his wife; son, Virgil Horace Barber (1782-1847); sister; and nieces all converted to Catholicism. In 1818, he resigned his office in the Episcopal Church and entered the Catholic Church. After his wife�s death in 1824, he lived out the rest of his life at a Jesuit House in Maryland. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02286b.htm.
43. Samuel Wesley (1766-1837). The son of Charles Wesley, co-founder of Methodism, converted to Catholicism at age 18. He became famous in his own right as one of England�s greatest organists.
44. Fr. Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner (1768-1823). In 1907, after a dissipated early life and three failed marriages, this Prussian poet and orator began a religious quest which ended in his reception into the Catholic Church in 1810. In 1814, he was ordained to the priesthood. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15589b.htm.
45. (Karl Wilhelm) Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829). This German Romantic philosopher and statesman is known for his work Philosophy of History (1829), which influenced many High Church and Broad Church Anglicans, most notably, Manning.
46. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821). Raised an Anglican, Seton converted to Catholicism after her husband�s death in 1803. She was received into the Catholic Church in 1805 at age 31. Seton established a religious order, the American Sisters of Charity. She was beatified in 1963 and canonized in 1975. Her story is recorded in the movie, �A Time for Miracles,� and in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts. See also www.newadvent.org/cathen/13739a.htm.
47. Friedrich August von Klinkowstrцm (1778-1835). This artist, author, and teacher fought against Napoleon in the Prussian army. Long interested in Catholicism through painting, he returned from battle c.1812 to find that his wife, Louise, had converted ahead of him. Two of his sons, Joseph von Klinkowstrцm (1813-1876) and Max von Klinkowstrцm (1819-1896), joined the Jesuits and his daughter joined the Salesians. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/08667b.htm.
48. Adam Heinrich Mьller (1779-1829). This publicist and political economist converted to Catholicism in 1805 at age 26. His writings extolled medieval feudalism, and called for the remodeling of modern political institutions on the basis thereof. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/10626d.htm.
49. Fr. Virgil Horace Barber SJ (1782-1847). Barber, son of the convert, Daniel Barber (1756-1834), was an Episcopalian minister in charge of an academy in New York. He converted to Catholicism in 1817 at age 35 together with his wife, Jerusha (1789-1860), and their five children. Less than a year later, the couple decided to enter religious life: Virgil as a Jesuit and Jerusha in the Visitation Order. Virgil took his son Samuel with him into the Jesuits; Jerusha took their three eldest girls with her into the Visitation Order; and the youngest was entrusted to the mother of their friend, Fr. Fenwick. In 1820, Barber took final vows and in 1822, was ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Thereafter, he worked in New Hampshire, on the Indian missions in Maine, and as a teacher at Georgetown College, where educated the Catholic missionary-priest, James Fitton (1805-1881). His four daughters, Mary (1810-1844), Abigail (1811-1879), Susan (1813-1837), and Josephine (b.1816) all entered Ursuline convents, and his son, Samuel (1814-1864), joined the Jesuits in 1831 at age 17. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02286b.htm.
50. Friedrich Emmanuel Von Hurter (1787-1865). Von Hurter, a German, worked as a minister in a country parish and as a historian. He labored for twenty years on a biography of Pope Innocent III (4 vols, 1834-42). Persecuted by those who resented his friendship with Catholic clergy, he resigned his offices in 1841 and was received into the Catholic Church by Pope Gregory XVI in 1844 at age 47. He also wrote an autobiography and a biography of Emperor Ferdinand II. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07583c.htm.
51. Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (1789-1860). This astonomer and naturalist discovered a new comet in 1819. He earned a medical degree from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He converted to Catholicism c.1824. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/06145a.htm.
52. Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869). Famous for his religious paintings, Overbeck is considered the founder of the �Nazarites� school and credited with restoring the classical tradition of Catholic art which had been disrupted both by the Protestant Reformation and Humanistic mythologizing. He was converted to Catholicism through his art and artistic studies. His most famous painting is �The Triumph of Religion in the Arts,� now at the Stдdel Gallery in Frankfort. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/11362a.htm.
53. John Milton Harney (1789-1825). Trained as a doctor, Harney worked in the navy in South America and converted to Catholicism after returning to the USA. He joined the Dominicans and helped in starting their Kentucky mission. His younger brother, William Selby Harney (1800-1889), also converted to Catholicism. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07140a.htm.
54. Jerusha Barber (1789-1860). Barber converted to Catholicism in 1817 at age 28 together with her husband, Virgil Horace Barber (1782-1847). Less than a year later, the couple decided to enter religious life: Virgil as a Jesuit and Jerusha in the Visitation Order. Virgil took his son Samuel with him into the Jesuits; Jerusha took their three eldest girls with her into the Visitation Order; and the youngest was entrusted to the mother of their friend, Fr. Fenwick. She took final vows in 1820 and took the name Sister Mary Augustine. Despite the difficulties of adapting to religious life and caring for her children within the community, she persevered and served her order in the convents of Georgetown, Kaskaskia, St. Louis, and Mobile. Her four daughters, Mary (1810-1844), Abigail (1811-1879), Susan (1813-1837), and Josephine (b.1816) all entered Ursuline convents, and her son, Samuel (1814-1864), joined the Jesuits in 1831 at age 17. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02286b.htm.
55. David Paul Drach (1791-1868). Drach received the education of a Hebraic and Talmudic scholar, and became an instructor at age 16. He later recorded, �Stirred by the edifying examples of Catholic piety continually set before me to the furtherance of my own salvation, the tendency towards Christianity, born in earlier life, acquired such strength that I resisted no longer.� In 1823, he renounced Judaism and was baptized into the Catholic faith at age 32. In 1827, Drach was appointed librarian of Propaganda and served in this capacity for the rest of his life. Drach�s conversion from Judaism was heralded as one of the most significant conversions in France furing the 19^th century and led a number of Jews to follow his example, including Ven. (Jacob) Francis Mary Paul Libermann (1804-1852) and his three brothers. Drach�s son, Paul Augustin Drach (1817-1895) became a priest in 1846 and wrote a major French Bible commentary in 1869.Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/05152a.htm.
56. Mar Matthew Gregory Nakkar (1795-1868). Nakkar was a leader in the Syrian Jacobite Church known for zealous persecution of the Syrian Rite Catholic jurisdiction, to which nearly all the Jacobites in Damascus converted during the 1820s. Nakkar denounced them to the Turkish magistrate for breaking the Sultan�s ban on religious conversion. In his memoirs, he wrote, �My hatred for Catholics, inherited from my ancestors, increased every day; I preached against them relentlessly and formally taught what they regarded as heresy...I did all in my power to hamper their clergy in their ministry.� In 1832, he journeyed to Jerusalem for Holy Week; there he began to have doubts about the Jacobite Church when he became aware of the fraudulent �miracle of holy fire� which it claimed as a sign of God�s favor. A short time later, he went to Aleppo, in order to have the Catholics expelled. Forced to wait until the end of the Islamic month of fasting, he sought shelter at an inn and mistakenly found himself at the monastery of the French Lazarist Fathers. During this time, discussion with the Father Superior, reading in the library, and prayer prompted him to recant the Monophysite heresy in November 1832 at age 37. After being received as a Syrian Rite Catholic, he boldly went to Mardin, the chief remaining Jacobite center of influence. Within two months, Mar Matthew had persuaded 54 Jacobites to abjure Monophysitism and join the Catholic Church. The Jacobite patriarch appealed to the Turks, who imprisoned Mar Matthew. The Patriarch tortured him for two weeks to make him apostatize. Left to die after a brutal torture session, he was rescued by Kurds and restored to health. In Mosul, he converted his successor and a thousand laypeople. For 35 years he continued thus, resulting in tens of thousands of converts. For more information, see www.redemptorists.org.uk/mag/syrian4.htm.
57. Kenelm Digby (1796-1880). This Anglican of Trinity College, Cambridge, converted along with his fellows, George Spencer and Ambrose Phillips, in the years from 1825-30. He wrote Broad Stone of Honor (1822) and Mores Catholici, a monumental 11-volume work.
58. Dr. Levi Silliman Ives (1797-1867). Ives was the Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina for the Protestant Episcopal Church when he converted to Catholicism in 1852. In his own words, he �abandoned a position in which he had acted as a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church for more than thirty years, and as a bishop of the same for more than twenty, and sought late in life admission as a layman into the Holy Catholic Church, with no prospect before him, but simply peace of conscience and the salvation of his soul.� His wife, the daughter of a Protestant bishop, Hobart, also converted. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/08256c.htm.
59. Luise Hensel (1798-1876). This German poetess was the daughter of a Lutheran parson, Johann Hensel. When she confirmed in 1813 at age 15, she explained to God, �that by this act I only embrace Christianity in general and renew the covenant of my baptism, but that I in no way agree to bind myself to any creed concerning which I am not convinced as to whether or not it is the Church established by Christ.� Hensel was received into the Church in 1818 at age 20. She spent much of her life working as an educator in various places, including the seminaries at Neuburg (1840-41) and Cologne (1841-50). She later joined the convent of the Society of the Daughters of Christian Love at Paderborn. In her poetry, she compares herself to an ugly vase into which beautiful flowers have been put, signifying grace perfecting nature. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07240b.htm.
60. Henry James Anderson (1799-1875). This scientist and educator graduated from Columbia College and earned a medical degree. At age 26, he was appointed professor of mathematics and astronomy at Columbia, a chair he held for twenty-five years. He was received into the Church in 1849 at age 50 while overseas. Thereafter, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and became the first president of its Particular Council of New York in 1856 and the first head of its Supreme Council in 1860. For this distinguished service, Pope Pius IX received him in Rome on several occasions and dubbed him Knight Commander of the order of St. Gregory the Great. In 1875 he made a pilgrimage to Lourdes and Rome, whence he traveled on to Australia for an astronomical viewing. He returned home via India, where he climbed a Himalayan Peak, then took ill, and died in Lahore. Cardinal McCloskey remarked at his funeral, �I remember to have heard from the lips of a distinguished Oxford scholar that he had never met a man of greater learning tempered with such humility.� Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01466b.htm.
61. James Monroe (1799-1870). Monroe was nephew of the US President of the same name and elder brother of the convert, Andrew F. Monroe (1824-1872). Monroe served as an officer in the army from 1815-32. He was elected to congress from 1839-41 and to the New York legislature from 1850-52. See also www.newadvent.org/cathen/10508b.htm.
62. George Spencer (1799-1864). This Anglican clergyman of Trinity College, Cambridge, converted along with his fellows, George Spencer and Ambrose Phillips, in the years from 1825-30. He resigned his parish and his livelihood, saying, �There goes three thousand pounds.� Spencer trained for the Catholic priesthood in Rome, and became head of the English Passionists.
63. Mrs. Sarah Peter (1800-1877). Peter was the daughter of a US Senator and Governor of Ohio, Thomas Worthington. She was received into the Church in 1855 at age 55. Remembered as a philanthropist, she brought Irish and German sisters to Ohio to care for the poor Irish and German immigrants. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/11755a.htm. During the American Civil War, she volunteered as a nurse with the sisters who followed Grant�s army.
64. William Selby Harney (1800-1889). This convert was a U.S. Army officer who served during the Black Hawk and Florida Indian Wars and the Mexican War. He was a good friend and admirer of Father J.B. DeSmet, a famous Jesuit missionary. His elder brother, John Milton Harney (1789-1825), also converted to Catholicism. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07140a.htm.
65. Edward Bellasis (1800-1873). Ellasis, Serjeant-at-Law, converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in the late period of the Tractarian Movement. His lifelong friends, Edward Badeley and J. R. Hope Scott, also Anglicans in the legal profession, converted at about the same time. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02413a.htm.
66. Blessed Everald Hanse (d.1581). Educated at Cambridge, he was persuaded by his brother William to convert to Catholicism. He followed his brother into the Catholic priesthood and was ordained in France c.1581. He was martyred a few months later in England for treason, i.e. believing in the Pope�s supreme authority in matters of Christian faith and morals. Hanse�s last words were �O happy day!� The Spanish ambassador to England recorded, �Two nights after his death, there was not a particle of earth on which his blood had been shed, which had not been carried off as a relic.� Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07130a.htm.
67. Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Perhaps the most famous and influential of all modern converts, Newman was famous as an Anglican clergyman at Oxford. In 1833 he became the leader of the Oxford Movement, a renewal movement in Anglicanism which published its views in numerous tracts. His studies of the Church Fathers and early Church history led him to the Catholic Church (1845). His conversion scandalized England and he wrote his Apologia pro vita sua to defend himself against charges of being secretly a Jesuit all along. His story is also included in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/10794a.htm.
68. Robert Isaac Wilberforce (1802-1857). The second son of the famous Evangelical abolitionist, William Wilberforce, Robert Wilberforce became a student at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1820. He graduated with a double first and became a colleague of such Tractarian leaders as Newman, Pusey, Keble, and Froude. In 1826, he received Anglican ordination and he was received into the Catholic Church in 1854. His younger brother, Henry William Wilberforce, had already converted to Catholicism in 1850. Widowed twice, he entered the Catholic seminary in Rome in 1846. However, he died within a year before receiving ordaination. Together with his older brother, Samuel, Anglican Bishop of Oxford, he wrote a biography of their father, Life of William Wilberforce (1838).
69. Orestes H. Brownson (1803-1876). Brownson was a journalist whose religious journey included a Presbyterian period, a Universalist period, a utopian socialist period, and a Transcendentalist period. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1844. Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts, in Allitt�s Catholic Converts, and in his own The Convert (1857) and Selected Writings. See also www.newadvent.org/cathen/03001a.htm.
70. Wilhelm Volk (1804-1869). Raised a Lutheran and educated as a lawyer, he converted to Catholicism in 1855 at age 51. Under the pseudonym, Ludwig Clarus, he wrote a number of works on mysticism, legend, and religious and political controversies of the day. Other works include a spiritual autobiography, �Simeon, Wanderungen und Heimkehr eines christlichen Forschers� (3 vols., 1862-3), and biographies of St. Brigitta (1856), St. Francis de Sales (1860), and St. Matilda (1867). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15501c.htm.
71. Ven. (Jacob) Francis Mary Paul Libermann (1804-1852). Libermann was the third youngest of seven children of a Jewish rabbi, Lazarus Libermann. Under the influence of David Paul Drach (1791-1868), three of his brothers converted to Catholicism and Libermann was moved by their happiness and peace of soul. Libermann was baptized into the Catholic faith in 1826 at age 23. He entered seminary in 1827 and was ordained in 1841. His greatest accomplishment was founding the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the evangelization of the freed Black slaves of the Caribbean. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/09223a.htm.
72. Ida Hahn-Hahn (1805-1880). This German countess and author was received into the Church in 1850 after a conversion experience in which he opened the Bible at random to Isaiah 60:1 (�Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee�). She spent the last thirty years of her life in writing and in acts of piety. Her volumes of poetry include Gedichte (1835) and Neuere Gedichte (1836) and her novels include Grдfin Faustine (1840) and Sigismund Forster (1847). She also wrote travel books and devotional works. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07109a.htm.
73. Commander James Harman Ward, U.S.N. (1806-). Ward was one of the first Union naval officers to fall in the American Civil War. He is remembered for his books on naval science. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15551a.htm.
74. Henry William Wilberforce (1807-1873). The third son of the famous Evangelical abolitionist, William Wilberforce, Henry William Wilberforce became a pupil of John Henry Newman at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1834, he received Anglican ordination and he was received into the Catholic Church in 1850 together with his wife. From 1854-63, he worked as editor of the �Catholic Standard,� a periodical later renamed the �Weekly Register.� His written works include �Reasons for Submitting to the Catholic Church� (1851), �Proselytism in Ireland� (1852), �Essay on Some Events preparatory to the English Reformation� (1867), and �The Church and the Empires� (1874). He and his wife had five sons and four daughters. His older brother, Robert Wilberforce, converted to Catholicism in 1854. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15620b.htm.
75. Cardinal Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892). Manning studied at Oxford, where he was a friend of William Gladstone, before being ordained into the Anglican priesthood. He allied himself with the Oxford Movement and defended High Church positions. In 1840, he was appointed Archdeacon of Chichester and in 1842 published Unity of the Church (1842). In 1845, he preached a critical sermon regarding Newman�s conversion to Catholicism, but converted himself six years later. In 1851, he resigned from the Anglican Church in protest of the English government�s Erastian interference in Anglican affairs, conspicuous in the Gorham case, in which the government installed a heretic as a parish priest against the ruling of the bishop. In 1851 Manning was received into the Catholic Church. The immediate cause of his conversion was the Gorham Judgement of 1850, in which the state (Judicial Committee of the Privy Council) usurped the authority of the Church to declare in favor of Gorham�s theological position on Baptismal Regeneration; even before this, however, he had concluded that the Anglican appeal to the teaching of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers was merely the Protestant principle of private judgement in a modified form, which �invoked the dead letter which kills the Spirit, instead of looking to the Spirit in the living Church.� In 1865, Manning was appointed Archbishop of Westminster, which office he held until his death. In 1875, he was made a cardinal. At the Vatican I Council, he was the preeminent advocate of the definition of papal infallibility. He is remembered especially for his leadership on the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes and for his successful intervention in the dock strike of 1889. See also <Cathen>.
76. Bishop Josue Moody (Maria) Young (1808-1866). Raised in a New England Puritan Congregationalist family, he converted to Catholicism in 1828 at age 20. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1838 and consecrated the second Bishop of Erie in 1854. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/05518b.htm.
77. James Burns (1808-1871). Burns, the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, converted to Catholicism in 1847 at age 39. He became known as a publisher and author and contributed to the revival of the Catholic Church in 19^th century Great Britain. His conversion cost him his business, but he set up a new Catholic publishing company, Burns & Oates, which was nearly as successful. Burns� widow, also a convert, was a member of an Ursuline convent until her death in 1873. All five of his daughters entered religious life: four joined the Ursuline Order and the fifth the Sisters of Charity. His only son was ordained a Catholic priest. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/03084a.htm.
78. Juan Donoso Cortes (1809-1853). This Spanish author and diplomat was a follower of Rousseau and the Enlightenment for many years. During the 1830s, he converted to Catholicism and social conservatism. In 1851 he published his Essay on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism considered in their Fundamental Principles, in which he denounced rationalism and liberalism as causes of social ruin. He died in Paris, where he was serving as the Spanish Ambassador. He stated, �Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight and if the world is going from bas to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers.� Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/05132b.htm.
79. Ambrose Phillips de Lisle (1809-1878). This Anglican of Trinity college, Cambridge, converted along with his fellows, Kenelm Digby and George Spencer, in the years from 1825-30. Philips favored a plan of complete reunion of the Anglicans with the Catholic Church. In 1857, he founded the Association for the promotion of the Unity of Christendom. He also donated land for the first Trappist monastery in England since the Reformation. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/04698c.htm.
80. Cornelia Connelly (1809-1879). Connelly married an Episcopal minister, with whom she had three children. She converted to Catholicism in 1835 at age 26 together with her husband. He decided to become a Catholic priest and persuaded her to release him from his marriage vows so he could enter the Catholic priesthood. Although he relapsed to Anglicanism, she persevered in the faith. She had to suffer through a well-publicized court proceeding, Connelly v. Connelly, in which her apostate husband tried to regain the children he had abandoned several years earlier. Later, she founded the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, an educational order for English Catholic girls. The order was officially approved in 1887 by Pope Leo XXII.
81. Bl. Laurence Humphreys (1571-1591). This English lawyer, well read in the Bible and in religious works, converted to Catholicism at a young man of about 18 years. He was martyred in 1591 at age 20. Pope Pius XI beatified Humphreys in 1929. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07545a.htm.
82. Erasmus Darwin Keyes (1810-1895). This US army officer converted to Catholicism in 1866 at age 56. He authored Fifty Years' Observation of Men and Events (1884). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/08631a.htm.
83. J.R. [James Robert] Hope Scott (1812-1873). Scott was a distinguished advocate and Parliamentary barrister in England. Like his friend, Henry Manning, he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in the late period of the Tractarian Movement. He was received into the Catholic Church together with Manning in 1851. Scott married Sir Walter Scott�s granddaughter. His lifelong friends, Edward Badeley and Edward Bellasis, also Anglicans in the legal profession, converted at about the same time. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07467a.htm.
84. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852). Hailed as Great Britain's foremost architect and designer of the 19^th century, he is also remembered for his passion for Gothic and the Roman Catholic Church, into which he was received in 1835 at the age of 22. In 1843, he wrote an �Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England.� A generous man, he purchased two small houses where he financed care of sick seamen by nurses. He was a good friend of another convert, Ambrose Phillips. He remarked, �the [Anglican] service I had become accustomed to attend and admire was but a cold and heartless remnant of past glories, and that those prayers which in my ignorance I had ascribed to reforming piety, were in reality only scraps plucked from the solemn and perfect offices of the ancient Church. Pursuing my researches among the faithful pages of the old chronicles I discovered the tyranny, apostasy, and bloodshed by which the new religion had been established, the endless strifes, dissentions, and discords that existed among its propagators, and the devastation and ruin that attended its progress: opposed to all this, I considered the Catholic Church,; existing with uninterrupted apostolic succession, handing down the same faith, sacraments, and ceremonies, unaltered through every clime, language, and nation� (Allitt 46).
85. Benjamin F. Sands (1812-1883). Sands, a rear-admiral in the United States Navy, converted to Catholicism in 1850 at age 38. He served as a member of the Catholic Indian Bureau for many years and his daughter, Rosa, became a Visitation nun.
86. Frederick Lucas (1812-1855). Lucas was raised a Quaker and later became a lawyer, a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, and a journalist. For a time an adherent of the Oxford Movement. His close friend, Thomas Chisholm Anstey, a recent convert, persuaded him to make a serious examination of Catholicism. In 1840, Lucas was received into the Church at age 28. Milner�s End of Controversy was a decisive influence. His wife and two of his brothers followed him into the Catholic Church. He started a Catholic periodical, �The Tablet,� in 1840. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/09404b.htm.
87. W.G. [William George] Ward (1812-1882). This English writer was a prominent leaders in the Tractarian Movement who converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism and was received into the Catholic Church in September 1845, a month before Newman. In 1844, Ward published The Ideal of a Christian Church, which argued that the Anglican Church did not bear the notes of the true Church. Rather it failed to teach Nicene Orthodoxy, it failed to guard morality, it had no saints because it rejected the counsels of perfection, it ignored the supernatural, etc. In short, it was nothing more than a schismatic body which needed to seek reunion with the true Church from which it had severed itself. The Anglican hierarchy condemned Ward, took away his university degrees, and required that Anglican leaders be required to swear to holding the 39 Articles in the sense in which they were then taught at the university. After his conversion, he worked as a professor of moral philosophy and dogmatic theology. In 1858, published �On Nature and Grace � a Theological Treatise.� As a philosopher, he argued with Newman and Kleutgen that the mind reaches certainty of the existence of God by implicit reason, and that it was left to philosophers to elucidate this certainty through explicit reason. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15552c.htm.
88. Thomas William Allies (1813-1903). Allies received Anglican ordination in 1838 and became a scholar of repute. In his �Life�s Decision,� he records that on Sept 11, 1850, he decisively �chose to be an abject in God�s House rather than dwell in the tents of sinners.� His conversion cost him his livelihood, occupation, and prospects. He was chosen as Secretary to the Poor School Committee and appointed Lecturer on History to the Catholic University of Ireland c.1853. He played an important role in the founding of the Training College for Women at Liverpool. His written works include The See of St. Peter, the Rock of the Church, the Source of Jurisdiction and the Centre of Unity (1850); St. Peter, His Name and His Office (1852); The Formation of Christendom, 8 vols. (1861-95); and Allies� Apologia pro Vita Sua (1880). In 1885 Pope Leo XII made Allies a Knight Commander of St. Gregory, and in 1893 presented him a gold medal for merit. Allies was married and had three sons. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01323b.htm.
89. William Weathers (1814-1895). Weathers was born into a Welsh Protestant family but like J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), he converted as a child with his mother after his father�s death. Weathers was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1838 and served for many years in the Franciscan school, Baddesley. He also served as rector of the seminary of Hammersmith and as a representative of the English bishops in the discussions leading up to the Twentieth Ecumenical Council of Vatican I (1869-70). He also wrote An Enquiry into the Nature and Results of Electricity and Magnetism (1876).
90. William Jewett Tenney (1814-1883). Tennay graduated from Yale in 1832, became a lawyer, and worked as a journalist. He converted to the Catholicism and married the daughter of fellow convert, Orestes H. Brownson (1803-1876). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/14512a.htm.
91. James Roosevelt Bayley (1814-1877). Bayley received ordination in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1835. If 1841, he resigned as rector of St. Peter�s Church in New York City and was received into the Catholic Church in 1842. He then entered a Catholic seminary in Paris and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1844. He received episcopal consecration as the first bishop of the new Diocese of Newark in 1853. He participated in the Twentieth Ecumenical Council of Vatican I (1869-70) and in 1872, was appointed the eighth bishop of Baltimore. At his death, he was buried beside his aunt and fellow-convert, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02228a.htm.
92. Anne Hanson Dorsey (1815-1896). This novelist was received into the Catholic Church in 1840 at age 25. She received the Lжtare medal from the University of Notre Dame. Her works include The Student of Blenheim Forest, Flowers of Love of Memory, Guy, the Leper, and many others. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/05136a.htm.
