NOTE: Enjoy this excerpt from The American Daily Reader, by CatholicVote president Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson Chapman. To order the complete volume, visit the CatholicVote store today!
When asked about his religion, John Wayne usually gave one of two responses. Either he claimed to be a “presbygoddamnterian” or a “cardiac Catholic.” In the end, only one answer proved true.
Born Marion Robert Morrison, John Wayne was the son of lackadaisical Presbyterians who never baptized their son. Wayne followed in his parents’ footsteps, keeping faith on the sidelines until 1933, when the budding movie actor married a devout Catholic. Although he never became one for churchgoing, Wayne helped raise his children Catholic and sent all of them to Catholic schools, later crediting those schools for how well his children turned out. (“Not a Jane Fonda in the bunch,” he once said.)
Unfortunately, as Wayne’s fame grew, so did the number of temptations that came his way. An extramarital affair ended his first marriage, as well as his second and third. Wayne often spoke with regret about his broken marriages and moral failings, but he never seemed inclined to do anything about them. To him, a deathbed conversion seemed his best bet.
On April 7, 1969, Wayne won his first and only Oscar for his role as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. Rumor has it, Wayne had been passed over before because of his outspoken conservatism—-he was a die–hard anti–communist and a free market champion—-but no one knows for certain.
Regardless, no other Oscars followed, and 10 years later, Wayne lay dying in a Los Angeles hospital. At last, the time for joking about cardiac Catholicism had ended. His son Patrick, at his father’s request, summoned a priest to his bedside, and two days before his death, “the Duke” was baptized and received into the Catholic Church.
Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor, Wayne left behind a legacy of 175 films, seven children, and many more grandchildren, including one who became a Catholic priest.
