Editing Deathbed conversion (section)

===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>}}