93. Ellakim Parker Scammon (1816-1894). This US Army officer served in the Seminole War, the Mexican War, and the American Civil War. He was received into the Church in 1846 at age 31. He participated in the surveying of the Upper Lakes and taught mathematics at St. Mary's College, the Polytechnic College of Cincinnati, and Seton Hall College. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/13506c.htm.
94. Edgar P. Wadhams (1817-). Together with Clarence Walworth, Wadhams experimented for a time in Episcopalian monasticism. He converted to Catholicism and became the first Catholic bishop of the newly-established Diocese of Ogdensburg (1872).
95. William J. Hardee (1817-1873). This convert was a U.S. Army officer who served during the Florida Indian War, the Mexican War, and the American Civil War. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/07134a.htm.
96. Oscar Wilde (1817-1880). This libertine English homosexual playwright repented and converted to Catholicism in 1900 on his deathbed. His most famous works include The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
97. Bishop Robert Aston Coffin (1819-1885). Coffin graduated from Oxford with honors in 1840, and received Anglican ordination and was appointed a vicar at Oxford in 1843. Following John Henry Newman, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1845 at age 26. He followed Newman to Rome and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1847. In 1848, Coffin joined Newman�s Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England. In 1849, however, he joined the Redemptorist order, in which he became a zealous missionary. In 1882, he was consecrated the third Bishop of Southwark. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/04093c.htm.
98. Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888). Like Orestes Brownson, in some respects his mentor, Hecker converted from American Transcendentalism in 1844. In 1849, he was ordained a Catholic priest in the Redemptorist order. Preferring missionary work among American non-Catholics to pastoral work among German Catholic immigrants, he was expelled from the Redemptorists in 1857. In 1858, he obtained papal approval for an order of American missionary priests, the Paulists. His most famous works include Questions of the Soul (1855), Aspirations of Nature (1857), and the autobiographical The Diary. Hecker wrote, �all men, so far as their nature is nor perverted, are Catholics, and if they but knew their real wants they would have to do violence to themselves not to enter the Catholic Church� (Allitt 70). Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts and in Allitt�s Catholic Converts. See also www.newadvent.org/cathen/07186a.htm.
99. William Starke Rosecrans (1819-1898). This graduate of West Point later became a professor there until 1847. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1845 at age 26. He later served as an officer during the American Civil War, as U.S. Minister to Mexico (1869-81), as a congressman, and as registrar of the U.S. Treasury (1885-93). Rosecrans� younger brother, Sylvester Harden Rosecrans (1827-1878), was a fellow convert. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/13191c.htm.
100. Richard Simpson (1820-). Simpson was ordained to the Anglican priesthood in 1843. He studied at Oxford with John Henry Newman and followed Newman into the Catholic Church in 1846, despite the fact that he would be ineligible for the Catholic priesthood because he was married. Like Newman�s, his conversion embarrassed his High Church Anglican colleagues. Simpson was known for his criticism of Catholic bishops and cardinals.
101. Augustine F. Hewit (1820-). Hewit, an American Congregationalist, converted to Anglicanism under the influence of Francis Baker. In 1845, Hewit was ordained an Episcopalian priest. In 1846, however, he converted to Catholicism, and became a Catholic priest in 1847. He joined the newly-founded Paulist order in 1858 and defended the Ultramontane position in the period leading up to the definition of papal infallibility at the Ecumenical Council of Vatican I (1869-70).
102. James Longstreet (1821-1904). This U.S. army officer served in the Mexican War and in the American Civil War. He was received into the Church in 1877 at age 56. He served as the U.S. Minister to Turkey from 1880-81. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/09354a.htm.
103. Onno Klopp (1822-1903). This historian became convinced of the truth of Catholicism through his historical studies. He was received into the Church in 1873 at age 51. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/08668a.htm.
104. George Dering Wolff (1822-1894). Son of a prominent German Lutheran divine, Wolff converted to Catholicism in 1871 at age 49. In 1876, he co-founded the American Catholic Quarterly Review and contributed articles on apologetic theology. His wife, Sarah Hill, and brother, Christian Wolff, also converted to Catholicism. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15682a.htm.
105. Coventry Patmore (1823-1896). Patmore, an English Metaphysical poet, wrote The Angel in the House, and The Unknown Eros. He was received into the Catholic Church at the time of his second marriage.
106. John Gray Foster (1823-1874). This US army officer converted to Catholicism in 1861 at age 38 during Burnside�s North Carolina expedition in the American Civil War. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/06155b.htm.
107. Friedrich Bernard Christian Maassen (1823-1900). This professor of law converted to Catholicism shortly after his graduation in 1851. In 1873 he became a member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. From 1882-97, he was a member of the Supreme Court of the Austrian Empire. At first sympathetic to Dцllinger, he explicitly retracted all his statements in favor of the Old Catholics in 1882. He wrote zealous condemnations of the Prussian Kulturkampf and struggled to form a Catholic Conservative party in Styria. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/09479a.htm.
108. James Alphonsus McMaster (1820-1886). The son of a prominent Presbyterian minister, he converted to Catholicism in 1845 at age 25. He entered the Redemptorist novitiate in Belgium, but decided he lacked a calling to the religious life. McMaster became known as the editor of a periodical, �The Freeman's Journal.� Two of his three daughters entered the religious life. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/09506a.htm.
109. Francis Richard Wegg-Prosser (1824-1911). Wegg-Prosser was a member of Parliament from 1847 to 1852. His conversion to Catholicism in 1852 ruined his political career. He donated land and funds for the construction of a church and monastery for the English Benedictine Congregation. He married and had two sons and two daughters. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/15576a.htm.
110. Andrew F. Monroe (1824-1872). Monroe was nephew of the US President of the same name and younger brother of the convert, James Monroe (1799-1870). He served in the US navy during the Mexican War and converted to Catholicism in 1853 at age 29 during a naval expedition to China. In 1854, he joined the Jesuits and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1860. For many years he served on the faculty of St. Francis Xavier�s College in New York. See also www.newadvent.org/cathen/10508b.htm.
111. Eliza Allen Starr (1824-1901). This American convert wrote seven books on Catholic art and founded the art department at the University of St. Mary in South Bend, Indiana, for which she received the Notre Dame�s Laetare Medal, the first woman to win this honor. Raised a Protestant, her faith was shaken at the age of 22 when she heard the Unitarian preacher, Theodore Parker. She struggled through nine years of protracted religious crisis before finally entering the Catholic Church in 1854 with the guidance of her cousin, George Allen, who had already converted. For most of her Catholic life she was a third-order Dominican.
112. Thomas Scott Preston (1824-1891). Ordained an Episcopalian presbyter in 1847, this author and preacher was a determined adherent of the High Church party. Eventually rejecting as untenable the theory that the Anglican Church was a legitimate branch of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, he was received into the Church in 1849 at age 25. In 1850, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Later vicar-general, he wrote numerous works including Reason and Revelation (1868), Vicar of Christ (1878), The Protestant Reformation (1879), Protestantism and the Church (1882), Protestantism and the Bible (1888), and Christian Unity (1881). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/12402b.htm
113. Sylvester Harden Rosecrans (1827-1878). Rosecrans converted in 1845 at age 18 following the example of his elder brother, William Starke Rosecrans (1819-1898). The younger Roseceans was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1852 and became first Bishop of Columbus in 1868. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/13191c.htm.
114. Henry Nutcombe Oxenham (1829-1888). Oxenham was educated at Oxford and received Anglican orders c.1850. He converted to Catholicism and was received into the Catholic Church by fellow-convert, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892). His dream was to reunite the Anglicans with the Catholic Church. He was known to have opposed the definitions of the Twentieth Ecumenical Council of Vatican I (1869-70), but he never left the Church to join the Old Catholics as did his friend, the famous Prof. Dцllinger. He received last rites from his friend and fellow-convert, Fr. Lockhart. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/11365a.
115. Mary Agnes Tincker (1831-1907). This American novelist wrote under her initials M.A.T. She converted to Catholicism in 1855. Her best known works include Grapes and Thorns (1874) and The House of Yorke.
116. Thomas Andrew Becker (1832-1899). Raised by German Protestants, Becker converted to Catholicism as a young man. He was later ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1859 and later served as the first Bishop of the new Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware and the sixth Bishop of Savannah, Georgia. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02382a.htm.
117. Florence Marryat (1838-1899). This English novelist and actress wrote Love's Conflict, Too Good for Him, and Woman against Woman while living in India. She was interested in Spiritualism and wrote about it also. Her conversion to Catholicism was not well known during her life. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/09715a.htm.
118. Fr. Gerald Manley Hopkins, SJ (1844-1889). Born to High Church Anglican parents, even at an early age, he searched a religion which could speak with true authority. While a student at Oxford, he came under the influence of Newman, who received him into the church in 1866. In 1868, he entered the Jesuits. For a time he stopped writing entirely, but began again in 1875 with renewed zeal. His The Wreck of the Deutschland describes the sinking of the Deutschland, which had carried five nuns among its passengers. His poetry will �always be among the greatest poems of faith and doubt in the English language,� according to the critic Glen Everett. Read more: www.newadvent.org/cathen/16045b.htm.
119. Leon Bloy (1846-1917).
120. Francis Tiernan (1846-1920). This American novelist wrote under the pseudonym Christian Reid.
121. Basil Maturin (1847-1915). Known for his Catholic writings, Maturin was an Englishman who converted in 1897, was ordained to the Catholic priesthood, and made lecture tours of the USA in 1913 and 1915. He was killed aboard the infamous Lusitania.
122. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908). Harris was a kind of early anthropologist who collected the stories he had heard recounted by slaves during his children into the famous Uncle Remus Stories (1881-1905). He worked as a journalist in Atlanta.
123. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1851-1926). Lathrop�s father was the famous novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne. She converted together with her husband, George Lathrop, in 1891. After the death of their only child, her husband became an alcoholic and she separated from him in 1893. She went on to become a third-order Dominican and to found the Servants for the Relief of Incurable Cancer. Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
124. Martha Moore Avery (1851-). Raised a Unitarian in Maine, Avery became a Marxist after her husband�s death in 1890. Her daughter, whom she had sent to a Catholic boarding school, converted to Catholicism and later became a nun. Avery followed her daughter into the Catholic Church in 1903. Avery�s influence played a role in the conversion of David Goldstein, with whom she co-authored Socialism: The Nation of Fatherless Children (1903).
125. Vladimir Segeiovich Solovyov (1853-1900). A friend of Dostoevski and a teacher of Berdayev, Solovyov is considered by many to be the greatest philosopher and theologian produced by the Russian Orthodox Church. However, Solovyov converted to Catholicism after wide reading in the history of the early Church and the Russian thinker, Pyotr Chaadayev (1794-1856), who viewed the papacy as a visible symbol of unity, under which all Christians should unite (though himself, he remained in the Orthodox Church, for there was minimal Catholic presence in European Russia at the time). Solovyov�s Russia and the Universal Church outlines the historical evidence for early Eastern Christians� belief in the supremacy of Peter�s successor. Solovyov reasoned that in the absence of a clear breach between Rome and the Russian Church, the division was de facto only and it was possible to be both Russian Orthodox and in communion with the Holy See. Solovyov was received into the Catholic Church in 1896 by Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy, the first Russian Byzantine Catholic priest. Solovyov�s other notable works include The Meaning of Love, Lectures on Divine Humanity, The Crisis of Western Philosophy, Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge, The Justification of the Good, and Critique of Abstract Principles. Read more at www.stmichaelruscath.org/soloviev.htm.
126. Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909). This American novelist spent much of his youth in Rome and converted to Catholicism as a young man. His Mr. Isaacs (1882), Dr. Claudius (1883), and A Roman Singer (1884) brought him fame and literary success. In total, he wrote forty novels and one play and an important essay, �The Novel: What it is� (1904). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/16030a.htm.
127. Sir Bertram Windle (1858-1929). The son of an Anglican vicar in Ireland, Windle converted to Catholicism in 1883 at age 25, noting �most of my Romeward path was trodden amongst books I had read myself or at least on to the threshold of the Church before I ever spoke to a priest or even to any Catholic on the subject� (Allitt 168). He became a distinguished English scientist (embryology, morphology, myology, and teratology), dean of the medical faculty at Birmingham, and president of Queen�s College at Cork, Ireland. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1899 and was knighted for his service to England. Windle worked as a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto from 1919-29. His articles on Darwinism were particularly notable (Allitt 167-172).
128. Henri Bergson (1859-1941). Bergson achieved fame as a panentheist philosopher. Late in his life he converted to Catholicism. For more about his works, refer to homepages.which.net/~radical.faith/thought/bergson.htm.
129. Ellen Gates Starr (1859-1940). Niece to the convert, Eliza Ellen Starr, Ellen G. Starr won fame for cofounding with Jane Addams the Hull House ministry to the poor in West Chicago. Starr remained unmarried all her life to increase her effectiveness in service. At Hull House, Starr taught classes on Dante, Shakespeare, and Browning. She converted to Catholicism in 1920, at age 60.
130. Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913). After his conversion, Rolfe, a British novelist, used fiction to advance Catholic claims. Rolfe was enrolled in seminary but ejected twice due to his problems with debt and idleness. His works include Hadrian VII (1904). Hardly a morally exemplary Catholic, Rolfe was known for homosexual relationships.
131. Gaillard Hunt (1862-1924). This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA). His work argued that American democracy was rooted in the Catholic theological tradition of natural law.
132. Elizabeth Kite (1864-1954). This American convert was an academic historian and the first woman to receive a doctorate from Villanova University. Raised a Quaker, he converted to Catholicism in 1904 at the age of 40 after a religious experience involving a crucifix. She took a vow of celibacy after discovering that the man she loved was married and eventually became a third-order Franciscan. Over a period of years, she persuaded fifteen members of her extended family to convert as well. Kite�s writings attempted to show that the Catholic faith had played a key role in American independence through the decisive assistance of Catholic France against the British.
133. Algar Thorold (1866-1936). Thorold, the son of an Anglican bishop, became known as the editor of the Dublin Review.
134. Pearl Craigie (1867-1920). This American novelist wrote under the pseudonym John Oliver Holmes and was widely read in England in the 1890s.
135. Paul Claudel (1868-1955).This French poet converted in 1886 at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. His poems include �The Tidings Brought to Mary,� �The Satin Slipper,� and �Your Face, Lord.� He became a Benedictine oblate (lay associate) and later worked in the diplomatic service, including as ambassador.
136. Mgsr. Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914). In 1882, his father, Edward White Benson, was named Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1895, his father ordained him to the Anglican priesthood. Following his father�s death in 1896, he traveled through Egypt, the Holy Land and Syria for several months and was struck by the provinciality of the Anglican Church. In 1902, he began to have suspicions of the truth of the Catholic Church and in 1903 was received into the church. In 1904, he was reordained a Catholic priest and went to Cambridge to serve in the Catholic parish there. He describes his conversion journey in his spiritual autobiography, Confessions of a Convert (1913). His fictional works include The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary (1905) and The Holy Blessed Martyr Saint Thomas of Canterbury (1908). He conducted three preaching tours across the USA in 1910, 1912, and 1914. Other writings are accessible at www.nd.edu/~duitvlug/benson/.
137. Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). Beardsley was an artist whose work included many satires. Always deeply religious, he converted to Catholicism late in his life (1895).
138. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944). This physician and medical professor and researcher received the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1912 � in recognition of his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs.� During WWI, he helped devise the Carrel-Dakin method of treating war wounds.
139. G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874-1936). Troubled in his adolescence with thoughts of suicide, Chesterton converted to Anglicanism and then to Catholicism in 1922. He was convinced by 1911 that he ought to convert, but remained an Anglican for eleven more years out of respect for the desires of his Anglo-Catholic wife, Frances. Finally at the age of 48, after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and in fulfillment of a vow made before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Italy, Chesterton was received into the Church. At the time of his conversion, he was the most widely read journalist in England and his books are still widely read today, notably Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith (1908), Heresies (1905), The Thing: Why I am a Catholic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox, The Man Called Thursday, and The Everlasting Man (1925), the last of which was instrumental in the conversion of C.S. Lewis to Christianity. His story is detailed in his Autobiography (1936) and in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
140. Max Scheler (1874-1928). This German philosopher of Lutheran and Jewish parentage converted to Catholicism as an adolescent.
141. Sheldon Delany (1874-1935). This Episcopalian priest converted first to Anglo-Catholicism, and then to Catholicism. His book, Why Rome? provides an explanation of his reasons for converting. His influence was central in the conversion of a parishioner, Katherine Burton.
142. Fr. C.C. (Cyril Charles) Martindale, S.J. (1879-1963). After his conversion, he joined the Jesuits and became one of England�s best-known priests. He wrote the most famous biography of fellow convert Robert Hugh Benson and an influential book on Catholic sexual ethics, The Difficult Commandment (1925). He is described in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
143. Leonid Ivanovich Fyodorov (1879-1935). Fyodorov enrolled in the Ecclesiastical Academy of the Russian Orthodox Church at Saint Petersburg in 1901. His studies of church history and the Fathers inclined him toward monasticism and Catholicism. He attended the homilies at the Latin Rite Catholic parish in St. Petersburg. Fyodorov�s discussions with the Catholic priest, Father Jan Szyslawski, and with the Catholic Metropolitan in L�vov, Andrew Sheptytsky (1865-1944), convinced him to convert to Catholicism. His Orthodox Rector, Archimandrite Theophan, also convinced of the truth of Catholicism but unwilling to take the radical step of conversion, told him, �I know where you wish to go, and why. Go, and may God go with you!� In 1902, Fyodorov was received into the Catholic Church in Rome and was ordained to the priesthood in 1911 by Bishop Michael Mirov, the Bulgarian Greek-Catholic Bishop at Constantinople. When he returned to Saint Petersburg at the outbreak of World War I, he was arrested as a spy, and was sent into exile beyond the Urals for three years. After the Tsar�s abdication, all political and religious prisoners and exiles were granted amnesty and Fyodorov returned to Petersburg, where six Greek Catholic priests reopened their parish. Within days, the Russian Rite Catholic jurisdiction was founded and Fyodorov appointed Exarch by Pope Saint Pius X. Fyodorov reportedly prophecied, �Russia will not repent without travelling the Red Sea of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles.� The Bolsheviks suppressed the Russian Rite parishes in Petrograd and Moscow in 1922 and arrested Fyodorov and thirteen priests in 1923. Fyodorov was imprisoned for spreading among the Russian Orthodox the idea of union with the Catholic Church.
144. Alfred Noyes (1880-1958). Noyes was an Englishman who converted to Catholicism in 1927 at age 47 after his wife�s premature death. At the time of his conversion, he was already famous as an author and professor of English at Princeton University from 1913-25. Noyes was knighted for his service to England. His most famous student was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Read more about his conversion in his spiritual autobiography, The Unknown God (1934), and in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
145. Bishop Pavlos Meletiev (1880-1962). As a young man, Meletiev became a Russian Orthodox monk in the famous Solovetski monastery in Akhangelsk. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1908. The Bolsheviks arrested him in 1917 and sentenced him to five years of hard labor. He worked for a short time as an underground priest, was rearrested, and was sentenced to seven years at the notorious work camp at Karaganda. In 1942, during the German occupation of western Russia, Meletiev was consecrated as Bishop of Briansk. When the Germans began their retreat, Meletiev fled Russia and went to Rome. Meletiev had already come to believe it necessary that the Orthodox be reunited with Peter�s successor and was received into the Catholic Church in 1946. For the remainder of his life, he served Russian Catholic refugees in Germany and Belgium.
146. Carlton Hayes (1882-1964). Hayes, the son of a Baptist doctor, converted to Catholicism in 1904 at age 22, but Catholicism did not come to dominate his intellectual vision until after his marriage to a Catholic woman in 1920. He spent most of his life working as a history professor at Columbia University. During World War II, he served as American ambassador to Spain. His works include A Political and Social History of Modern Europe (1916), The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (1931), and Nationalism, a Religion (1960). He also co-founded the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), received the Notre Dame�s Laetare Medal, and was the first Catholic elected president of the American Historical Association (AHA).
147. Eric Gill (1882-1940). Gill, the son of an Anglican clergyman, passed through periods in Fabian socialism and esoteric religions before converting to Catholicism in 1913. He became famous in both England and the USA as a leader in the interwar Catholic revival. His contribution included woodcuts, sculptures, and illustrations as well as for his criticism of industrial society. Gill�s most famous work is the Stations of the Cross at Westminster Cathedral, beginning in 1914. Gill was a Third-order Dominican and led a Catholic craft community in Sussex (Allitt 169). Gill attacked the aesthetic of English Catholicism of the 1920s and 1930s. He defended D.H. Lawrence�s philosophy of sex as reconcilable with Catholicism and succumbed to sexual temptation on several occasions. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
148. Jacques Maritain (1882-1973). Jacques Maritain was raised a Protestant. He met Raisa, a fellow philosophy student in Paris c.1900, and the two made a pact that they would commit suicide together if they had not, within a year, discovered the meaning of life and existence. The influence of Henri Bergson and Leon Bloy led them to the Church, which they entered in 1906 (when Jacques was 24). Maritain was instrumental in the revival of St. Thomas Aquinas and wrote significant works in social and political philosophy, emphasizing virtue. He taught at Princeton from the mid-1940s until 1961. His works include Man and the State (1951), Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953), and On the Philosophy of History (1957). Their story is also included in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
149. Sigrid Undset (1882-1949). This Norwegian woman received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 �for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages� in her novel, Kristin Lavransdatter. She was received into the Catholic Church in 1924 and is known also for her biography of Catherine of Siena and autobiographical works, Etapper (Stages on the Road) and Elleve aar (The Longest Years).
150. Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972). This Oxford graduate and British novelist converted to Catholicism in 1913 at age 30, statating that it was �not to be regarded as a conversion, but as a submission, a logical surrender to an inevitable recognition of the fact that Jesus Christ had founded his Church upon the rock of Peter� (Allitt 288). He was heard frequently on British radio during the 1930s and 1940s and later became a television celebrity. His works include The Passionate Elopement (1910), Carnival, Guy and Pauline, Sinister Street, The Parson�s Progress, He was a less than exemplary Catholic layman; his adulterous affairs continued after his conversion and he was estranged from his wife for many years as a result. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
151. Shane Leslie (1885-1971). Leslie, a cousin of Winston Churchill, was raised in a prominent Anglo-Irish Protestant family. Influenced by converts Robert Hugh Benson and Basil Maturin, Leslie converted to Catholicism in 1906. His conversion scandalized his family. He traveled through the USA where he won the adoration of the young F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is remembered for his campaigning in favor of Irish home rule and for his biography of Cardinal Manning (Allitt 184-185).
152. Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Sassoon, an English pacifist �soldier poet,� joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1957. In 1917, he single-handed captured some German trenches in the Hindenburg Line and was recommended for the Victoria Cross. In 1917, while back in England recuperating from wounds, he threw his military cross into the river and wrote A Soldier's Declaration, which attacked the cause of WWI. His best known works were The Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (for which he received the Hawthorden Prize in 1929), The Daffodil Murderer (1913), The Old Century (1938), The Weald of Youth (1942), Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930), Sherston's Progress (1936), Siegfried's Journey (1945), and The Path to Peace (1960). In 1957, he received the Queen's Medal for Poetry. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
153. Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964). This British literary star was a prolific poet led to the Catholic Church by Fr. Philip Caraman, S.J. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
154. Msgr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957). Knox, the son of a Low Church Anglican bishop, was first attracted to Catholicism in 1903 at age 15 when he read Benson�s Light Invisible. In 1912, he took a vow of celibacy and was Catholic on all points besides Roman primacy. In 1917, at age 29, Knox was received into the Catholic Church by another convert, C.C. Martindale. Knox believed the Anglican Church would eventually be reunited to Rome; the Church of England was a �true branch of the Latin Church of the West, which through an accident of history has been partly severed from the trunk. He was feloniously held in bondage by the state.� After his conversion, he became the chaplain for Catholic students at Oxford. In 1932, he agreed to publish an exchange of articles with the agnostic Arnold Lunn in the book Difficulties. In the 1940s, he translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate. His books include Enthusiasm, Let Dons Delight, The Belief of Catholics, and God And The Atom. He is sometimes called the �Twentieth-century Newman,� because of his intellectual stature and biographical similarities: like Newman, he was a star undergraduate scholar, was an Anglican priest and lived and worked with students at Oxford before his conversion, wrote philosophical tracts, and continued to work at Oxford after being received into the Catholic Church. His story is detailed in his autobiographical Spiritual Aeneid (1918) and in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
