List of converts to Catholicism

Converts

A

• Hank Aaron: American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball, from 1954 through 1976; regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He and his wife first became interested in the faith after the birth of their first child. A friendship with a Catholic priest later helped lead to Hank and his wife's conversion in 1959. He was known to frequently read Thomas à Kempis' 15th-century book The Imitation of Christ, which he kept in his locker.
• Greg Abbott: 48th Governor of Texas
• Creighton Abrams: U.S. Army General, converted while commanding US forces in Vietnam
• Vladimir Abrikosov: Russian who became an Eastern-rite priest; husband to Anna Abrikosova
• Anna Abrikosova: Russian convert to Eastern-rite Catholicism who was imprisoned by the Soviets
• John Adams: beatified person and Catholic martyr
• Mortimer J. Adler: American philosopher, educator, and popular author; converted from agnosticism, after decades of interest in Thomism
• Leo Africanus: Berber Andalusi Moorish diplomat and author who was converted to Christianity following his capture.
• Afonso I of Kongo: African king; although politically motivated he became quite pious
• Sohrab Ahmari: Iranian-American columnist, editor, and author of nonfiction books.
• Leo Allatius: Greek theologian
• Fanny Allen: daughter of Ethan Allen; became a nun
• Thomas William Allies: English writer
• Svetlana Alliluyeva: daughter of Joseph Stalin
• Mother Mary Alphonsa: daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, born "Rose Hawthorne"; became a nun and founder of St. Rose's Free Home for Incurable Cancer
• Veit Amerbach: Lutheran theologian and humanist before conversion
• William Henry Anderdon: English Jesuit and writer
• Władysław Anders: General in the Polish Army; later a politician with the Polish government-in-exile in London
• G. E. M. Anscombe: British analytical philosopher and theologian who introduced the term "consequentialism" into the English language. Wife of Peter Geach
• Princess Irene, Duchess of Aosta: Greek Princess who converted from Greek Orthodoxy in 1939.
• Francis Arinze: Nigerian Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Gavin Ashenden: English writer, broadcaster and theologian. Former Chaplain to the Queen and Episcopalian bishop. Converted in December 2019.
• Thomas Aufield: English priest and martyr
• Augustine of Hippo: theologian, philosopher, and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. He was raised by a Catholic Mother, Monica, but joined the Manichean sect before converting and being baptized into the Catholic faith at the age of 31.
• Augustus II the Strong: German Prince who was Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Converted from Lutheranism in 1697.

