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 joined another Christian denomination while a substantial minority are counted as currently unaffiliated.[1] A significant number of former Catholics join mainline Protestant denominations with a similar worship pattern, such as Lutheranism or Anglicanism, while others have become Evangelical Christians.[2][3][4]
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 Christian denominations
Tom Hanks, actor, was involved with Catholicism, Mormonism and the Nazarens as a child, and was a "Bible-toting evangelical teenager", and converted to the Greek Orthodox Church after marrying his second wife.[5]
Alberto Cutié, priest who was received in the Episcopal Church after a leave of absence granted by his former bishop and decided to continue priestly ministry as a married man.
Matthew Fox, scholar and priest who became an Episcopalian after being silenced by the Vatican for heresy and expelled by the Dominicans for disobedience.
Bernard Kenny, New Jersey politician, former majority leader of the New Jersey Senate raised Catholic, became an Episcopalian in protest over Catholic position on abortion.
Jim McGreevey, former Governor of New Jersey, who became an Episcopalian.
John B. Switzer, theologian at Spring Hill College (the Jesuit College of the South); Switzer was a seminarian for the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and left seminary training six months before ordination to marry. He is now a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and continues to teach at Spring Hill.
Sean Hannity, Irish American radio host, political commentator and media personality, raised Catholic, left the Catholic Church in 2019 and became an evangelical Protestant.
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.
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 wished to be referred to as a 'Christian', though retained 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.[20]
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American Hall of Fame basketball player, author,[30] born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr., raised Catholic in New York City where he attended Catholic schools, converted to Islam in 1971 at age 24.
Sinéad O'Connor, ordained as a priest in the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church by Michael Cox in 1999;[32] accepted Islam in 2018, becoming Shuhada' Davitt
Vinnie Paz, also known as Ikon the Verbal Hologram; American rapper for the underground hip hop group Jedi Mind Tricks
Franck Ribéry, French footballer, converted in 2006 to marry his Muslim girlfriend[33]
Abe Foxman, lawyer, activist and former head of the Anti-Defamation League. Born into a Jewish family, he was left with a Polish woman during World War II, who baptized him and raised him Catholic; he was returned to his parents in 1944, whereupon he reverted to Judaism.
Tom Cruise, American actor, originally desired to become a priest.[53][54] His girlfriend Katie Holmes married him and also switched from Catholicism to Scientology, but upon her divorce from Cruise in 2012, she returned to the Roman Catholic Church.[55]
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.[58]
William Jay Gaynor, politician and judge who became the 94th mayor of New York City. raised Catholic and briefly attended Christian Brothers seminary. Lost belief in organized religion and became an agnostic.
Johannes Grenzfurthner, artist and filmmaker; says he has been an atheist since he was 11, and talks about it in interviews[73] and his documentary Traceroute
Éamon Gilmore, Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) of Ireland (2011–2017)
Anthony Jeselnik, American stand-up comedian and television writer
Katastroof [nl], Belgian musical band consisting of "Jos Smos", "Zjuul Krapuul" and "Stef Bef" (pseudonyms) who had been singing songs critical of religion for over 30 years before deciding to "debaptise" themselves from the Catholic Church in 2010, and writing an "Ontdopingslieke" ("Debaptism Song") to urge others to do the same. They did this after a series Catholic Church sexual abuse cases of children around the world came to light.[75]
Rob Trip, Dutch television and radio presenter, calls himself a "cultural Catholic, (...) but I'm not religious at all. Not Catholic and not believing."[83]
^Magida, Arthur J. (2006). Opening the Doors of Wonder: Reflections on Religious Rites of Passage. University of California Press. p. 203. ISBN0520245458.
^Bhikkhu Nyanatusita and Hellmuth Hecker (2008). The Life of Nyanatiloka: The Biography of a Western Buddhist Pioneer. Buddhist Publication Society. p. 17. ISBN9789552402906.
^Grant, Meg (June 2005). "Face to Face With Tom Cruise". Reader's Digest. Archived from the original on 13 May 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2022. RD: You were Catholic originally. Cruise: Well, we went from Episcopalian, to atheist, to Catholic...
^[1] "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."
^Editors, "Believers mix their creeds, survey finds", The Tablet, 19/26 December 2009, 53.
^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.
^Alex Agnew (2009). "Alex Agnew – More Human Than Human – Katholiek Onderwijs". More Human Than Human (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. 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.'
^Barton, Laura (12 May 2006). "When albino monks attack". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on 20 March 2014. Retrieved 22 September 2018. Bettany was himself raised as a Catholic,...
^Waxmanta, Sharon (28 September 1997). "George Clooney, Uncowled". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
^Reid, Robert William (1974). Marie Curie. London: Collins. p. 19. ISBN0-00-211539-5. Unusually at such an early age, she became what T. H. Huxley had just invented a word for: agnostic.
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