155. Sir Arnold Lunn (1888-1974). Lunn was born in India, the son of a medical missionary. For many years an outspoken agnostic, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1933 at age 45 by Msgr. Knox, the very clergyman with whom he had engaged in theological controversy decades before (cf. Knox and Lunn, Difficulties). In his life, Lunn wrote 54 books, about a third concerning mountaineering, a third concerning skiing, and a third concerning religion, including the autobiography of his conversion, Now I See. He invented the slalom style of skiing. Other Christian books include Roman Converts, The Third Day (1945), Enigma (1957), And Yet So New (1958), The Cult of Softness (1965) and Christian Counter-Attack (1969). His lengthy controversy with CEM Joad, before Joad�s conversion to Christianity, can be read in Is Christianity True (1933).
156. Christopher Dawson (1889-1970). Dawson, the grandson of an Anglican clergyman, converted in 1914 at age 25, convinced that the Anglo-Catholicism of his youth lacked an adequate principle of authority. He became famous as a cultural historian, educational theorist, and social commentator. His works include The Age of the Gods (1928), Progress and Religion (1929), The Making of Europe (1946), Religion and Culture (1948), Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (1950), and The Dividing of Europe (1970), and Christianity and the Soul of Europe. In 1958, Dawson became the first holder of the Stillman Chair in Catholic Studies at Harvard Divinity School, named for another convert, Chauncey Stillman. Dawson declared, �I believe that the study of Christian culture is the missing link which it is essential to supply if the tradition of Western education and Western culture is to survive, for it is only through this study that we can understand how Western culture came to exist and what are the essential values for which it stands.� Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts and in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
157. Reginald Dingle (1889-). Author of The Faith and Modern Science (1935), Dingle converted in 1919 at age 30.
158. Katherine Burton (1890-1969). Burton first entered a Catholic church seeking solace during her husband�s workaholism and nervous breakdown. Following her priest, Sheldon Delany, she converted first to Anglo-Catholicism, and then to Catholicism. When her husband committed suicide, she took up writing as a way to support their three young children. Burton became the first woman columnist in a Catholic journal. Her column, �Woman to Woman,� was published monthly for thirty-six years and was well-read and influential from 1933-69.
159. Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980). Porter was a significant American author, famous for her novels Ship of Fools and The Never-Ending Wrong, and for her short stories. One of her five major short stories collections, The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (1965) won her the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
160. Theodore Maynard (1890-1956). Maynard, an Englishman whose parents were Calvinist missionaries to India with the Salvation Army and the Plymouth Brethren. In 1905, he finally produced the conversion experience his parents expected from him and went to the USA in 1909 to study to become a Congregationalist minister. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1913 at age 23 in the Brompton Oratory of London. He was sliding into �humanitarian skepticism� before reading G.K. Chesterton�s Orthodoxy (1908), which prompted him into the Catholic Church years before its author. Maynard immigrated to the USA in 1920 and taught history at a variety of American Catholic colleges and became one of the most important historians of Catholicism in America. He also contributed to Eye Witness, a journal aimed at weakening financial and political corruption in England founded by the convert Cecil Chesterton and his friend Hillaire Belloc.
161. Claude McKay (1890-1948). A Jamaican writer, McKay is remembered as one of the most prominent figures from the Harlem Renaissance. His poems include �If We Must Die� and his novels include Home to Harlem (1929), Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (1933). During the 1920�s, McKay flirted with Communism and even travelled to Russia to examine Soviet Communism. Thereafter losing faith in Communism, he began examining the spiritual and political leaders in Harlem, and eventually converted to Catholicism.
162. St. Edith Stein (1891-1942). Raised a Jew, Stein searched after truth in philosophy and the autobiography of St. Teresa of Jesus brought her convinced her of the truth of the Catholic faith. In 1922 she was baptized a Catholic. In 1933 she entered the religious life, taking the Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was gassed and cremated at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942, during the Nazi persecution. Her heroism and profound spirituality left in her keen writings were recognized in 1987, when she was canonized. Her story is also included in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
163. Mother Catherine Abrikosova (1892-1936). Abrikosova, a member of the Russian intelligentsia, converted to Catholicism with her husband, Vladimir, after a period as Freethinkers. She cited St. Catherine of Siena�s writings as powerful influences upon her religious development. The Abrikov home became the center of the Russian Byzantine Catholic community in Moscow. Abrikosova and her husband decided to vow celibacy in marriage and to enter the religious life. Vladimir was ordained a priest in the newly-formed Russian Byzantine Catholic Church; Catherine became the head of a women�s community of Dominican tertiaries who used the Russian liturgical rite. Abrikosova died from cancer contracted while imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. Read more at www.stmichaelruscath.org/motherca.htm.
164. J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien (1892-1973). This English literary giant featured Christian themes in his fantasy literature, including The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series. He converted to Catholicism with his mother, who left the Anglican Church and became Catholic shortly after her husband�s death, while J.R.R. a boy of about 8 years of age.
165. Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985). Doherty, a Russian aristocrat, was baptized Russian Orthodox and later converted to Catholicism. She raised the conscience of the Catholic Church in North America to implement practically the Church�s social doctrine in the face of Communism. She and her husband narrowly escaped the Bolsheviks in 1917 and fled to England. In 1930, she renewed a promise she had made to God in the midst of the Russian Revolution, sold all her possessions, and went to live and minister in the slums of Toronto, where she established Friendship House and lived out the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi. Slander forced the closing of the house in 1936 and she opened another Friendship House in Harlem in 1938. She returned to Toronto after some time, discouraged at the change of direction of the Friendship House and established the first Madonna House there in 1954. Her followers opened houses in many places in North and South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, and the West Indies. Her best known book is Sobornost. Doherty plays a prominent role in Thomas Merton�s spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Read more at www.stmichaelruscath.org/baroness.htm.
166. Helen Iswolsky (1896-1975). Iswolsky, a member of the Russian intelligentsia, was the daughter of a former Czarist diplomat and Sorbonne graduate. A friend of fellow converts, Dorothy Day and Catherine de Hueck Dougherty, she became widely known in the intellectual circles of Paris and New York, were she was a parishioner of the Russian Byzantine Catholic parish. She served on the faculty of Fordham University, authored several books and articles, and was an editor of the journal, �The Third Hour.� Read more at www.stmichaelruscath.org/heleni.htm.
167. Dorothy Day (1897-1980). This remarkable woman�s work for the poor began to bear lasting fruit after her conversion to the Catholic faith in 1927. He conversion also marked a sharp break with her past of sexual promiscuity, an abortion, and a child from a common-law marriage. She is best known for founding the newspaper, the Catholic Worker. She laso founded several rural communes based on the principles of Distributism, a political-economic theory developed by English Catholic thinkers. Day�s story is included in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts. Read more at www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday.
168. Roy Campbell (1901-1957). Campbell, South African by birth, was educated at Oxford and fought in the Spanish Civil War. He is best known as a poet. In 1935, he and his wife were received into the Catholic Church and had their marriage sacramentalized. Campbell described his conversion in his poem, �The Fight.� He is also remembered for his epic poem, �Flowering Rifle: A Poem from the Battlefield of Spain.�
169. Ross S.J. Hoffman (1902-1979). Hoffman was an American historian of Europe at New York University. After his conversion in 1932 at age 30, he moved to Fordham University, where he taught for many years. He served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
170. Christopher Hollis (1902-1977). Hollis, the son of an Anglican bishop, converted in 1924 at age 22. Already notable as a former president of the Oxford Union and captain of an undefeated Oxford debating team, he later became known as an economist, member of Parliament from 1945-55, and Catholic writer.
171. Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001). Raised a Jew in an American Reform synagogue, he became fascinated with philosophical theology while reading St. Thomas Aquinas in college. For several decades, he fine-tuned Aquinas� 5 ways and Anselm�s Ontological Argument, concluding that theism is proven beyond a reasonable doubt (How to Think about God: A Guide for Pagans 1980). In 1984, he converted to Christianity while fallen ill and was baptized into the Episcopal Church of the USA. In 1999, he converted to Catholicism. His explains his argument for Christianity in Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (1991). Read more at radicalacademy.com/adlerbio.htm.
172. Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (1903-1966). Waugh, an Oxford graduate and famous British novelist, wrote Officers and Gentleman, Decline and Fall (1928), A Handful of Dust (1934), Brideshead Revisited (1945), which was made into a television series, The End of the Battle, Sword of Honor (a trilogy), and many other works. He entered Oxford as an atheist, eventually became an Anglican, and converted to Catholicism in 1930 at age 27. He declared that after his reception into the Church, �there was no joy at all, only a somber apprehension�On firm intellectual conviction but with very little emotion I was admitted to the Church� (Allitt 292). Before his conversion, he had divorced his adulterous wife and knew when he converted that he might never be able to marry again. However, the failed marriage was annulled and he married Laura Herbert, with whom he had six children. Waugh fought in World War II in Yugoslavia. He also wrote a biography of fellow convert Ronald Knox. Waugh was unenthusiastic about the implementation of Vatican II in England.
173. Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990). Muggeridge was one of the most prominent converts of the twentieth century. He was raised a socialist and graduated from Cambridge in 1924, after which we went to India and Egypt as a teacher and journalist. He became disillusioned with communism after visiting the Soviet Union, where he saw Josef Stalin's administration intentionally starving millions of Ukrainians. For much of his life, he was an editor of the British humor magazine �Punch,� author, BBC journalist, and a philanderer. His television documentary about Mother Theresa first brought her to the attention of the world and his growing friendship with her led in time to his conversion, which is described in his book, Jesus Rediscovered. He and his wife entered the Church in 1983. His opposition to artificial birth control ended in his controversial resignation as Rector of Edinburgh University. He also wrote Something Beautiful for God about Mother Theresa.
174. John Van Neumann (1903-1957). This Hungarian mathematician, raised a Jew, is known for designing an architecture for a self-replicating system. He taught quantum theory at Princeton University in the 1930s, was a consultant to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (1943-1955) and is hailed as a pioneer of game theory and computer science.
175. Clare Booth Luce (1903-1987). Luce is remembered as a playwright, novelist, U.S. ambassador to Italy, wife of Time magazine publisher, Henry Luce, and as the first U.S. congresswoman from Connecticut (elected in 1949). Under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, she served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. She edited the book Saints for Now. She came into the Catholic Church in 1946 under the influence of Bishop Fulton Sheen. Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
176. Eva Ross (1903-). This American sociologist converted in 1927 and became the first Catholic laywoman to become a professional academic. She also taught economics and anthropology. In 1942, she was elected president of the American Catholic Sociological Association, thereby becoming the first woman president of a Catholic scholarly association. Her best known book is Social Origins (1936).
177. Graham Greene (1904-1991). Greene, an Oxford graduate, is known widely as a significant American literary figure. He was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1926 at age 22. His novels include The Man Within (1929), Stamboul Train (1932), Brighton Rock (1938), The Heart of the Matter (1948), Orient Express (later made into a well-known film), The Quiet American (1945), and The Power and the Glory (1939), his most-praised. Greene fought in World War II in West Africa. Not always an exemplary Catholic, he was known to have had several mistresses after the war�s end. Greene was unenthusiastic about the implementation of Vatican II in England.
178. Karl Stern (1906-1975). This former Jew was fled Nazi Germany and settled in Quebec, working as a neuropsychiatrist. He wrote of his religious journey in the autobiography, The Pillar of Fire (1951). His story is included in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
179. Fr. Frederick C. Copleston, SJ (1907-1994). Copleston was raised a strict Anglican, but while a teenager, he wrote an essay comparing the Anglican Church with the Catholic Church in which he argued that despite the dark moments of the Catholic Church (Torquemada, Smithfield, certain Popes, etc.), �it had at any rate upheld ideals of sanctity and otherworldliness and had not equated true religion with being an English gentleman.� He announced just before his 18th birthday that he had decided to convert to the Catholic Church. His conversion decision was also powerfully influenced by the Catholic saints and mystics, especially St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Though at first his father threatened to disown his son, his anger passed, and he paid for Copleston�s education at Oxford University. Copleston graduated in 1929 and joined the Jesuits; he was ordained a priest in 1937. He became a professor of philosophy and joined the faculty of Heythrop College in London in 1939, where he taught for over thirty years. He is famous for his 9-volume history of philosophy and his debates with Bertrand Russell on the existence of God aired by the BBC in 1948. In 1993, he was awarded the Queen's �Commander of the British Empire� honor.
180. Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). Raised by strict Canadian Baptists, McLuhan studied at Cambridge, met G.K. Chesterton in England, and converted in 1936 at age 25. His parents were shocked, both because they considered Catholicism full of lies and because they knew it would limit his hopes for academic accomplishments. He worked as a professor of English literature at St. Louis University from 1938-44 and then at St. Michael�s College in Toronto for the rest of his career. He is known for works on media, technology, and communications, including The Mechanical Bride (1951), The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), and Understanding Media (1964), influential.
181. Thomas Merton (1915-1968). This former-communist agnostic converted to the Catholic Church in < at age <. His conversion marked a sharp break with his past of sexual promiscuity at Cambridge and Columbia. In 1941, Merton entered the Trappist Monastery of Gethsemani in Tennessee 1941 after a fascinating religious journey of many years detailed in his classic autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain (1948).
182. Walker Percy (1916-1990). A convert from secular humanism, Percy found his way to the Christian faith and Catholicism by reading Kierkegaard in 1942 when he contracted tuberculosis at the end of medical school and therefore was not allowed to practice medicine. He read the entire Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas and converted to Catholicism in 1947 at age 31. He is known for his novels, including The Moviegoer (1961), which won the National Book Award. Other works include: The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World, The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other, Lancelot, The Second Coming, and Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. His nonfiction work includes Signposts in a Strangeland (1991).
183. George Mackay Brown (1917-96). This Scottish poet was raised a Calvinist.
184. Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ (1918-). Dulles� conversion shocked his parents; his father, John Foster Dulles, was a Presbyterian elder (and better known as the Cold War American Secretary of State). By 1936, when he entered Harvard University, Dulles was already a skeptical agnostic. However, reading Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas led him to the Catholic faith and he was received into the Catholic Church in 1940 at age 22. He attended law school, served in the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer, then joined the Jesuits in 1946. He was later ordained to the priesthood and recently was named a cardinal. He works as a theologian and professor at Fordham University. His conversion story is found in his book, A Testimony to Grace.
185. Russell Kirk (1918-1994). Kirk wrote over twenty books including The Conservative Mind and his autobiography, The Sword of Imagination: Memoirs of a Half-Century of Literary Conflict (Eerdmans 1995). Read more about him in William Buckley, Jr.�s Nearer, My God (1997).
186. Dame Muriel Spark (1918-). Spark, an English woman poet of Jewish-Christian parentage, entered the Catholic Church in 1954. Like Sitwell, she was received into the Catholic Church by Fr. Philip Caraman, SJ. Her first novel, The Comforters (1957), made use of her studies on the Book of Job. Several of Spark�s novels have been made into films and television series (The Driver�s Seat, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Abbess of Crewe). Other well-known works include Memento Mori, Doctors of Philosophy, The Girls of Slender Means, and The Mandelbaum Gate (winner of the 1966 James Tait Black Memorial prize). In 1993 she was made a Dame of the British Empire and in 1997 she was awarded the David Cohen British Literature Prize. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
187. Endo Shusaku (1923-96). This Japanese novelist is perhaps the modern Japanese author best known outside Japan. He became fascinated by the seventeenth-century persecutions when numerous Japanese Christians apostatized and trampled fumi, icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary. His historical novels, Silence, Volcano, and The Samurai describe these persecutions. He was baptized when his mother converted but remained a Marxist for much of his life. He finally made a personal decision to convert to Catholicism late in his life.
188. Irina Alberti (1925-2000). Born and raised in Yugoslavia, this Russian Orthodox woman married an Italian diplomat, who died in 1975. After her husband�s death she worked for several years in Vermont as the secretary to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In the late 1980s, she met with Pope John Paul II and took his words about the importance of the reunion of the Christian East and West as a personal commissioning. She was received into Catholic communion and became a prominent voice for Christian reunion in Russia, especially via radio programs. Read more in �Ut Unum Sint� by M. Peeters, Inside the Vatican, Year 9, No.9 (Nov 2001).
189. Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger (1926-). Born to Polish Jewish parents, Lustiger converted to Catholicism at age 14. In became Archbishop of Paris in 1981.
190. Thomas Howard (1935-). This English professor (formerly at Gordon College, now at St. John�s Seminary) and author was raised evangelical (brother of well-known Evangelical missionary and author Elisabeth Eliot), became an Episcopalian in the late 1950�s and was received into the Catholic Church in 1985 at the age of 50, completing his �20-year pilgrimage.� Influential in his conversion were Newman, Knox, Chesterton, Guardini, Ratzinger, Karl Adam, Louis Bouyer, and St. Augustine. He wrote about his conversion in Lead Kindly Light: My Journey to Rome and Evangelical is not Enough. At the time, his conversion shocked many in evangelical circles, and was the subject of a feature article in the leading evangelical periodical Christianity Today (�Well-known Evangelical Author Thomas Howard Converts to Catholicism,� May 17, 1985, pp.46-62). His literary accomplishments also include On Being Catholic and works of Christian fiction. His wife Lovelace has also recently entered the Catholic Church.
191. Fr. Alan Stephen Hopes (1944-). This former Anglican was ordained into the Anglican priesthood in 1968. He converted to Catholicism in 1992 after the Anglican Church approved the ordination of women. Hopes was ordained a Catholic priest in 1995. In 2003, Pope John Paul II named him auxiliary bishop of Westminster.
192. Marilyn Ryan (1940-). Ryan was raised in an irreligious family but attended various churches as a child. In 1964, she was received into the Catholic Church before her marriage. She and her husband have together written Making a Marriage and Why I am Still a Catholic.
193. Gerard Croissant (1949-): Raised in a French Protestant family, Croissant developed a vision of family and Christian community living. He became involved in the Charismatic Renewal movement and began a Christian community in 1973. In 1975, he and the community were received into the Catholic Church. His movement continues as a lay Catholic movement, the �Community of the Beatitudes.� See also www.beatitudes.org.
194. Cardinal Francis Arinze. Arinze was born into a non-Christian Nigerian family. He converted to Catholicism at age nine and his mother and father later followed him into the Church. He was ordained in 1958 and served as a seminary professor and bishop in Africa for many years. In 2002, he was appointed the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
195. Harry Crocker. A convert from Anglicanism, Crocker is editor at Regnery Publishing. He has recently written Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church (Prima, 2002). The writings of fellow converts Chesterton and Newman were instrumental in his conversion.
196. Dwight Longnecker. This former Anglican priest converted to Catholicism and has authored The Path to Rome and More Christianity. Together with Anglican John Martin, he also co-authored Challenging Catholics: A Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue (Paternoster Press, 2001).
197. Fr. John Jay Hughes. A former Episcopalian priest, Hughes converted to Catholicism and was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in St. Louis. A married priest, Hughes supports the Catholic Latin Rite discipline of celibate priests.
198. Jeff Cavins. Raised in the Catholic Church, Cavins left as a young adult and became an evangelical pastor for twelve years before converting back to Catholicism. As a Catholic, he is best known for hosting the Catholic television program, �Life on the Rock.� His book, My Life on the Rock, describes his conversion in more detail. He has also co-authored Amazing Grace for Those Who Suffer.
199. Fr. Jay Jenkins. A former celibate preacher in the 2x2/Cooneyite sect, Jenkins converted to Catholicism and was ordained a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Colorado Springs.
200. Fr. Serge Solovyov. A relative of the philosopher-convert, Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), Serge Solovyov was appointed Vice-Exarch for the Russian Byzantine Catholics in 1923. He was arrested in 1931.
201. Archbishop Bartholomew Remov. This former member of the Russian Orthodox Holy Synod secretly entered into communion with the Holy See and organized a Russian Byzantine Catholic monastery in Moscow during the early 1930s. In 1935, the NKVD (secret police) uncovered the illegal nature of the monastery and sentenced Remov to death and sent his monks to prison camps.
202. Viacheslav Ivanov. One of the leading modern Russian poets and a disciple of Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) and friend of priest-convert, Vladimir Abrikosov, Ivanov was received into communion with Rome by Fr. Zerchaninov. Ivanov was active among the Russian йmigrйs in Paris and taught at the Russicum (a special school for training priests for Russia) in Rome.
203. Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy. Formerly a Russian Orthodox priest, Tolstoy was received into the Catholic Church and incardinated as a Melkite Catholic priest. He became the first Russian Byzantine Catholic priest and received the philosopher, Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), into the Catholic Church.
204. Alexei Zerchaninov. Zerchaninov set out to study early Christian writings in order to convince some Old Ritualists that the Russian Orthodox Church was the true Church. Instead, he became convinced of the universal jurisdiction of the pope and was received into the Catholic Church. Zerchaninov was arrested and sent to a monastery prison, where he wrote a book on his findings, smuggled it out to friends, and had it published in Austria under a pseudonym. He was released in 1901 thanks to the influence of another convert aristocrat who had powerful connections in the Russian court. Zerchaninov�s wife and children (except two) separated and broke all connections with him as a result of his decision. In 1908, Fr. Zerchaninov was appointed Administrator of the Mission to the Russian Catholics.
205. Fr. Eustachios Susalev. Formerly a Russian Old Ritualist priest, Susalev was received into communion with Rome and became one of the first priests of the first Russian Byzantine Catholic parish in St. Petersburg.
206. Fr. Alexander Sipiagin. This professor of natural sciences converted to Catholicism and was ordained a Russian Byzantine Catholic priest. In 1917, a small Russian Byzantine Catholic community formed around him.
207. Fr. Alexi Anisimov. A short time after Fr. Sipiagin�s conversion and ordination, Fr. Anisimov and his entire Russian Orthodox parish in Saratov were received into the Catholic Church.
208. Fr. Patapios Emilianov. In 1918, Fr. Emilianov and his entire Old Ritualist parish at Nizhnaja Bogdanovka (nearly 1,000 members) were received into the Catholic Church.
209. Princess Elizabeth Golitsin. A convert from Russian Orthodoxy.
210. Fr. Dmitri Golitsin, SJ. A convert from Russian Orthodoxy. The �Apostle of Western Pennsylvania.�
211. Fr. Ivan Martiniov, SJ. A convert from Russian Orthodoxy.
212. Blessed Deacon Peter Artemiev (d.1700). His adherence to the Catholic faith in Orthodox Russia cost him his life.
213. Prof. Marie Stechova. This Czech convert wrote The Devil�s Furrow (cf. Peter Pohorsky�s The Road to Happiness, about Jaroslav Kozel.
214. Walter Hooper. Best know as the friend and biographer of C.S. Lewis, Hooper converted to Catholicism and delivered a notable 1997 Oxford lecture, �Is Mere Christianity Enough?,� in which he argued that had C.S. Lewis been alive to see the degeneration of the Anglican Church in the late twentieth century, he too would have converted to Catholicism.
215. Mrs. Mary Howard Preston. This zealous convert donated funds for starting the mission work of the Diocese of Covington to non-Catholics in Eastern Kentucky.
216. Mrs. Charlotte Melmoth. This English actress popular in London and New York theatres during the late eighteenth century. A convert, she retired and taught in a Catholic school in Brooklyn. One of her students was the future cardinal, McCloskey.
217. Charles I.H. Carter. This convert became the first pastor of the Church of the Assumption in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1848.
218. Fabian Quadrantinus. This convert joined the Jesuits.
219. Augustus the Strong. This noble of Saxony converted to Catholicism in 1697 and offered the chapel of his hunting castle for Catholic worship (Catholics of Saxony were granted the right to worship publicly only in 1806).
220. Hon. R. Erskine. This Scottish convert started (1904) and edited a quarterly Catholic magazine, �Voice of the Year.�
221. Msgr. Graham Leonard. This convert was formerly the Anglican Bishop of London.
222. Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos. This convert is now Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.
223. Alexandra von Habsburg. This convert is the Archduchess of Austria and the Princess of Hungary and Bohemia.
224. George E. Clerk. In 1850, this convert from Anglicanism founded �True Witness,� the primary English-language Catholic periodical in nineteenth-century Canada.
225. Rev. George E. Ironside. A distinguished convert of New York.
226. Keating Lawson. A notable convert of New York.
227. Rev. William Taylor (d.1828). This convert from Cork, Ireland was popular with non-Catholics.
228. George V. Hecker. This convert was the brother of Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888) and contributed thousands of dollars to the Paulists.
229. Count Schouvaloff (d.1859). This notable Russian convert, joined the Barnabite Congregation in 1856. He longed for the reunion of his countrymen and other schismatic Christians to be reunited with the Catholic Church.
230. Father Vigne. This convert founded an order of hospital and teaching nuns, the Sisters of the Most Blessed Sacrament, at Romans in 1715.
231. Bishop Rabbula (d.435). The son of a pagan priest of Kenneshrin, Rabbula was converted by Bishop Eusebius, He gave away his goods to the poor and took up the ascetic life. He was appointed Bishop of Edessa in 412.
232. Bishop Sahdona (Martyrius) of Mahoze. This early seventh-century convert from Nestorianism to Catholicism was attacked in writing by his former friend, Ishoyahb.
233. James McKay. This convert served as President of the Council in the Girard Cabinet in Canada.
234. Hon. Frank H Hurd. This convert to Catholicism, is best known as a congressman from Ohio, in which capacity he advocated free trade.
235. Begum Sumroo. This princess ruled over Sardhana as a vassal of Delhi during the decline of the Moghul Empire in India. She converted from Islam and welcomed the fathers of the Tibetan Mission.
236. Mrs. EM Shapcote.
237. Charlotte Boyd. This former-Anglican converted to Catholicism, purchased the Slipper Chapel at Walsingham and began the restoration of this medieval pilgrimage site which King Henry VIII confiscated in the sixteenth century.
