Deathbed conversion
Encyclopedia
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
shortly before dying. Making a conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
on one's deathbed
Deathbed
A deathbed is a place where a person dies or lies in during the last few hours before death.Deathbed may also refer to:* Deathbed conversion, a religious faith conversion...
may reflect an immediate change of belief, a desire to formalize longer-term beliefs, a desire to complete a process of conversion already underway, or a subconscious mechanism to cope with fear of death. Claims of the deathbed conversion of famous or influential figures are commonly used as rhetorical devices, but such claims are rarely verifiable.
Overview
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
where the good thief
Saint Dismas
The Penitent thief, also known as the Thief on the Cross or the Good Thief, is an unnamed character mentioned in the Gospel of Luke who was crucified alongside Jesus and asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom....
, crucified beside Jesus, expresses belief in Christ. Jesus accepts his conversion, saying “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise".
Perhaps the most momentous conversion in Western history was that of Constantine I
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
, Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
and later proclaimed a Christian Saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
. While his belief in Christianity occurred long before his death, it was only on his deathbed that he was baptised
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
, in 337. While traditional sources disagree as to why this happened so late, modern historiography concludes that Constantine chose religious tolerance as an instrument to bolster his reign. His edict of toleration, subsequent patronage of the Christian church, even his convening of and presiding over the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea
Iznik
İznik is a city in Turkey which is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea, the first and seventh Ecumenical councils in the early history of the Church, the Nicene Creed, and as the capital city of the Empire of Nicaea...
, were all carried out while he was still officially a pagan, and while he bore the pagan office of pontifex maximus
Pontifex Maximus
The Pontifex Maximus was the high priest of the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome. This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post...
.
The deathbed conversion has also been a target of humor. Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, on his own deathbed, was asked by a priest to renounce Satan and turn to God, he is alleged to have replied, "Now is no time to be making new enemies". However, his last words are said to have been, "For God's sake, let me die in peace."
Sir Allan Napier MacNab
Sir Allan Napier MacNabAllan MacNab
Sir Allan Napier MacNab, 1st Baronet was a Canadian political leader and Premier of the Province of Canada before Canadian Confederation .-Biography:...
, Canadian political leader, died August 8, 1862 at in Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
. His deathbed conversion to Catholicism caused a furor in the press in the following days. The Toronto Globe
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
and the Hamilton Spectator expressed strong doubts about the conversion, and the Anglican rector of Christ Church in Hamilton declared that MacNab died a Protestant. MacNab's Catholic baptism is recorded at St. Mary's Cathedral in Hamilton, performed by John, Bishop of Hamilton, on 7 August 1862. Lending credibility to this conversion, MacNab's second wife, who predeceased him, was Catholic, and their two daughters were raised as Catholics.
Oscar Wilde
Author and wit Oscar WildeOscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
converted to Catholicism during his final illness. His friend Robert Ross wrote that "He was conscious that people were in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether he understood. He pressed our hands. I then sent in search of a priest, and after great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunne ... who came with me at once and administered Baptism and Extreme Unction. – Oscar could not take the Eucharist". 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 Robert Ross's insistence on the truth of Catholicism, Wilde's insistence "No, Robbie, it isn't true."
Antonio Gramsci
In an interview with archbishop Luigi de MagistrisLuigi de Magistris (archbishop)
Luigi de Magistris is a Roman Catholic Archbishop who served as Pro-Major Penitentiary of Apostolic Penitentiary from 2001 until the appointment of James Cardinal Stafford in 2003....
, former head of the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See, which deals with confessions and forgiveness of sins, he stated that during Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
's final illness, he "returned to the faith of his infancy" and "died taking the sacraments." However Italian State documents on his death do not show that any religious official was sent for or received by Gramsci. Other witness accounts of his death do not mention any conversion to Catholicism.
Wallace Stevens
The poet Wallace StevensWallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
was baptized a Catholic during his last days suffering from stomach cancer
Stomach cancer
Gastric cancer, commonly referred to as stomach cancer, can develop in any part of the stomach and may spread throughout the stomach and to other organs; particularly the esophagus, lungs, lymph nodes, and the liver...
. This account is disputed, particularly by Stevens's daughter, Holly, and critic, Helen Vendler
Helen Vendler
Helen Hennessy Vendler is a leading American critic of poetry.-Life and career:Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; between 1981 and 1984 she taught...
, who, in a letter to James Wm. Chichetto
James Wm. Chichetto
James Wm. Chichetto is a poet, artist, critic, and a Catholic priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, an international religious community that founded and sponsors the University of Notre Dame, Stonehill College, the University of Portland, and King's College, among others.-Bio:He was born 1941...
, thought Fr. Arthur Hanley was "forgetful" since "he was interviewed twenty years after Stevens' death." In his response, Chichetto noted that Vendler ignored "the testimony of Dr. Edward Sennett (in charge of the Radiology Dept. at St. Francis Hospital when Stevens was admitted both times) and the Sisters with whom he [Chichetto] talked in 1977 (and later) who believed Fr. Hanley's account."
King Charles II
Charles II of EnglandCharles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
reigned in a Protestant nation at a time of strong religious conflict. Though his sympathies were at least somewhat with the Catholic faith, he ruled as an Anglican, though he repeatedly attempted to lessen the persecution and legal penalties affecting non-Anglicans in England. As he lay dying following a stroke, released of the political need, he was received into the Catholic Church.
Charles Darwin
One famous example is Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's deathbed conversion in which it was claimed by Lady Hope that Darwin said:
"How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
as I have done." He went on to say that he would like her to gather a congregation since he "would like to speak to them of Christ Jesus and His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savoring the heavenly anticipation of bliss
Bliss
Bliss can be a state of profound satisfaction, happiness and joy, a constant state of mind, undisturbed by gain or loss.The word can also refer to the following:-People:* Aaron T. Bliss , U.S...
."
Lady Hope's story was printed in the Boston Watchman Examiner. The story spread, and the claims were republished as late as October 1955 in the Reformation Review and in the Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland
Free Church of Scotland (post 1900)
Free Church of Scotland is that part of the original Free Church of Scotland that remained outside of the union with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1900...
in February 1957.
From Darwin's son:
"Lady Hope's account of my father's views on religion is quite untrue. I have publicly accused her of falsehood, but have not seen any reply."
From Darwin's daughter:
"I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. The whole story has no foundation whatever."
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
was foundational for his style of existentialist philosophy. In March 1980, about a month before his death, he was interviewed by his assistant, Benny Lévy
Benny Lévy
Benny Lévy was a philosopher, political activist and author. A political figure of May 1968 in France, he was the disciple and last personal secretary of Jean-Paul Sartre from 1974 to 1980....
, and within these interviews he expressed his interest in Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
which was inspired by Levy's renewed interest in the faith. Through Sartre's study of Jewish history
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
he became particularly interested in the messianic idea of the faith. Some people apparently took this to indicate a deathbed conversion; however, the text of the interviews makes it clear that he did not consider himself a Jew, and was interested in the ethical and "metaphysical character" of the Jewish religion, while continuing to reject the idea of an existing God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
.