Editing Deathbed conversion (section)

== Notable deathbed conversions to Catholicism==

===Buffalo Bill===
[[Buffalo Bill]] was baptized Catholic one day before his death in 1917.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref>

===Charles II of England===
[[File:King Charles II by John Michael Wright or studio.jpg|thumb|right|180px|[[Charles II of England]], 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 [[Declaration of Indulgence (1672)|Royal Declaration of Indulgence]].  As he lay dying following a stroke, released of the political need, he was received into the Catholic Church.<ref>{{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}}</ref>

=== Jean de La Fontaine ===
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.<ref>{{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}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Sanctis1999">{{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}}</ref> He died in 1695.

=== Sir Allan Napier MacNab ===
[[Allan MacNab|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 ''[[The Globe and Mail|Toronto Globe]]'' and the ''[[Hamilton Spectator]]'' expressed strong doubts about the conversion, and the Anglican rector of [[Christ's Church Cathedral (Hamilton, Ontario)|Christ Church]] in Hamilton declared that MacNab died a [[Protestant]].<ref>{{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}}</ref> 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.<ref name=conversion>{{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
  }}</ref>

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

===Oscar Wilde===
[[File:Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony. Three-quarter-length photograph, seated.jpg|thumb|right|180px|[[Oscar Wilde]]]]
Author and wit [[Oscar Wilde]] converted to Catholicism during his final illness.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref name="Killeen2005">{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref> [[Robbie Ross|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."<ref>{{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 }}</ref> 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."<ref>{{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 }}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref> "My position is curious," Wilde epigrammatised, "I am not a Catholic: I am simply a violent Papist."<ref name="Frankel2017">{{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}}</ref>

In his poem ''Ballad of Reading Gaol'', Wilde wrote:

{{blockquote|<poem>
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?
</poem>}}

===John Wayne===

American actor and filmmaker [[John Wayne]], according to his son Patrick and his grandson Matthew Muñoz, who was a priest in the California [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange|Diocese of Orange]], converted to [[Roman Catholicism]] shortly before his death.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{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 }}</ref>