238. Edw. Hartnell. This English convert founded a Catholic college at Monterey, California, with Fr. Short.
239. King Gartnaidh. The son and successor of King Brude, Gartnaidh was converted through the ministry of Columba.
240. Sarah Redwood Parrish (d.1895). A Philadelphia Quaker, she converted to Catholicism and married the author, William Seton (1835-1905), grandson of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821).
241. Zoega. This convert was a notable scholar.
242. Alphonso de Spina (d.c.1491). Raised a Spanish Jew, he converted to Catholicism and became a Franciscan. In 1491 he was made Bishop of Thermopylж in Greece. He is best known for his Fortalitium Fidei (c.1464), which responds to those who deny the Divinity of Christ, to heretics, to Jews, and to Muslims. The fifth part of the book discussed the battle against the Gates of Hell, i.e. the demons. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/14216a.htm.
243. Henry de Montherlant (1896-1972). French novelist and dramatist.
244. Christopher Bagshaw (d.c.1625). Bagshaw graduated from Oxford in 1572, at which time he was a zealous Protestant who participated in the expulsion of Fr. Parson, SJ, from the Oxford. In 1582, he was received into the Church. Later ordained to the Catholic priesthood, he earned the degree of doctor of divinity and returned to England, where he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1587. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/02203e.htm.
245. Sister Elizabeth de l'Immaculee Conception. This convert was one of the founding members of the Sister Adorers of the Precious Blood, established in 1861.
246. Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg. This biography of this scholar and convert was written by the historian, Johann Janssen.
247. Johann Nas (d.1590). This convert to Catholicism became a Franciscan and championed the Catholic Church in his �Sechs Centurien Euangelischer Wahrheiten.�
248. Christoph von Grimmelshausen (d.1676). This convert wrote the prose classic of the seventh-century German literature, Simplicissimus, a work of historical fiction describing the Thirty Years War.
249. Pfefferkorn. A convert from Judaism.
250. George Dudley Ryder. Ryder was the son of the first Evangelical raised to the Anglican episcopate, Henry Dudley Ryder. He became an Anglican clergyman himself, but later converted to Catholicism, following the example of John Henry Newman. He was received into the Church in 1846. His father, , had been. His son, Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder (1837-1907), became a famous English Oratorian priest and controversialist.
251. John Gother (d.1704). Raised a strict English Presbyterian, he converted to Catholcisim asn was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1682. He became known for his controversial works, most notably, �A Papist Misrepresented and Represented, or a two-fold Character of Popery� (1665) and �The Sincere Christian's Guide in the choice of a Religion� (1804). Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/06665a.htm.
252. Mary Madeleine Miers. This convert became the mother of Eliza Maria Gillespie �Mother Mary of St. Angela� (1824-1887), a famous American nun.
253. Sydney Hodgson (d.1591). This lawyer converted to Catholicism and chose martyrdom over a proposed compromise in which he would occasionally conform to the Anglican Church.
254. Sheriff Huet. This convert from Calvinism became the father of Bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630-1721).
255. Rev. George Bampfield. This convert founded the Institute of St. Andrew at Barnet.
256. Ven. Francis Page, SJ (d.1602). This Englishman converted to Catholicism, was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1600, and was received into the Jesuits while a prisoner at Newgate. He was martyred in 1602 together with Ven. Thomas Tichborne and Robert Watkinson.
257. Judge Peter H. Burnett. This convert is best known as the first governor of California.
258. M. Le Sage-ten-Broek.
259. Judge E. W. McKinstry. Like Judge Peter H. Burnett, McKinstry was both a judge of the California Supreme Court and a convert to Catholicism. McKinstry was known for both his great erudition, and exemplary Catholic life.
260. Martin Eisengrein. This famous convert and preacher was instrumental in the conversion of Kasper Franck (1543-1584).
261. Fr. Daniel Haigh, M.A. This former-Anglican clergyman converted to Catholicism and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood. He built a Gothic church clergyman out of his own private fortune as an offering of thanks to God for the gift of the true faith. He later donated it to four exiled German monks.
262. Ann Richards. This convert became the mother of George Elder (1793-1838), a notable educator.
263. Constable de Lesdiguiиres. This convert was recevied into the Church in 1622. He supported the establishment of a Jesuit house and a college at Grenoble.
264. Thomas Chisholm Anstey. This English convert played an important role in the conversion of Frederick Lucas (1812-1855).
265. George Philips. This German law-professor converted to Catholicism. In 1832, he began a friendship with Wilhelm Volk (1804-1869), who converted two decades later in 1855.
266. Henrietta Mary St. Eloy. The daughter of a Protestant minister, Rev. Joseph Tenison, Henrietta became the mother of Fr. Julian Edmund Tenison Woods (1832-1889), a notable Jesuit priest and scientist.
267. St. Anne Line (d.1601). Raised by an ardent English Calvinist, Anne and her brother both converted to Catholicism. Both were disowned and disinherited for such action. Anne married a fellow-convert, Roger Line. She was indicted under English anti-Catholic law for harboring a priest and martyred in 1601. She had prayed to be found worthy of martyrdom. In 1970, Pope Pius VI canonized her as part of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
268. Father Lockhart. This convert was ordained into the Catholic priesthood and was a friend of the convert, Henry Nutcombe Oxenham (1829-1888).
269. Henry Abbot (d.1597). This English Catholic layman converted to Catholicism and was betrayed to execution along with three companions by a Protestant minister who had pretended to want to convert himself. Abbot was martyred in 1597 for having explained the Catholic faith to another person. Read more at www.newadvent.org/cathen/01021a.htm.
270. Sarah Jackson. This convert was the mother of Edward Kavanagh (1795-1844), an American statesman and diplomat.
271. F. Gagarin. This Russian convert became a Jesuit. He is remembered for arguing that the main obstacle to the conversion of Russian is the popular Russian association of Catholicism with Poland.
272. Quiroga. This convert from Judaism produced a Spanish translation of the Bible.
273. Giona. This convert from Judaism produced a Hebrew translation of the four Gospels in 1668.
274. Wicelius. An early convert from Lutheranism.
275. Johann Friedrich. Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick, converted to Catholicism shortly before 1676.
276. George Calvert. Calvert, better known as the first Lord Baltimore, achieved fame for planning the first colony in the New World based on religious toleration, i.e. Catholic Maryland. He converted to Catholicism in 1625.
277. Felix Pratensis. This convert from Judaism produced an edition of the Hebrew scriptures in 1518.
278. M. Brunetiиre. This convert was persuaded to adopted Catholicism through reading Bossuet�s sermons and Auguste Comte. His conversion took place c.1895. His subsequent writings argued that modern thought included important aspects of Catholicism.
279. Winslow. This Danish anatomist converted to Catholicism. He wrote the first empirical treatise on descriptive anatomy.
280. Philippe de Bйthune. Bйthune converted from Protestantism.
281. Bl. George Swallowell. This convert minister was tortured for his faith in 1594.
282. John Placid Adelham (d.1681). This Protestant minister converted to Catholicism and joined the Benedictines.
283. James Wadsworth. This fervent convert became a Jesuit priest in the latter part of his life.
284. Henry Major. This convert from Episcopalianism served as professor of a diocesan seminary and as editor of the �Catholic Herald.� He relapsed to the Episcopal Church for a time, but repented during his last illness and died in union with the Church.
285. Jacob Porter. This convert was a printer and co-owner of �The Pittsburg Catholic� from 1847-89.
286. Mrs. Hartwell. After converting to Catholicism, Hatrwell began to catechize black children and in 1890 she and her followers founded the Institute of Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart.
287. M. L. Linton. Linton edited the Chicago Catholic periodical, �Western Tablet.�
288. R. A. Bakewell (d.1909). Bakewell founded and edited the Missouri periodical, �The Shepherd of the Valley,� in 1832.
289. Eliza Vaughan. This convert spent an hour daily before the Blessed Sacrament, praying that God would call her children to serve Him. Of her eight sons, six became priests, three of the six priests became bishops, and one of the three bishops (Herbert Vaughan) became Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
290. Fr. Demetrius A. Gallitzin (d.1840). Gallitzin was a famous Russian prince-priest. After converting to Catholicism he founded the mission of Loretto in Pennsylvania.
291. Father Lemke. Lemke, a Prussian soldier, converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood. In 1839, Fr. Lemke founded the mission and village of Carroltown, Pennsylvania.
292. Johann Matthдus Wacke von Wackenfels. This convert supported the poet-convert, Valens Acidalius (1567-1595).
293. Sir Henry Trelawney. This zealous English convert <.
294. Mary Elizabeth Meade. Daughter-in-law of Benjamin F. Sands (1812-1883), she converted to Catholicism. Both of her daughtered became nuns of the Sacred Heart.
295. Prince Hermenegild of Seville. This sixth-century Visigothic prince was converted by St. Leander of Seville during the Arian crisis in which his father, King Leovigild persecuted Catholics.
296. Jacques Davy Duperron. This convert from Protestantism later became a priest and then a cardinal. His conversions with King Henry IV (1553-1610) were important for the latter�s conversion to Catholicism. Duperron debated four Protestant pastors for seven days at Mantes in 1593. One of the pastors, Palma Gayet, later converted himself.
297. Palma Gayet. Gayet was one of four Protestant pastors who debated the convert Jacques Davy Duperron for seven days at Mantes in 1593. So powerful were Duperron�s arguments that Gayet later converted himself.
298. Rev. Samuel S. Cooper. This convert entered the seminary and donated $10,000 toward Mother Ann Seton�s school.
299. Archbishop Samuel Eccleston. This native of Maryland converted to Catholicism, joined the Sulpicians, and was appointed archbishop of Baltimore at age 33.
300. Francis Quick. This convert held the office of president of St. Mary�s College (Oscott) from 1816-18.
301. Bishop Varfolomey Remov (d.1935). This Russian Orthodox bishop was representative to Metropolitan Peter, the locum tenens of the late Patriarch Tikhon. He converted to Catholicism and endured eighteen months of torture, all the while refusing to recant. In 1935, he shot at Moscow�s Butyrky prison.
302. Bishop Evreinov. Another high-level convert from the Russian Orthodox Church.
303. Edward Louth Badeley (-1868). Badeley, a conveyancer, converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in the late period of the Tractarian Movement. In 1867, Newman dedicated his �Verses on Various Occasions� to Badeley. His lifelong friends, Edward Bellasis and J. R. Hope Scott, also Anglicans in the legal profession, converted at about the same time.
304. William Maskell. Maskell was a Canterbury farmer, a published entomologist, and the first full-time registrar of the University of New Zealand. He converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism and his Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England (1882) is a well-respected work in liturgical studies.
305. Sarah Hill. Wife of George Dering Wolff (1822-1894), she also converted to Catholicism.
306. Christian Wolff. This German professor converted to Catholcism, as did his brother, George Dering Wolff (1822-1894).
307. Noah Tyler. Tyler, his wife, and their six children converted to Catholicism through the ministry of Fr. Charles D. Ffrench, a convert with the Dominicans. Four of his daughters became Sisters of Charity. Tyler was the brother-in-law of Daniel Barber (1756-1834).
308. Fr. Charles D. Ffrench. This Irish son of an Anglican bishop converted to Catholicism and became a Dominican. His influence was important in the conversion of Noah Tyler.
309. Henrietta Brownell. This convert of Bristol, Rhode Island, endowed the establishment of a house of the Sisters of Charity in Newfoundland.
310. Robert Lowell. A poet-convert.
311. Fanny Allen. Allen, the daughter of General Ethan Allen, converted to Catholicism and became a nun in the convent of the Hotel-Dieu, Montreal.
312. Allen Tate. A poet who converted in 1950. Tate, with his fellow convert Willis Nutting, was a leading Distributist theorist for the Catholic Rural Life Movement.
313. Willis Nutting. Nutting was a history professor at Notre Dame. Together with his fellow convert Allen Tate, he was a leading Distributist theorist for the Catholic Rural Life Movement.
314. Sigourney Fay.
315. Knut Rockne. This convert was a football coach.
316. Alice Meynell. A poet-convert.
317. Chauncey Stillman. This convert is best known for the Stillman Chair in Catholic Studies at Harvard Divinity School, which he helped to found through financial contributions to the divinity school.
318. Henry James Ford. This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
319. Daniel Sargent. This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
320. Herbert Bell. This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
321. Marshall Baldwin. This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
322. Henry Lucas. This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
323. Robert Lord. This distinguished Harvard historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
324. Cecil Chesterton. Cecil was received into the Catholic Church in 1913, nine years before his more famous brother, G.K. Chesterton. Together with Hillaire Belloc (1870-1952), Cecil Chesterton founded Eye Witness, a journal aimed at weakening financial and political corruption.
325. Francis Baker. Baker, formerly a Methodist, converted to Anglicanism and joined the Protestant Episcopal Church. His influence brought Augustine Hewit into the Episcopalian fold, though Hewit proceeded him in becoming a Catholic by seven years. Baker was received into the Catholic Church in 1853. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1856 and joined the newly-founded Paulist order in 1858.
326. Alfred Young. This Briton was raised in the USA, graduated from Princeton, converted to Catholicism, and was ordained a priest in the newly-founded Paulist order.
327. Joris Karl Huysmans. The writings of this Belgian convert were influential for a famous American convert, Dorothy Day.
328. George Searle. A British convert, formerly professor of astronomy at the US Naval Academy. He was ordained a priest in the newly-founded Paulist order.
329. Robert Tillotson. A British convert of Newman�s Birmingham Oratory who came to the USA and was ordained a priest in the newly-founded Paulist order.
330. Alisdair MacIntyre. McIntyre, a scholar at Notre Dame and Duke, is one of the most well-read and respected ethicists of modern philosophy. His best-known work is After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (1981), which revived interest in the concept of virtue ethics and natural law, i.e. traditional Catholic ethics based on Aristotle and the Bible. He has also written Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988).
331. Patrick McGloughlin (1909-1988). Converted in 1963. A friend of Dorothy Sayers.
332. Waldemar Gurian. This convert was a refugee from Nazi Germany who lived in the USA and taught at Notre Dame.
333. Bruno Schlesinger. This Austrian converted to Catholicism from Judaism and was a refugee from Naziism. At St. Mary�s College, he tried to put into practice the �Christian Culture� program of another convert, Christopher Dawson.
334. John Pridmore. This former drug dealer and gangster was baptized as an infant but never a practicing Christian until 1991, when he called upon God to give him a second chance after almost killing someone. Now he speaks to young people and conducts retreats with Youth 2000 Ireland. Read more in his autobiography, From Gangland to Promised Land.
335. James Collinson. This artist converted to Catholicism, then reverted to Anglicanism when the poet Christina Rossetti refused his marriage proposal because of his conversion. However, he returned to Catholicism before the wedding and Rossetti broke the engagement (Allitt 6-7). His parents even disowned him.
336. Thomas Arnold. Thomas, the brother of Matthew Arnold, converted to Catholicism against the wishes of his wife, who wrote to Newman, �from the bottom of my heart I curse you for it,� referring to his role in persuading Arnold �to ignore every social duty and become a pervert� (Allitt 5). Pope Piux IX�s Syllabus of Errors (1864) prompted him to revert to Anglicanism, but he reconverted to Catholicism in 1877.
337. George Allen. This convert was a professor of classics at the University of Pennsylvania. He assisted his cousin, Eliza Allen Starr, toward conversion to Catholicism.
338. Louis Budenz. Budenz left Catholicism to become a Marxist in 1935, then reconverted to Catholicism in 1945, a process he describes in his autobiography, This is My Story (1947).
339. Parker T. Moon. This distinguished historian converted to Catholicism and served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA).
340. Dale Vree. This convert became editor of the New Oxford Review.
341. Msgr. Arthur Barnes. A former Anglican clergyman, Barnes provided instruction in the faith to a younger convert, Christopher Hollis.
342. E.I. Watkin. This philosopher wrote Roman Catholicism in England from the Reformation to 1950 (1957) after his conversion.
343. Clarence Walworth. Raised a Presbyterian, Walworth was an American lawyer who converted to Episcopalianism in 1839 after a religious experience and later became a seminarian at the New York Episcopal Seminary. He wrote a biography of Arthur Carey (1822-44), another Anglo-Catholic Episcopal seminarian who was ready to convert to Catholicism when he died at sea at age 22. He converted to Catholicism and became a Catholic priest in the Redemptorist order. Later he joined his friend Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulists, as a Paulist mission priest.
344. Carol Jackson. Jackson converted in 1941. In 1946, together with Ed Willock, she co-founded Integrity, a Catholic journal.
345. Robert Lax. Lax, a friend of Thomas Merton and convert from Judaism, co-founded Jubilee, a Catholic journal, in 1953.
346. James McMaster. Like Clarence Walworth, McMaster was a seminarian at the New York Episcopal Seminary before his conversion. He considered Catholic ordination in the Redemptorist order, but ultimately decided against it and became a newspaper editor for the Freeman�s Journal.
347. William George Ward. A leading Anglican clergyman at Oxford and friend of John Henry Newman. He converted in 1845 and became editor of the Dublin Review, a leading British Catholic journal. He corresponded with John Stuart Mill for 15 years. Together with Cardinal Manning, he defended the Ultramontane position in the period leading up to the definition of papal infallibility at the Ecumenical Council of Vatican I (1869-70).
348. Bernard Dalgairns. A leading Anglican clergyman whose conversion embarrassed his High Church Anglican colleagues.
349. Katherine Bregy. This Philadelphia High Church Anglican converted as a young adult and never married. She contributed regularly to Catholic journals in the USA and Great Britain. Bregy won a prize from Commonweal magazine for her essay on Dante during the mid-1920s. In 1939, she was elected president of the Catholic Poetry Society of America.
350. Frederick W. Faber. A leading Anglican clergyman whose conversion embarrassed his High Church Anglican colleagues. He led the London Oratorians and defended the Ultramontane position in the period leading up to the definition of papal infallibility at the Ecumenical Council of Vatican I (1869-70).
351. Mar Ivanos, Archbishop of Trivandrum. The Church in India originally founded by the Apostle Thomas went into heresy and was part of the Syrian Orthodox patriarchate from the 17th century to 1930, when the Syro-Malankar faithful led by Mar Ivanos officially reunited with the Catholic Church. His conversion is described in Margaret Gibbon�s Mar Ivanios (1882-1953), Archbishop of Trivandrum: The Story of a Great Conversion.
352. David Goldstein. A British Jewish Socialist immigrant to the USA, Goldstein converted under the influence of Martha Moore Avery, with whom he co-authored Socialism: The Nation of Fatherless Children (1903). Goldstein began public lecturing on the Catholic faith in 1911, at the request of Archbishop William O�Connell. Read more in his spiritual autobiography, Autobiography of a Campaigner for Christ (Roman Catholic Books).
353. Ignatius Spencer. An English Passionist. Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
354. Louis Bundenz. Bundenz, a former Communist and ACLU man, came into the Catholic Church under the influence of Bishop Fulton Sheen. Read more in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
355. Raisa Maritain. Raisa met her future husband, Jacques, a fellow philosophy student in Paris, c.1900, and the two made a pact that they would commit suicide together if they had not, within a year, discovered the meaning of life and existence. The influence of Henri Bergson and Leon Bloy led them to the Church, which they entered in 1906. Their story is also included in Conner�s Classic Catholic Converts.
356. Sir Alec Guiness. This actor has performed in over a dozen well-known films and is best known for starring in the movie, �Star Wars� as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts and in his autobiography, Blessings in Disguise (1985). Guiness explains, �like countless converts before and after me, I felt I had come home and known the place for the first time.
357. David Jones. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
358. E.F. Schumacher. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
359. Hugh Ross Williamson. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
360. Bernard Berenson. This Lithuanian Jew was famous as an art critic before his conversion to Catholicism. He converted while visiting Italy after graduating from Harvard. His conversion was largely prompted by aesthetic considerations and he found it hard to uphold his faith outside Italy.
361. Maurice Baring. Baring was a regular contributor to Eye Witness, a journal aimed at weakening financial and political corruption in England founded by the convert Cecil Chesterton and his friend Hillaire Belloc. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
362. Roy Campbell. Campbell fought in World War II in East Africa. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
363. Vincent McNabb. Read more about his conversion in Pearce�s Literary Converts.
364. Sidney Cornelia Callahan. Callahan, a prominent and eloquent Catholic voice in the abortion debates, read herself into the Catholic Church. She has written various pastoral books, including: The Magnificat: The Prayer of Mary, Parenting: Principles and Politics of Parenthood, and The Working Mother.
365. Paul Whitcomb. Whitcomb, born to Episcopal and Methodist parents, raised in Episcopal, Baptist, Congregational, and Methodist Sunday schools and youth movements, and a Methodist minister for many years, eventually was led to the Catholic Church by his study of the Bible. He has written several booklets including �The Catholic Church has the Answer� and his spiritual autobiography, �Confessions of A Roman Catholic� (TAN Books 1961).
366. Rabbi Eugenio Zolli. Zolli was Chief Rabbi of Rome during World War II. His conversion to the Catholic Church came partially as a result of the help he and his people received from Pope Pius XII. He recounts his story in Before the Dawn.
367. Father Owen Francis Dudley. Dudley, a former Anglican priest entered the Church after a long struggle over questions of authority. His Conversion Story is on the web.
368. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (converted in 1988)�As a Lutheran pastor, he did parish work with Blacks in New York. He is known for his book The Catholic Moment, written in 1987 when he was still Lutheran. Now he edits First Things, a Christian monthly. Read more about him in William Buckley, Jr.�s Nearer, My God (1997).
369. Fr. George Rutler (converted in 1981). He was a Lutheran pastor, then became an Anglican for ten years (he served as a priest), and finally a Catholic. He serves as a Catholic priest in New York City and writes books and articles. Read more about him in William Buckley, Jr.�s Nearer, My God (1997).
370. James Burnham. A former Trotskeyite and author of Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning of Destiny of Liberalism (1964), he converted to Catholicism in his last days.
371. Willmoore Kendall. Kendall, a professor at Yale, was the son of a Methodist preacher who spent much of his adult life as a religious agnostic before converting to Catholicism.
372. Scott and Kimberly Hahn. Scott Hahn is perhaps the best known and most influential of contemporary American converts from Protestantism and one of the America�s leading Catholic theologians today. His journey led through evangelical Calvinism into the Catholic Church took many years and is described together with his wife's conversion story in their book, Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism (Ignatius, 1993), which has sold over 110,000 copies and is available in 8 languages, including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Polish, and Czech. At one time the top student in his Presbyterian seminary class and militantly anti-Catholic, he was discovered, to his horror, that the true, biblical doctrines were taught not by the Presbyterians, but by the Catholic Church. He now works as Professor of Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
373. Christine Adler. A Filipino-American songwriter and Broadway actress, Adler was raised Episcopalian and converted to Catholicism as an adult.
374. Steve and Karen Wood. Steve Wood was a Protestant minister before his conversion.
375. Jeffery Hart. Hart, emeritus English professor at Dartmouth, has authored a dozen books and worked for thirty years as a senior editor of �National Review.� Read more about him in William Buckley, Jr.�s Nearer, My God (1997).
376. Ernest van den Haag. Haag, a well-known sociologist and legal scholar. Read more about him in William Buckley, Jr.�s Nearer, My God (1997).
377. Wick Allison. Alison, a young Texan, worked for a time as publisher of National Review. Read more about him in William Buckley, Jr.�s Nearer, My God (1997).
378. Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Nathanson, a former abortionist, struggled with despair and guilt for years before his conversion.
379. William J. Cork. Cork, a former Seventh-day Adventist and Lutheran minister, recounts his conversion journey at From Sectarianism to the Communion of Saints.
380. David and Judy Armstrong. David Armstrong, a Catholic convert for more than ten years, is known in apologetics circles for having built perhaps the most thorough Catholic apologetics site on the web, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism. He was raised in United Methodist Church, and remained for many years outside Christianity before his reconversion in 1977. He attended Lutheran, Assembly of God, and non-denominational churches during the 1980�s. For four years he worked as a campus missionary doing apologetics and counter-cult work (specializing in Jehovah's Witnesses). He became involved with the pro-life movement and Operation Rescue, in which he was first exposed to devoted, serious, devout Catholics, including priests and nuns who were jailed with him. In 1990 he initiated an ecumenical discussion group which included three Catholic friends from Operation Rescue in hopes that he luring these friends out from under the �yoke� of Rome. This required him to research various aspects of the Catholic Church. His research of Catholicism impressed him, and he was especially shocked by the fact that no Christian body had accepted contraception until the Anglicans in 1930. Meanwhile, his wife Judy, raised Catholic but converted to Protestantism before they began dating, became independently convinced of that contraception was morally unacceptable. Newman�s writings on development were central for Armstrong (as for almost all Protestant intellectual converts). Then, studies of the Reformation blew apart his beliefs about the mythical Luther; he was very disturbed by Luther�s �radically subjective existential methodology, his disdain for reason and historical precedent, and his dictatorial intolerance of opposing viewpoints, including those of his fellow Protestants.� In 1991, he and his wife were received into the Catholic Church. He has also written two books, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism and More Biblical Evidence for Catholicism.
381. Al and Sally Kresta. Al Kresta converted to evangelical Protestantism in 1974 after a period of hedonism and drugs. He eventually became an evangelical pastor and good friend of fellow converts David Armstrong and Steven Ray (Armstrong was a member of his congregation). Both Kresta and Armstrong independently became convinced of the tenuousness of Protestantism, and when Armstrong tactfully disclosed his reservation, he was shocked to hear Kresta answer that he, too, was moving in that direction. (Such unexpected confirmation from friends is frequently part of converts� experiences). Kresta has since started a national Catholic talk-radio program.
382. Dan and Lori Grajek. Dan Grajek was one of David Armstrong�s best friends and a frequent evangelistic partner.
383. Joe Polgar. Polgar was Dan Grajek's longtime friend, who had long been estranged from Christianity.
384. Terri Navarra. Another friend of David Armstrong.
385. Jennifer McGlynn. The daughter of a friend of David Armstrong.
386. Lynn Nordhagen. Nordagen is one of the few converts who left Catholicism twice and came back twice. Her first departure from the Catholic Church in 1974 was after three years of marriage to a Pentecostal. She attended his independent charismatic church for ten years and raised her children in this church, but in 1984, returned to the Catholic Church and its sacraments, so notably lacking in the Pentecostal churches. Subsequently, however, she became actively involved in a Catholic meditation group and "Christian Zen" and other versions of New Age religion. A Presbyterian acquaintance convinced her that the Reformed tradition was better founded than the New Age religion she was immersed in and so in 1992, she had made a profession of Presbyterian faith, being firmly convinced of TULIP. Friction in the family was an issue again as she tried to convince her husband of double predestination and the other Reformed doctrines. In 1996, Surprised by Truth an anthology of eleven short convert biographies, called her back to Catholicism a second time. She has written the book, When Only One Converts, and maintains the website, Cor ad Cor.
