Deathbed conversion

File:Raphael Baptism Constantine.jpg, as imagined by students of Raphael]]

Conversions at the point of death have a long history. The first recorded deathbed conversion appears in the Gospel of Luke where the good thief, crucified beside Jesus, expresses belief in Christ. Jesus accepts his conversion, saying "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise".

Perhaps the most momentous conversion in Western history was that of Constantine I, Roman Emperor and later proclaimed a Christian Saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. While his belief in Christianity occurred long before his death, it was only on his deathbed that he was baptised, in 337 by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia,{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/storyofchristian01gonz/page/176 |title=The Story of Christianity Vol.1 |last=Gonzalez |first=Justo |publisher=Harper Collins |year=1984 |isbn=0-06-063315-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/storyofchristian01gonz/page/176 176]}}{{Cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05623b.htm |title=Eusebius of Nicomedia |access-date=18 February 2007 |encyclopedia=Catholic Encyclopedia}} While traditional sources disagree as to why this happened so late, modern historiography concludes{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} that Constantine chose religious tolerance as an instrument to bolster his reign. According to Bart Ehrman, all Christians contemporary to Constantine got baptized on their deathbed since they firmly believed that continuing to sin after baptism would ensure their eternal damnation.{{YouTube|xohkrxWCHyE|Smithsonian Part Four - Constantine and the Christian Faith}} Ehrman sees no conflict between Constantine's Paganism and him being a Christian.

Buffalo Bill was baptized Catholic one day before his death in 1917.{{cite book|last=Russell|first=Don|title=The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|year=1979|location=Oklahoma|page=469|isbn=978-1-4343-4148-8}}{{cite book|last=Weber|first=Francis J.|title=America's Catholic Heritage: Some Bicentennial Reflections, 1776–1976|publisher=University of Wisconsin|year=1979|location=Madison|page=49}}{{cite book|last=Mosesl|first=L.G.|title=The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill|publisher=University of New Mexico Press|year=1999|location=Albuquerque|page=193|isbn=978-0-8263-2089-6}}

File:King Charles II by John Michael Wright or studio.jpg, the penultimate Catholic monarch of England.]]

Charles II of England reigned in an Anglican nation at a time of strong religious conflict. Though his sympathies were at least somewhat with the Roman Catholic faith, he ruled as an Anglican, though he attempted to lessen the persecution and legal penalties affecting non-Anglicans in England, notably through the Royal Declaration of Indulgence. As he lay dying following a stroke, released of the political need, he was received into the Catholic Church.{{cite book|last=Hutton|first=Ronald|authorlink=Ronald Hutton|title=Charles II: King of England, Scotland, and Ireland|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1989|isbn=0-19-822911-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/charlessecondkin00hutt/page/443 443, 456]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/charlessecondkin00hutt/page/443}}

The most famous French fabulist published a revised edition of his greatest work, Contes, in 1692, the same year that he began to suffer a severe illness. Under such circumstances, Jean de La Fontaine turned to religion.{{cite web|url=http://www.jean-delafontaine.com/|title=Jean de La Fontaine Biography - Infos - Art Market|website=www.jean-delafontaine.com|access-date=6 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141217173746/http://jean-delafontaine.com/|archive-date=17 December 2014|url-status=live}} A young priest, M. Poucet, tried to persuade him about the impropriety of the Contes, and it is said that the destruction of a new play of some merit was demanded and submitted to as a proof of repentance. La Fontaine received the Viaticum, and the following years, he continued to write poems and fables.{{cite book|author=Sante De Sanctis|title=Religious Conversion: A Bio-psychological Study|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EXeMAA0gmk8C|year=1999|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-21111-6}} He died in 1695.

Sir Allan Napier MacNab, Canadian political leader, died 8 August 1862 in Hamilton, Ontario. His deathbed conversion to Catholicism caused a furor in the press in the following days. The Toronto Globe and the Hamilton Spectator expressed strong doubts about the conversion, and the Anglican rector of Christ Church in Hamilton declared that MacNab died a Protestant.{{Cite web

|last = King

|first = Nelson

|title = Alan Napier MacNab

|work = Soldier, Statesman, and Freemason Part 3

|date = 5 August 2009

|url = http://nelsonking.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=37

|accessdate = 2010-01-04

|url-status = dead

|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110706190407/http://nelsonking.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=37

|archivedate = 6 July 2011}} MacNab's Catholic baptism is recorded at St. Mary's Cathedral in Hamilton, performed by John, Bishop of Hamilton, on 7 August 1862. Lending credibility to this conversion, MacNab's second wife, who predeceased him, was Catholic, and their two daughters were raised as Catholics.{{Citation

| last = Dooner

| first = Alfred

| title = The Conversion of Sir Allan MacNab, Baronet (1798–1862)

| journal = Canadian Catholic Historical Association Report

| volume = 10

| pages = 47–64

| date = 1942–1943

| url = http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1942-43/Dooner.html

| access-date = 4 January 2010

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090210175042/http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1942-43/Dooner.html

| archive-date = 10 February 2009

| url-status = live

}}

In the last days before his death, French author Charles Maurras readopted the Catholic faith of his childhood and received the last rites.Lettre de l’abbé Giraud à Charles Forot, 4 July 1958, archives départementales de Privas, dossier 24J25

File:Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony. Three-quarter-length photograph, seated.jpg]]

Author and wit Oscar Wilde converted to Catholicism during his final illness.{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-vatican-wakes-up-to-the-wisdom-of-oscar-wilde-1750093.html|title=The Vatican wakes up to the wisdom of Oscar Wilde|date=17 July 2009|website=independent.co.uk|access-date=20 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918222015/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-vatican-wakes-up-to-the-wisdom-of-oscar-wilde-1750093.html|archive-date=18 September 2017|url-status=live}}{{cite book|author=J. Killeen|title=The Faiths of Oscar Wilde: Catholicism, Folklore and Ireland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-mSADAAAQBAJ|date=20 October 2005|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-0-230-50355-7}}{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/17/oscar-wilde-vatican-catholic-osservatore|title=The Catholic church learns to love Oscar Wilde - Martin Pendergast|first=Martin|last=Pendergast|date=17 July 2009|website=The Guardian|access-date=21 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180322081549/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/17/oscar-wilde-vatican-catholic-osservatore|archive-date=22 March 2018|url-status=live}}{{cite journal|title=Oscar Wilde's Catholic Aesthetics in a Secular Age|first=Joseph|last=McQueen|date=1 December 2017|journal=SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900|volume=57|issue=4|pages=865–886|doi=10.1353/sel.2017.0038|s2cid=148849343}} Robert Ross gave a clear and unambiguous account: "When I went for the priest to come to his death-bed he was quite conscious and raised his hand in response to questions and satisfied the priest, Father Cuthbert Dunne of the Passionists. It was the morning before he died and for about three hours he understood what was going on (and knew I had come from the South in response to a telegram) that he was given the last sacrament."{{Cite web |url=http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=9404 |title=Poetrymagazines.org.uk - Oscar Wilde: The Final Scene |access-date=4 December 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080604200359/http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=9404 |archive-date=4 June 2008 |url-status=live }} The Passionist house in Avenue Hoche, has a house journal which contains a record, written by Dunne, of his having received Wilde into full communion with the Church. While Wilde's conversion may have come as a surprise, he had long maintained an interest in the Catholic Church, having met with Pope Pius IX in 1877 and describing the Roman Catholic Church as "for saints and sinners alone – for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do". However, how much of a believer in all the tenets of Catholicism Wilde ever was is arguable: in particular, against Ross's insistence on the truth of Catholicism: "No, Robbie, it isn't true."{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-vatican-wakes-up-to-the-wisdom-of-oscar-wilde-1750093.html |title=The Vatican wakes up to the wisdom of Oscar Wilde – Europe, World |work=The Independent|date=17 July 2009 |accessdate=2009-11-15 |location=London |first1=Jerome |last1=Taylor |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918222015/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-vatican-wakes-up-to-the-wisdom-of-oscar-wilde-1750093.html |archive-date=18 September 2017 |url-status=live }}{{cite web|url=http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=9404|title=Oscar Wilde: The Final Scene|accessdate=2008-12-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080604200359/http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=9404|archive-date=4 June 2008|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0010.html|title=The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde|last=McCracken|first=Andrew|accessdate=2008-12-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501035245/http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0010.html|archive-date=1 May 2011|url-status=live}} "My position is curious," Wilde epigrammatised, "I am not a Catholic: I am simply a violent Papist."{{cite book|author=Nicholas Frankel|title=Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d4M4DwAAQBAJ|date=16 October 2017|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-98202-4}}

In his poem Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde wrote:

{{blockquote|

Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

}}

American actor and filmmaker John Wayne, according to his son Patrick and his grandson Matthew Muñoz, who was a priest in the California Diocese of Orange, converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his death.{{cite web |url=http://www.adherents.com/people/pw/John_Wayne.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051119121939/http://www.adherents.com/people/pw/John_Wayne.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=19 November 2005 |title=The religion of John Wayne, actor |publisher=Adherents.com |access-date=October 20, 2008}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.osv.com/osvnewsweekly/byissue/article/tabid/735/artmid/13636/articleid/14534/everyone-called-him-duke-john-waynes-conversion-to-catholicism.aspx|title=Everyone called him 'Duke': John Wayne's conversion to Catholicism|website=Our Sunday Visitor Catholic Publishing Company|access-date=June 10, 2018|archive-date=12 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612144020/https://www.osv.com/osvnewsweekly/byissue/article/tabid/735/artmid/13636/articleid/14534/everyone-called-him-duke-john-waynes-conversion-to-catholicism.aspx|url-status=dead}} Muñoz stated that Wayne expressed a degree of regret about not becoming a Catholic earlier in life, explaining "that was one of the sentiment he expressed before he passed on," blaming "a busy life."{{cite web |url=http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=9e13fe4d-3aac-4aec-abab-032cc267b317 |title=My granddaddy John Wayne |work=California Catholic Daily |first=David |last=Kerr |date=October 4, 2011 |access-date=October 4, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006041651/http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=9e13fe4d-3aac-4aec-abab-032cc267b317 |archive-date=October 6, 2011 }}

File:Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron, c. 1868.jpg died, rumours spread that he had converted to Christianity on his deathbed. His children denied this occurred.]]

