7 famous people you probably didn't know were Catholic

Obi-Wan Kenobi?! Jedi knights are secret Catholics? Well, no... but Sir Alec Guinness, who portrayed Obi-Wan in the first of the Star Wars trilogies, was a devout Catholic, confirmed in the Church on 24 March 1956.

The Fathers [or Father? Ed.] who write the Traditio blog, from which the following list was taken, tell us that Sir Alec was not a "cradle Catholic", and was actually known for his anti-clericalism and anti-Romanism. But something happened to him during the filming in France, in 1954, of Father Brown, the story of a priest-detective based on the books of Catholic author G.K. Chesterton -- a favourite of Walt's Agent 9.

In his autobiography, Blessings in Disguise,  Sir Alec writes "By the time dusk fell, I was bored and, dressed in my priestly black, I climbed the gritty winding road to the village.... I hadn't gone far when I heard scampering footsteps and a piping voice calling, 'Mon père!' My hand was seized by a boy of seven or eight, who clutched it tightly, swung it and kept up a non-stop prattle.... Although I was a total stranger, he obviously took me for a priest and so to be trusted. Suddenly with a 'Bonsoir, mon père,' and a hurried sideways sort of bow, he disappeared through a hole in the hedge.... Continuing my walk I reflected that a Church which could inspire such confidence in a child, making its priests, even when unknown, so easily approachable could not be as scheming and creeping as so often made out [in Britain]. I began to shake off my long-taught, long-absorbed, prejudices [against Roman Catholicism]."

What eventually made Sir Alec Guinness decide, two years later, to convert to the True Faith was a miracle and a "personal encounter" with God. His only child Matthew contracted polio at the age of 11 and was at risk of dying. Sir Alec began visiting a Catholic church and prayed that if his son survived, he and his family would join the Catholic Church. His prayers were answered, and his son recovered from the almost-fatal illness. Sir Alec was as good as his word, and fulfilled his vow. From 1956 until the day he died at age 86 in 2000, he remained a traditional Catholic. A year after he converted, his wife followed him, and his son also joined the Church and was sent to a Jesuit school.

According to Traditio, other noted converts to traditional Catholicism have been:
* Actor Gary Cooper
* Actor Vincent Price
* Actor John Wayne, on his deathbed
* Irish playwright and confirmed bachelor Oscar Wilde, who made a Sacramental Confession and received Extreme Unction
* Composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who had been baptized as a baby, but had fallen from the Faith; he called for a priest and received Extreme Unction on his deathbed
and... believe it or not...
* George Washington -- yes, the George Washington -- who, although known to be a Freemason, was probably baptized on his deathbed by a Jesuit priest from the church across the river, which the President had been known to slip into, on occasion, to hear Holy Mass.

Walt notes with sadness that the Catholic Church into which these seven famous people were received was not the so-called Catholic Church which we know today. It was the traditional, pre-Vatican II Church, that cherished and taught the Faith of our Fathers, the truths taught to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when he walked among us. Nowadays, the true Catholic Faith is to be found not in the Vatican, but in the minds and hearts of the remnant of traditional Catholic bishops, priests and laypeople, who may well pray that Pope Francis may experience a similar conversion -- the sooner the better.