387. Steven K. Ray. This former Baptist and his family converted in 1994. He has authored Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church and Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church, as well as the apologetics website, Defenders of the Catholic Faith. His story is also on the video, �Led by the Light of Truth.� He was prompted to inquire into Catholicism when his good friend, Al Kresta, converted in 1992.
388. Sean Forest. This convert-singer has recorded four CDs, which he distributes through a non-profit organization.
389. Rod Bennett. In 1996, this former Protestant converted to Catholicism. He has written and published a book, The Early Church in Her Own Words (2002), which uses the writings of the early Church fathers to demonstrate the continuity of the modern Catholic Church with the early Church.
390. Mark P. Shea. This former Evangelical recounts his conversion journey in By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition.
391. David B. Curie. This former Evangelical details his conversion journey in the book Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic.
392. James Akin. This former Presbyterian (PCA) maintains a website called Nazareth Resource Library.
393. Rick Ricciardi. This re-convert returned to the Catholic Church in which he was raised after decades with the Southern Baptists and the Assemblies of God. He runs an apostolate for those considering returning to the Church and runs the website Returning Home. His conversion story can be read at www.catholicity.com/cathedral/returninghome/mystory.html.
394. Lane Core, Jr. maintians a website called Lane's World Catholic Page.
395. Don Ross. See his Catholic Return homepage.
396. Kelvin Chia. Thie reconvert has a webpage, the Vin-Yard.
397. John D'Arcy. This convert, like many others, maintains a website of Catholic apologetics called 100% Catholic.
398. Kenneth J. Howell (converted in 1996). This former Presbyterian minister taught for seven years at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. His seminary course on biblical interpretation and the Eucharist led him to realize that �most Protestant conceptions of the Eucharist are deficient.� He entered the Catholic Church in 1996 and is now Adjunct Professor of the History of Science at Indiana University. He has founded the Network (cf. web.idirect.com/~ichthus/nor-1.htm), an organization to help Catholic converts.
399. Patricia Ireland. This woman (not the Ireland of NOW) left the Catholic Church for Lutheranism and pastored a thriving church in southern New Jersey. She became increasingly disillusioned with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which covers abortion as a health benefit for its clergy, and the witness of Pope John Paul II and the Church Fathers brought her back to the Church.
400. Fr. Ray Ryland and Ruth Ryland. Ray Ryland was raised in the Disciples of Christ; at Harvard Divinity School he and his wife became increasingly absorbed by the Unitarian teaching there. They transferred to Union Theological Seminary where they became Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians. Finally discontent with the subjectivism of Anglo-Catholicism, they inquired into Eastern Orthodoxy, but saw the same disunity there as in the Protestant denominations and the same restorationist fallacy. Readings of Newman and Karl Adams brought them the rest of the way to Catholicism. After six years as an Episcopalian minister and sixteen years of religious journey, the Rylands were received into the Catholic Church. After years of working as a theology professor at the University of San Diego, Ray Ryland was allowed to become a Latin rite Catholic priest despite be married as part of the Pope's Pastoral Provision for married Catholic laymen that were formerly Episcopalian ministers. Fr. Ryland recounts his and his wife's conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000). He is now chaplain for the Coming Home Network and Catholics United for the Faith.
401. John and Susan Gibson. John Gibson was raised in the Methodist church and reached high levels in the American Pagan and Wicca and Celtic Religion communities before the contradictions between ancient and modern paganism began to bother him. His wife had fallen away from the Catholic Church into which they were both received and their marriage sacramentalized in 1996. Mr. Gibson recounts his and his wife's conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
402. David Mills. Formerly an Episcopalian, Mills was impressed by the Catholic Church�s �clarity and confidence,� especially in her stand against abortion, something conspicuously absent from the Episcopal Church. Together with his family, he was received into the Church at Easter 2001. He has written Knowing the Real Jesus and is a senior editor of Touchtone magazine.
403. Tim Drake. This convert, formerly of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) was disturbed by the contradictory teachings of various Lutheran pastors and by the ELCA's moral sell-out on abortion and homosexuality and began the studies of doctrine which led to his conversion to Catholicism and reception into the Catholic Church in 1995. Drake recounts his conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
404. Dr. <<< Lowry. This convert was formerly a leading Canadian Presbyterian minister and clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada for 20 years, as well as a Presbyterian missionary in Nigeria. His journey began in the 1960s in a Baptist theological seminary, which he left to enroll in a Presbyterian seminary. He was received into the Catholic Church, together with his wife, after years of hovering on the edge of conversion, in 1993. He is the author of Findit Bible software.
405. Kevin and Kathi Lowry. Kevin Lowry, the son of a leading Presbyterian minister, attended a Christian and Missionary Alliance church with his wife for the early part of their marriage. Bothered by the ubiquitous contradictions in faith and practice among Protestants and the changes on the Protestant moral teaching on contraception since 1930 by a mere vote, he begin to become seriously interested in the Catholic Church. After resolving his intellectual questions, he and his wife were received into the Church in 1992. Mr. Lowry recounts his and his wife's conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
406. Laura Johnson. Johnson, raised a Methodist, went to confession in the midst of a teenage crisis of belief and received consolation and help which therapy and talks with her Protestant preacher had failed to give her. As a result of involvement in an ecumenical group in college, she visited mass with Catholic friends and was so drawn by the Eucharist that she began a study of Catholicism. Exposure to Catholic arguments in favor of Marian devotion and the Real Presence as well as the discovery of contradictions between modern Methodism and John Wesley's beliefs (including perpetual virginity of Mary and the impermissibility of contraception) led her further along the path of conversion. Johnson recounts her conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
407. Curtis Martin. This reconverted Catholic spent five years as an Evangelical Protestant. He is now president of Catholics United for the Faith, and comments �The Protestants [now] coming into the Church are the most devoted Protestants, people deeply committed to Scripture and prayer. We�re losing the numbers game but we are winning the quality game in spades.�
408. Eric Pavlat. Formerly a hardened pro-choice activist raised as a Unitarian Universalist, Pavlat became convinced of the error of his moral relativism by the witness of his Catholic wife, Wendy, and by reading the encyclicals Humanae Vitae, Veritas Splendor, and Evangelium Vitae. Further study of the history of Bible interpretation and discussion with his RCIA leader brought him to full conversion. He is now a third order Dominican. Pavlat recounts his conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
409. Martin Barrack (1943-). Barrack was a faithful Jew for 46 years before his conversion. At age 19, he met a Franciscan friar through ham-radio. He married a Catholic woman and they lived their separate faiths for twenty years before he began to become interested in Catholicism from his study of the Shroud of Turin and strange feelings of peace, the intensity of which was proportional to his proximity to the Catholic Church , which he experienced repeatedly. Two more years of study and prayer and a profound spiritual experience led to his final decision to convert; he was received into the Catholic Church in 1989.
410. Mark Brumley. This former Evangelical of California was led to the Catholic Church by his study of the Bible and search for the church �closest to the New Testament model.� He noted that the �immense disunity within evangelicalism told me it was not following the New Testament pattern�; likewise in the Orthodox churches, �there was no way of corralling the patriarchs since each patriarch was on an equal footing. That didn�t seem in keeping with the New Testament pattern, where Peter exercised a certain preeminence.� Brumley is now managing editor of �Catholic Dossier� and �The Catholic Faith.�
411. Jennifer Ferrara. This ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) minister in Pennsylvania was drawn to the Catholic Church by the contrast of ELCA compromise of sexual and life morality with Pope Paul II�s unapologetic insistence on the ancient teachings. She overcame initial difficulties with belief in the authority of the Magesterium through personal research.
412. Marcus and Marylin Grodi. Formerly a Presbyterian pastor, Marcus Grodi resigned when he could no longer be pastor when it was unclear who or what had the authority to decide Christian truth. He recounts, �Every Sunday I would stand in my pulpit and interpret Scripture for my flock, knowing that within a 15-mile radius there were dozens of other Protestant pastors�all of whom believed that the Bible alone is the sole authority for doctrine and practice�but each was teaching something different from what I was teaching.� A Scott Hahn lecture and reading Newman led him to the Catholic Church. Now Grodi is executive director of the Coming Home Network and host of the television program The Journey Home on EWTN. His conversion story is told alongside those of ten other converts in Surprised by Truth (ed. Madrid, Basilica Press 1994).
413. Robin Maas. Formerly a Methodist seminary professor, Mass saw in Catholic metaphysical teachings a sharp contrast to the general Protestant abdication of philosophical, and especially epistemological, issues. Maas is now Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C.
414. Jeffrey Finch. Finch was studying patristic history under Thomas Oden at Drew University when readings from Fr. Neuhaus surprised him with the truth �that the faith of the Fathers was still being taught, lived, and prayed in contemporary expression� in the Catholic Church. After eliminating Eastern Orthodoxy, Finch entered the Church in 1995, convinced that �Only the Catholic faith has demonstrated itself to be living, dynamic, and capable of authentic development without falling victim to novel, extraneous accretions from purely human tradition.�
415. Thomas Levergood. This man was led to the Catholic Church while considering a vocation to the Episcopal priesthood. The contrast between Protestant moral compromise and Catholic loyalty to traditional morality was decisive for him. Now he is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Chicago and has recently co-founded the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago, dedicated to developing Catholic intellectual and spiritual life among academics faithful to the magisterium.
416. Dr. Robert Wilken. Wilken was a renowned University of Virginia church historian before conversion to Catholicism.
417. Daniel Ali. This convert from Islam has co-authored with Patrick Madrid An Introduction to Islam: A Catholic Answer to the Call of the Minaret.
418. Brad Wilcox. Wilcox was an evangelical Episcopal in Northern Virginia before he converted and was received into the Catholic Church (1995). Later he served as editor-in-chief of Regeneration Quarterly.
419. Dwight Longenecker. This author and former Evangelical Protestant studied theology for three years in Oxford, was ordained in the Anglican Church, and finally converted to Catholicism in 1995 with his family. His books include The Path to Rome, Listen, My Son, and Challenging Catholics. A resident of England, he serves in the St. Barnabas Society, an organization for Protestant ministers considering conversion to Catholicism (National Catholic Register, Vol.78, No.14).
420. Rosalind Moss. Moss was raised in Judaism, then converted to Evangelical Protestantism, in which she ministered for 18 years. Her brother, David, converted before her and she tried for 14 years to persuade him to leave the Catholic Church until she herself decided to enter the Catholic Church c.2000. She speaks often on Catholic radio (National Catholic Register, Vol.78, No.12).
421. David Moss. Moss was raised in Judaism, then converted to Baptism in 1978, and finally to Catholicism in 1979. His sister, Rosalind, tried for 14 years to persuade him to leave the Catholic Church until she herself decided to enter the Catholic Church c.2000 (National Catholic Register, Vol.78, No.12).
422. Kristine and Marty Franklin. These converts dedicated eight years to preparation to be Evangelical missionaries to Guatemala. Once there, their realizations of the irrelevance of a book-religion to illiterate people, the inescapable American character of Evangelicalism, and the chaos of Protestant sects led them to a crisis of not knowing what gospel they were missionaries of and hence to resign the mission. They attended an Episcopal church for some time before they and their two children were received into the Catholic Church in 1995. They recount their conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
423. Jeff Childers. While an assistant minister in the Church of Christ, Childers began to read the Church Fathers, who convinced him that the early Christian Church was the Catholic Church. He was received into the Church in 1998 and is preparing for the priesthood. He recounts his conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
424. The Dutchess of Kent. This recent convert to the Catholic Church is mentioned in First Things magazine.
425. Donald Jacob Uitvlugt. This theology graduate student at Notre Dame converted partially as a result of reading Benson.
426. Julie Ann. This woman traveled the long road of Anglican to Mormon to irreligious to Catholic. Read her Personal Witness.
427. Carolyn and Erwin Kollegger. Carolyn Kollegger, best known as a television model and Miss Ohio USA 1979, was raised a Catholic but strayed far from Christianity and even had three abortions. A failed marriage, guilt over the abortions, and the emptiness of wealth and fame led she and her husband to the Catholic Church. Mr. Kollegger had his vasectomy reversed and they now have four children; Mrs. Kollegger is a non-working mom and recount her and her husband's conversion story in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
428. Mary Beth and Stan Kremski. Baptized and raised in the Catholic Church, Mary Beth Kremski left Christianity altogether for some time before returning to Christ and attending an Assemblies of God church. Her curiosity about where were the apostles of Ephesians 4:11-12 ultimately converted her back to the Catholic Church. Her husband converted later. Mrs. Kremski describes their conversion journey in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000).
429. John Michael Talbot. Talbot had already achieved fame as a Christian singer/songwriter in Evangelical circles before he converted to Catholicism.
430. Carl and Heather Olson. Olson was raised Fundamentalist and went to an Evangelical Bible College where he was taught to oppose Atheism, Catholicism, and Mormonism. His study of Church history convinced him that �not only was the early Church not Protestant, it was distinctly Catholic in its teachings, liturgy and worship!� Read their testimony at web.idirect.com/~ichthus/whycath.html.
431. Steven M. Clifford. This former-Mormon describes his conversion journey at Mormon Finds New Home in Catholic Church and in Surprised by Truth 2 (ed. Madrid, Sophia Institute Press 2000). His attempt to demonstrate the truth of Mormonism in mid life ultimately brought him to reject Mormonism and embrace the Catholic faith. In 1994, he was received into the Catholic Church. For a shorter autobiographical account, see Envoy, Vol 2.3 (http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/2.3/story3.html).
432. Sara McLaughlin. This English professor at Texas Tech University was raised a Southern Baptist, and began attending Episcopalian parishes as a teenager. Over time she became increasingly convinced that the the Episcopalians had only �the form of Catholicism, but lacked the substance,� and moreover, that the Catholic Church alone was faithful to tradition insisted on taking the high road in morality. For a time, she remained in the Episcopal Church due to her husband�s preferences, but finally converted after meeting Peter Kreeft and Thomas Howard and was received into the Church in 1996. She has written Meeting God in Silence (Tyndale, 1993). For an autobiographical account, see Envoy, Vol 2.4 (http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/2.4/story1.html).
433. Chris and Janine LaRose. Their Conversion Story is on the web.
434. Christopher Bennett. Read his Theological Pilgrimage.
435. Kenneth R. Guindon. This former-Mormon convert describes his conversion in The King's Highway--El Camino Real: God's Highway to Peace and Happiness. Found Again After Detours on Jehovah's Witness and Protestant Paths (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996).
436. Gary Hoge. Hoge was an atheist who became a Baptist and finally a Catholic. He has put up a humorous apologetics site, A Protestant's guide to the Catholic Church, offering reasoned argument for evangelical Christians. Covers such matters as the bible and Catholics, salvation (faith/works), devotion to Mary, the Church and other areas of controversy.
437. Thomas W. Case. Case�s spiritual pilgrimage is recounted in his book Moonie, Buddhist, Catholic: a Spiritual Odyssey (1995).
438. John Green Hanning �Brother Joachim.� This Kentucky man became a famous Trappist monk at Gethsemane Abbey. Read about him in Raymond�s The Man Who Got Even With God.
439. Virginia Laudano. This convert from Presbyterianism is an artist who has recently depicted the tragedy of Sept 11, 2001. Read about her in the National Catholic Register.
440. Sir Joseph Pope. This Canadian civil servant of the early 20^th century wrote, Why I Became a Catholic.
441. Adrienne von Speyr. Speyr, a physician, is known for her friendship with the Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, who wrote about her in his book, A First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr.
442. Fr. John Corapi. Corapi, a former millionaire and Las Vegas playboy, gave up his riches to take vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience as a Catholic priest. He has written about his conversion in The Darkness Will Not Prevail.
443. Alex Jones. Jones, a Pentecostal pastor, led his congregation into the Catholic Church. His story can be seen on the video, �No Price Too High.�
444. Fr. Louis Bouyer. Bouyer, a convert from Lutheranism, was a member of the Oratory, a religious community founded by St. Philip Neri.
445. Bob Fishman. Formerly a Jew, Fishman founded Torah of Christ Ministries. His story is on the video, �Led by the Light of Truth 2.�
446. Thomas Smith. This former Mormon missionary has become a Catholic seminarian. His story is on the video, �Led by the Light of Truth 2.�
447. Johnnette Benkovic. His story is on the video, �Led by the Light of Truth.�
448. Tim Staples. He was raised a Baptist and served as a youth minister with the Assemblies of God. A Marine defended Catholicism to him and he soon became convinced that he was intellectually obliged to convert to Catholicism. He is now a full-time evangelist, talk-show host, author, and national speaker. His story is on the video, �Led by the Light of Truth.�
449. Bishop Curtis of Wilmington, Delaware. This former Anglican began his conversion journey when he went to a Catholic rector to confess his sins because his Anglican bishop refused to hear his confession; from the rector he learned that Anglican orders were invalid and eventually converted to Catholcism.
450. Gerry Matatics. This former Presbyterian was known for his anti-Catholic controversial works and converted in 1986.
451. John-David Black. This former Evangelical Protestant felt led by God to undertake a 700-mile pilgrimage on foot through the California missions. During his pilgrimage, he was drawn to the Catholic Church. He has written about his conversion in his book, Mission Accomplished: An Incredible Personal Pilgrimage.
452. John L. Stoddard. Stoddard�s was raised a Calvinist and entered a seminary with the goal of becoming a missionary. Instead, seminary exposed him to the chaos of uncertainty in Protestant doctrine and he became an agnostic. Forty year later, the crisis of World War I prompted him to renew his religious searching and finally to convert to Catholicism. Read his story in Rebuilding a Lost Faith (Roman Catholic Books).
453. Alfonse Ratsibonne. A non-observant Jew and wealthy banker, Ratsibonne was violently anti-Catholic until the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him. His conversion to Catholicism caused a small sensation in 1842. Read more in The Conversion of Ratsibonne (Roman Catholic Books).
454. Robert Edward Dell. An English convert.
455. Stephen A. Douglas. This convert served as a judge and U.S. senator from Illinois, though he is best known as the rival who lost the 1860 presidential race against Lincoln.
456. Governor Bissell. This convert was best known for his term as governor of Illinois.
457. Justice Mulkey. This convert served on the Supreme Court.
458. Sabina Katharina. As heiress of the Countship of Rietberg, he conversion regained Rietberg for Catholicism. She married the fellow-convert John III of East Freisland.
459. John III of East Freisland. The grandson of King Gustavus Vasa, he married Sabrina Katharina, Countess of Rietberg.
460. Elizabeth of Rietberg. The ruler of Buren, she converted in 1613. Her son Moritz joined the Jesuits and donated his inheritance to the order.
461. Rhugius. This convert from the Lutheran Church of Norway was permitted to remain in his homeland, but prohibited from exercising his office.
462. Orby Shipley. This convert from Protestantism edited a publication (1870) of St. Ignatius Loyola�s Spiritual Exercises.
463. J. V. Huntington.
464. F.E. White.
465. Donald McLeod.
466. Matthew Thompson. A Stanford graduate and student of divinities at Harvard, Thompson was raised agnostic and converted to Catholicism as a young adult.
467. David Beutel. A Stanford graduate and teacher-missionary, Beutel was raised Evangelical Protestant and was received into the Church in 1998 at age 21.
468. Noelle Husen. A Stanford graduate and student of medicine at the University of Washington, Husen was raised agnostic and converted to Catholicism as a young adult.
469. Krista Duttenhaver. A Princeton graduate and student of divinities at Claremont and Notre Dame, Duttenhaver was raised Methodist and converted to Catholicism as a young adult.
470. Cody {. Raised a Southern Baptist, { converted to Catholicism while a theology student at Claremont.
471. Elizabeth Altham. A former corporate speech writer and a convert.
472. Jeffrey Rubin. A former editor of Sursum Corda and a Jewish convert to Catholicism.
473. Barbara Hall. Raised in a strict Methodist home, Hall became famous as a television writer and producer for CBS. During college, she abandoned Christianity and experimented with Eastern religions and spirituality in the following years. Later she converted to Catholicism years later, having discovered that �church is about Communion.�
474. Jeb Bush. Governor of Florida and son of former President George Bush, Jeb Bush was received into the Catholic Church in 1995. His Mexican-born wife, Columba, was a key influence, but he did not begin to explore Catholicism until he experienced a personal crisis: defeat in the gubernatorial election of 1994 after an obsessive campaign which nearly destroyed his marriage.
475. Michael Cumbie. This former International Charismatic Pentecostal minister now gives talks to help Protestants overcome misunderstandings of Catholicism.
476. Paul Dupre. This former Mormon spent 11 years in Taiwan as a Mormon missionary before lapsing into atheism. Eventually, he was received into the Catholic Church.
477. Karen Edmisten. This writer�s conversion story was printed in the May-June issue of This Rock.
478. Sherry Weddell. Formerly an Evangelical Protestant, Wedell converted to Catholicism during her studies at the Fuller Seminary School of World Mission. More recently, she co-founded the Catherine of Siena Insitute, a Catholic organization aimed at lay formation.
479. Etsuro Sotoo. This Japanese sculptor converted to Catholicism after being impressed by Barcelona�s Sagrada Familia Cathedral.
480. W. Michael Westbrook. Since converting to Catholicism Westbrook, formerly a Protestant seminarian, has contributed to the New Oxford Review and works as Assistant Professor of Library Sciences at Illinois College.
481. Anthony L. Gerring. A convert from the Lutheran Church�Missouri Synod, Gerring is a father of four and a contributor to the New Oxford Review.
482. Dennis Marcellino. This musician performed with such bands as the The Electric Flag, Creation (with Leon Patillo), Sly & The Family Stone, The Elvin Bishop Group, Rubicon, and The Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight") before converting to Catholicism. He is now a speaker on Catholicism. Read more at http://www.adlighthouse.com/testimony.html.
483. Marylynn Kramer. The daughter of a Pentecostal radio preacher, Kramer and her husband became missionaries in Columbia with the Assemblies of God. She converted to Catholicism in 1972 and founded a Catholic Charismatic Renewal organization called Charisma in Missions in Hacienda Hills, California. Charisma in Missions grew to become the largest Latino Charismatic organization in the USA.
484. Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. Harrison, an Australian, converted to Catholicism from Presbyterianism. He is now a theology professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico.
485. Fr. W. Ray Williams. After years as an English teacher in Nepal, Williams was received into the Catholic Church in 1989 and entered the seminary in 1992 and now works as a diocesan priest in North Carolina.
486. Fr. Christopher Phillips. This former Episcopalian priest converted to Catholicism and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1983 along with sixteen other Episcopalian priests. He is now pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement, an �Anglican-Use� Rite parish in San Antonio, Texas. Married for 35 years and the father of five, Phillips states that he would have converted even if the special papal dispensation had not been granted for his ordination. His conversion was prompted by the great moral compromise of ECUSA, especially on abortion.
487. John M. Haas. This former Episcopalian clergyman converted to Catholicism and has written such works as Marriage and the Priesthood (New Rochelle, NY: Scepter Press, 1987).
488. Shannon Naughton. Raised in Lutheran and Baptist churches, Naughton was received into the Catholic Church in 1997. Since then, she has become known as the �Rosary Lady,� a title that refers to her apostolate of rosary production and distribution.
489. William McCool (d.2003). Married to a Catholic, McCool later converted. A naval pilot, he later flew on the space shuttle and was killed in the Columbia disaster on January 16, 2003.
490. Francis Bethel. Bethel converted to Catholicism while a student in the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas. He later entered a French monastery at Solesmes and opened the first American branch of the monastery in Oklahoma.
491. Phil Nielsen. Raised a Baptist, Nielsen converted to Catholicism while an undergraduate at Hillsdale College. He plans to enter the priesthood.
492. Ola Tjorhom. This theologian, a leading figure in the Lutheran Church of Norway, an ecumenical leader, and professor of Lutheran dogmatics, became a member of the Catholic Church in January 2003. His decision surprised many in the Church of Norway and required him to give up his classes in Lutheran dogmatics. His decision to convert stemmed from �a certain disappointment concerning the development of the Lutheran church,� especially with respect to ecclesiology and sacramental theology.
493. Carl Olson. This former Fundamentalist has written a critique of popular Protestant eschatology entitled Will Catholics Be Left Behind? (Ignatius).
494. Myron Moskowitz. This convert from Judaism has been featured on Grodi�s Journey Home television program.
495. Norma McCorvey. Better known by the pseudonym, �Jane Roe,� McCorvey was the woman whose case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, resulting in the legalization of abortion throughout the USA. Since then, she converted to Catholicism.
496. Ray Campbell. This South African poet studied at Oxford and later translated the works of St. John of the Cross. He and his wife converted to Catholicism while living in Spain in the years before the Spanish Civil War. During WWII, Campbell served in the British army. His life story is retold in Joseph Pierce�s Bloomsbury and Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell.
497. Senator Sam Brownback. This Republican U.S. senator from Kansas was received into the Church in 2002 at age 45. He is known for his strong stands against abortion and creating embryos for stem-cell harvesting. He and his wife, Mary, have five children. He previously belonged to the United Methodist Church.
498. Robert Novak. This Washington D.C. columnist economist was received into the Church in 2003 by Fr. C. John McCloskey III, who also influenced Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Kudlow to conversion.
499. Lawrence Kudlow. This Washington D.C. columnist was received into the Church in 2003 by Fr. C. John McCloskey III, who also influenced Bernard Nathanson and Robert Novak to conversion.
500. Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujilo. President of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
501. John Gummer, M.P. The former Anglican is a member of the British Parliament.
502. Linda Poindexter. Formerly an Episcopalian priestess, she is now a Catholic.
503. William Oddie. Mr. Oddie�s was received into the Catholic Church on Easter Vigil 1991 after a long journey from Congregationalism, through atheism, the Anglican priesthood, and the Anglo-Catholic branch of the Church of England. Mr. Oddie became convinced that Anglo-Catholicism was a fantasy world when the Anglican Church�s decided to take upon itself the authority to ordain women. He chose not to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood under the dispensation for married Anglican priests because as an Anglican priest, he had felt unable to be both a good husband and a good priest. His book, What Will Happen to God? Feminism and the Reconstruction of Christian Belief (1984) is one of the best critiques of feminist theology. He is editor of London�s The Catholic Herald and has written an introduction to Newman�s Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
504. {