One famous example is Charles Darwin's deathbed conversion in which it was claimed (in 1915) by Lady Hope that Darwin said:

"How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done." He went on to say that he would like her to gather a congregation since he "would like to speak to them of Christ Jesus and His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savoring the heavenly anticipation of bliss."{{cite web |url=http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/ladyhope.html#Autobiography |title=The Lady Hope Story: A Widespread Falsehood |publisher=Stephenjaygould.org |accessdate=2009-11-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070428181635/http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/ladyhope.html#Autobiography |archive-date=28 April 2007 |url-status=live }}

Lady Hope's story was printed in the Boston Watchman Examiner. The story spread, and the claims were republished as late as October 1955 in the Reformation Review and in the Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland in February 1957.

Lady Hope's story is not supported by Darwin's children. Darwin's son Francis Darwin accused her of lying, saying that "Lady Hope's account of my father's views on religion is quite untrue. I have publicly accused her of falsehood, but have not seen any reply." Darwin's daughter Henrietta Litchfield also called the story a fabrication, saying "I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. The whole story has no foundation whatever."{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hope.html |title=Lady Hope Story |publisher=Talkorigins.org |date=23 February 1922 |accessdate=2009-11-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012194435/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hope.html |archive-date=12 October 2009 |url-status=live }}

According to an obituary by the Glenwood Springs Ute Chief', Doc Holliday had been baptized in the Catholic Church shortly before he died. This was based on correspondence written between Holliday and his cousin, Sister Mary Melanie Holliday (a Catholic Nun), though no baptismal record has ever been found.{{cite book|last=Tanner|first=Karen Holliday|year=2001|title=Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press}}

King Edward VII of the U.K. is alleged by some to have converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed, with other accounts alleging he converted secretly two months before his death.{{Cite web|url=https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/a-king-in-heaven.863913|title = A king 'in heaven'| date=11 April 2021 }}The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince

The poet Wallace Stevens is said to have been baptized a Catholic during his last days suffering from stomach cancer.Maria J. Cirurgião, "Last Farewell and First Fruits: The Story of a Modern Poet". Lay Witness (June 2000). This account is disputed, particularly by Stevens's daughter, Holly,Peter Brazeau, Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered, New York, Random House, 1983, p. 295 and critic, Helen Vendler, who, in a letter to James Wm. Chichetto, thought Fr. Arthur Hanley was "forgetful" since "he was interviewed twenty years after Stevens' death."Chichetto/Vendler correspondence (8/24/09,8/28/09 and 9/2/09) concerning conversations with Dr. Edward Sennett, uncle of Chichetto's brother-in-law, W. J. Sennett. Dr. Sennett was a former head of the Oncology Dept. at St. Francis Hospital and in charge when Stevens was a patient there. Sennett knew Fr. Hanley and the nuns who worked at the hospital with Hanley. Archives of the Congregation of Holy Cross, American Province Archives Center, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

The accounts of Voltaire's death have been numerous and varying, and it has not been possible to establish the details of what precisely occurred. His enemies related that he repented and accepted the last rites from a Catholic priest, or that he died in agony of body and soul, while his adherents told of his defiance to his last breath.Peter Gay, The Enlightenment – An Interpretation, Volume 2: The Science of Freedom, Wildwood House, London, 1973, pp. 88–89.

After U.S. President George Washington died in 1799, rumors spread among his slaves that he was baptized Catholic on his deathbed. This story was orally passed down in African-American communities into the 20th Century, as well as among early Maryland Jesuits.{{cite web|last=Carlson|first=B.|title=Was George Washington a Catholic?|url=https://medium.com/catholicism-coffee/was-george-washington-a-catholic-catholicism-coffee-2527649ae59c|work=Catholicism Coffee|date=18 October 2021}} The Denver Register printed two pieces, in 1952 and 1957, discussing the possibility of this rumor, including the fact that an official inventory of Washington's personal belongings at the time of his death included 1 Likeness of Virgin Mary (an item unlikely to have been held by a Protestant).{{cite web|author=The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary|title=Slaves Held Washington Became a Catholic on His Deathbed|work=Catholicism.org|url=https://catholicism.org/washington-slaves.html|date=14 October 2008}} However, no definitive evidence has ever been found of a conversion, nor did any testimony from those close to Washington, including the Catholic Archbishop John Carroll, ever mention this occurring.

• Deathbed confession
• Björn Ironside
• Germaine de Staël
• Robert Stephen Hawker
• Bobby Jones (golfer)
• Shigeru Yoshida
• Mortimer J. Adler
• John von Neumann
• Kenneth Clark
• Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green
• Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington

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Category:Religious conversion

Category:Religion and death