List of former Catholics

Former Catholics or ex-Catholics are people who used to be Catholic for some time, but no longer identify as such. This includes both individuals who were at least nominally raised in the Roman Catholic faith, and individuals who converted to it in later life, both of whom later rejected and left it, or converted to other faiths (including the related non-Roman Catholic faiths). This page lists well-known individuals in history who are former Catholics.

One 2008 Pew Research Center study estimates that 10.1% of people in the United States describe themselves as former Catholics in some sense, in total the study reports that 44% of Americans profess a different religious affiliation than the one they were raised in. A majority converted to another religion while a substantial minority are counted as currently unaffiliated.[1]

Note: The list includes those who leave the Catholic Church including any Eastern Catholic Church which is in communion with it. People such as Eddie Doherty, who were allowed to transfer from the Latin Catholic Church to an Eastern Catholic church, or vice versa are not considered as "former Roman Catholics", while Eastern Catholics who convert to a non-Catholic church or another religion are considered as such, even though Eastern Catholics do not typically refer to themselves as "Roman".

Individuals who converted to other churches, denominations and faiths

Eastern Orthodoxy

Anglicanism and churches in communion

Independent Catholic churches

Christian Science

Mormonism

Protestantism

Calvinism

John Calvin, founder of Calvinism.

Lutheranism

Pentecostalism

Seventh-day Adventism

Other Protestant

Gottgläubigkeit

The gottgläubig movement was an officially sanctioned unorganised religion in Nazi Germany. Several prominent Nazi leaders started leaving their Catholic or Protestant churches over the course of 1936 as an act of political protest after a gradual worsening of relations with the churches, whom they accused of meddling in Germany's internal affairs. The Gottgläubigen stressed they still believed in a creator-God who guided the German nation, and rejected atheism and irreligion. The movement disappeared shortly after World War II.

Other former Catholics

Magdi Allam, left Islam for Catholicism, then left Catholicism.
  • Anne Rice, American writer, converted from Roman Catholicism and made this official through several messages on her website on 29 July 2010. She no longer wishes to be referred to as a ‘Christian’, though retains her belief in Christ, disagreeing with various positions of the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Magdi Allam, Egyptian–Italian journalist who publicly converted from Sunni Islam to Catholicism in 2008, baptised by Pope Benedict XVI himself. He left the Catholic Church dissatisfied after the election of Pope Francis in 2013, primarily because he thought the Church failed to take a tough stance against Islam; he remained a Christian, however.[13]

Buddhism

Islam

Judaism

Kabbalism

Raëlism

Scientology

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in May 2009

Debatable

This section lists some who, while adopting ideas that some others would consider incompatible with the Catholic faith, may have defected from the Church neither by a formal act nor even informally by an act of heresy, schism or apostasy. Mere attendance at services of another religion or adoption of certain meditation techniques need not signify abandonment of one's own religion. According to a 2009 survey of the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion and Public Life, one in five American Catholics report that they at times attend places of worship other than the local Catholic parish (which does not have to mean non-Catholic places). The same survey noted that some Catholics incorporate "yoga as a spiritual practice", emphasize psychics, and draw on and involve themselves in other religious movements.[32]

The religious views of Adolf Hitler are heavily disputed.

Atheism, agnosticism, or non-religious

Marie Curie, double Nobel Prize winner

This section contains people who rejected Catholicism in favor of a non-religious philosophy, including atheism, agnosticism and secular humanism.[37]

See also

Footnotes

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  2. Terry Mattingly (25 March 2009). "Mattingly: Tom Hanks talks about religion". Scripps Howard News Service. Archived from the original on 28 March 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
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  6. "Danish Prince Weds French Bride". cbsnews.com. 24 May 2008.
  7. 403 Forbidden
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  10. Newton-Small, Jay (29 August 2008). "Transcript: Time's interview with Sarah Palin". Time. Retrieved 21 September 2010.
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  14. "Breaking News, Sports, Weather & More - BND.com & Belleville News-Democrat". belleville.com.
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  24. Mapstone, Lucy (October 20, 2014). "'My brother was told God didn't love him': Ariana Grande reveals she turned to Kabbalah after her homosexual brother was shunned by the Catholic Church". Daily Mail. Retrieved December 23, 2015. Ariana Grande has revealed that she turned to the Kabbalah faith after her homosexual brother was rejected by the Catholic Church.
  25. Barnes, Anthony (9 July 2006). "Kabbalah: is Madonna losing her religion?". The Independent. London. Retrieved 21 September 2010.
  26. Clonaid chief backpedals on baby proof, Associated Press. 9 January 2003. Retrieved 22 April 2007.
  27. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-05-13. Retrieved 2006-05-10. "RD: You were Catholic originally. Cruise: Well, we went from Episcopalian, to atheist, to Catholic..."
  28. "In 1990 Cruise renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life."
  29. "Katie Holmes Returns To Catholic Church". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved June 18, 2014.
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  36. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-08-03. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
  37. If any of them merely ceased to practice the Catholic religion without renouncing it, in the belief, for instance, that their ideas were consistent with the Catholic faith, they could be considered lapsed Catholics, rather than former Catholics.
  38. Alex Agnew (2009). "Alex Agnew - More Human Than Human - Katholiek Onderwijs". More Human Than Human (in Dutch). Retrieved 19 September 2018. I myself have been raised as a Catholic, and I attended a Catholic school. (...) But if they ask me if I am religious, despite or thanks to my religious upbringing, I usually say: 'No. I don't believe, I'm an atheist.'
  39. Matt Coker (March 1, 2007). "Godsmack – Page 3 – News – Orange County". OC Weekly. Archived from the original on July 16, 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  40. Giltz, Michael (22 July 2007). "No one expects Javier Bardem". New York Daily News. Retrieved 22 September 2018. I was raised Catholic by my grandmother". (...) "I don't believe in God, I believe in Al Pacino.
  41. Millea, Holly (15 July 2010). "The Lover: Javier Bardem". Elle. Archived from the original on 22 January 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
  42. van den Berg, Floris (2017). Hoe komen we van religie af?: een ongemakkelijke liberale paradox (How Can We Get Rid of Religion?: An Inconvenient Liberal Paradox) (in Dutch). Antwerp: Uitgeverij Houtekiet. p. 96. ISBN 9789089245618. Retrieved 22 September 2018. I'm incredibly happy to have been born in a liberal Catholic nest, where I was spared the subjection to dogmas, authority and rites.
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  45. Quoted from episode 1 of Tramadol Nights at Contrarian: Frankie Boyle.
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  50. Reid, Robert William (1974). Marie Curie. London: Collins. p. 19. ISBN 0-00-211539-5. "Unusually at such an early age, she became what T. H. Huxley had just invented a word for: agnostic."
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  60. Rob Trip | Andersdenkenden @ RKK.nl
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