Anglo-Catholic Converts: These converts were on the doorstep of Rome.

1. T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888-1965). This literary giant of the early 20^th century, famous for his poem The Waste Land (1922), shocked the intellectual world by his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in 1927. Eliot was very critical of the Anglican bishops� capitulation on contraception in 1930.
2. C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898-1963). Lewis, undoubtedly the most widely read and respected Christian writer of the later 20^th century, was the son of an Anglican clergyman, but became an atheist very early in life. He studied at Oxford and converted to Christianity in 1931. His conversion, as recounted in his autobiography Surprised by Joy, had two stages: atheism to theism and theism to Christianity. Catholic converts Tolkein and Chesterton influenced his conversion. In 1955, Lewis was elected Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalen College, Cambridge. In 1956, he married Joy Davidman Gresham in a secret civil ceremony because the British Home Office would otherwise have refused to continue her residency permit. In 1957 married her in a church ceremony at her hospital bed, where she was dying of bone cancer (she died in 1960). Lewis died on November 22, 1963, the same day as President Kennedy and writer Aldous Huxley. His famed children's books include The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) and Prince Caspian (1951). His classic Christian books include Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed, The Pilgrim�s Regress, The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, The Four Loves, The Weight of Glory, and Reflections on the Psalms. His theological science fiction includes Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