  B

• Johann Christian Bach: composer; youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach
• Thomas Bailey: royalist and controversialist; his father was Anglican bishop Lewis Bayly
• Beryl Bainbridge: English novelist
• Bessie Anstice Baker, Australian writer and philanthropist, author of A Modern Pilgrim's Progress
• Francis Asbury Baker: American priest, missionary, and social worker; one of the founders of the Paulist Fathers in 1858
• Josephine Bakhita: Sudanese-born former slave; became a Canossian Religious Sister in Italy, living and working there for 45 years; in 2000 she was declared a saint
• Banine: French writer of Azeri descent
• Daniel Barber: An American priest of the Episcopal Church before his conversion to Catholicism
• Maurice Baring: English intellectual, writer, and war correspondent
• Mark Barkworth: English Catholic priest, martyr, and beatified person
• Barlaam of Seminara: involved in the Hesychast controversy as an opponent to Gregory Palamas, possibly a revert
• Arthur Barnes: formerly an Anglican priest, who became a Catholic writer and the first Catholic chaplain of both Cambridge and Oxford Universities
• Edwin Barnes: formerly an Anglican bishop
• Joan Bartlett: foundress of the Servite Secular Institute
• Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg: British princess who became Queen consort of Spain; converted in 1906 from Anglicanism.
• James Roosevelt Bayley: first bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark and eighth Archbishop of Baltimore
• Aubrey Beardsley: English illustrator and author; before his death, converted to Catholicism and renounced his erotic drawings
• Francis J. Beckwith: American philosopher, Baylor University professor, and former president of the Evangelical Theological Society; technically a revert
• Jean Mohamed Ben Abdeljlil: Moroccan scholar and Catholic priest
• Benedict Mar Gregorios: Metropolitan Archbishop of Trivandrum, 1955–1994
• Peter Benenson: founder of human rights group Amnesty International
• Robert Hugh Benson: English writer and theologian; son of an Archbishop of Canterbury
• Elizabeth Bentley: former Soviet spy who defected to the West; was converted by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Bernard Berenson: American art historian specializing in the Renaissance.
• Mary Kay Bergman: American voice actress
• Bernardo the Japanese: one of the first Japanese people to visit Europe
• Jiao Bingzhen: painter and astronomer
• Conrad Black: Canadian-born historian, columnist, UK peer, and convicted felon for fraud; his conviction was overturned subsequently on appeal
• Tony Blair: former prime minister of the United Kingdom; converted 22 December 2007, after stepping down as prime minister
• Cherry Boone: daughter of devoutly evangelical Christian entertainer Pat Boone; she went public about her battle with anorexia nervosa
• John Wilkes Booth: 19th-century actor; assassin of President Abraham Lincoln; his sister Asia Booth asserted in her 1874 memoir that Booth, baptized an Episcopalian at age 14, had become a Catholic; for the good of the Church during a notoriously anti-Catholic time in American history, Booth's conversion was not publicized
• Robert Bork: American jurist and unsuccessful nominee to the United States Supreme Court; converted to Catholicism in 2003; his wife was a former Catholic nun
• Louis Bouyer: French theologian; converted to Catholicism in 1939
• Jim Bowie: American pioneer, slave smuggler and trader, and soldier who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. Bowie was baptized in San Antonio on April 28, 1828, sponsored by the alcalde of the town, Juan Martín de Veramendi, and his wife, Josefa Navarro. His conversion was to take advantage of a land grant
• John Randal Bradburne: warden of the leper colony at Mutoko, Rhodesia and a candidate for canonization
• William Maziere Brady: Irish historian and journalist, formerly a Church of Ireland priest
• Elinor Brent-Dyer: English writer
• Alexander Briant: one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales
• John Broadhurst: formerly an Anglican bishop; also a revert
• Heywood Broun: sportswriter, columnist, author; was converted by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
• George Mackay Brown: Scottish poet, author and dramatist from the Orkney Islands
• Sam Brownback: Governor of Kansas
• Orestes Brownson: American writer
• Dave Brubeck: American jazz musician
• Elizabeth Bruenig: American journalist working as an opinion writer for The Atlantic.
• David-Augustin de Brueys: French theologian and dramatist
• John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick: German Prince who was duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, converted in 1651 from Lutheranism.
• Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel: German Princess who became Holy Roman Impress, converted in 1708 from Lutheranism.
• Ismaël Bullialdus: French astronomer; converted from Calvinism and became a Catholic priest
• Andrew Burnham: formerly an Anglican bishop
• Jeb Bush: American politician, forty-third Governor of Florida
• Thomas Byles: priest who died serving others on the RMS ''Titanic''

  C

• Roy Campbell: South-African-born, English-based poet
• Abigail Campbell Kawānanakoa: Politician and Princess of Hawaii; she converted from Anglicanism in 1900.
• Edmund Campion: Jesuit martyr who wrote Decem Rationes, which denounced Anglicanism; one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales
• Alexis Carrel: French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912
• Rianti Cartwright: Indonesian actress, model, presenter and VJ; two weeks before departure to the United States to get married, Rianti left the Muslim faith to become a baptized Catholic with the name Sophia Rianti Rhiannon Cartwright
• Hansen Clarke: American politician and former U.S. Congressman. He converted from Islam.
• Kenneth Clark: British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. Converted shortly before his death.
• G.K. Chesterton: British writer, journalist and essayist, known for his Christian apologetics Orthodoxy, Heretics and The Everlasting Man
• Djibril Cissé: French international footballer
• Wesley Clark: U.S. Army General; former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO; candidate for Democratic nomination for President in 2004
• Buffalo Bill Cody: American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. Converted the day before his death
• Stephen Colbert: American comedian, writer, actor, political commentator, and host of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert: he was raised in a religious household, later to depart to atheism in his youth. However, in his twenties, he returned, having a powerful conversion to Catholicism
• Emily Coleman: American-born writer; lifelong compulsive diary keeper
• Henry James Coleridge: son of John Taylor Coleridge; became a priest
• James Collinson: artist who briefly went back to Anglicanism in order to marry Christina Rossetti
• Constantine the African: Tunisian doctor who converted from Islam and became a Benedictine monk
• Tim Conway: American comedian; converted to Catholicism because he said he liked the way the Church is structured
• Gary Cooper: American actor who converted to the Church late in life, saying, "that decision I made was the right one"
• Frederick Copleston: English historian of philosophy and Jesuit priest
• Gerty Cori: Czech-American biochemist who became the third woman, and first American woman, to win a Nobel Prize in science, and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Richard Crashaw: English poet; son of a staunch anti-Catholic father