Convert-Reverts: In the interest of objectivity, we include several notable converts who either reverted to their pre-Catholic beliefs or else embraced some other heresy.

1. Tatian. This second-century apologist converted c.150. He was repelled by pagan grossness and immorality and attracted by Christian holiness and simplicity. Tatian apostatized, joining the Encratite sect of Gnostics c.172.
2. Montanus. After conversion, he founded his own sect, the Montanists, and refused to submit to the authority of the Church.
3. Tertullian. Tertullian, after his Catholic period, became involved in the fanatical Montanist sect during the latter part of his life.
4. George Tyrell. Tyrell was a raised in an evangelical Anglican Irish family. He converted to Catholicism in 1879 at the age of 18 and was ordained a Jesuit priest shortly thereafter. Later he became involved in the Modernist heresy, denying hell and teaching, like Schleiemacher, that Christian doctrine was merely fallible commentary on religious experience. Such views were presented in �A Perverted Devotion� (1899), Medievalism (1908), and Christianity at the Crossroads (1909). Tyrell refused to recant, was excommunicated by Pope Pius X, and died unreconciled.
5. John Moore Capes. Capes, an Anglican who converted to Catholicism in 1845, founded the lay Catholic journal, the Rambler. He reverted to Anglicanism and wrote To Rome and Back.
6. St. George Mivart (1827-1900). Mivart, a British anatomist, converted to Catholicism in 1845. He later rejected the idea of continuity of Catholic development, espousing instead an evolutionary model. He refused to sign an orthodox profession of faith and was excommunicated in 1900, several months before his death, unreconciled.
7. Richard Gilman. Gilman converted from nominal Judaism after reading Etienne Gilson�s Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. He traveled from New York to Colorado to be received into the Church among people who did not know him and kept his conversion secret for some time. He wrote for such Catholic periodicals as Jubilee and Commonweal. Eventually, however, he succumbed to sexual temptation and renounced his faith. His religious path is described in his autobiography, Faith, Sex, Mystery (1986).

Allitt, Patrick, Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Baram, Robert, ed. Spiritual Journeys.
Benson, Robert Hugh. Confessions of a Convert.

Black, John-David. Mission Accomplished: An Incredible Personal Pilgrimage.

Case, Thomas W. Moonie, Buddhist, Catholic: a Spiritual Odyssey.

Chesterton, G.K. The Thing: Why I am a Catholic.

Chesterton, G.K. Autobiography.

Connor, Charles. Classic Catholic Converts. Includes 25 stories.

Corapi, John. The Darkness Will Not Prevail.

Curie, David. Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic.

Dulles, Avery. A Testimony to Grace.

Forrest. Chats with Converts: Complete Explanation and Proof of Catholic Belief.

Hahn, Scott and Kimberly. Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism.

Hecker, Isaac. The Diary.

Howard, Thomas, Lead, Kindly Light.

Lunn, Arnold. Now I See.

Knox, Ronald. Spiritual Aeneid.

Madrid, Patrick, ed. Surprised by Truth.

Madrid, Patrick, ed. Surprised by Truth 2.

Merton, Thomas. Seven Storey Mountain. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1978.

Muggeridge, Malcolm. Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim.

Muggeridge, Malcolm. Jesus Rediscovered.

Newman, John Henry. Apologia pro vita sua.

Noyes, Alfred. The Unknown God.

Guindon, Kenneth. The King's Highway--El Camino Real: God's Highway to Peace and Happiness. Found Again After Detours on Jehovah's Witness and Protestant Paths.

Pearce, Joseph. Literary Converts : Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief.

Pope, Joseph. Why I Became a Catholic.

Pridmore, John. From Gangland to Promised Land. Darton, Long and Todd.

Ray, Steven K. Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church.

Raymond, M. The Man Who Got Even With God.

Shea, Mark. By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition.

Stern, Karl. The Pillar of Fire.

Stoddard, John L. Rebuilding a Lost Faith.

Zolli, Eugenio. Before the Dawn.

_____. �Led by the Light of Truth� (video).

_____. �Led by the Light of Truth 2� (video).