List of Former Roman Catholics

List Of Former Roman Catholics

This page lists individuals in history who were at least nominally raised in the Roman Catholic faith and later rejected it or converted to other faiths. One study estimates that 10.1% of people in the United States describe themselves as former Catholics in some sense. Although a small majority converted to another religion a substantial minority of them are counted as currently unaffiliated. According to Catholic canon law, only a formal act of defection (or an excommunication) renders a person an "ex-Catholic". Some individuals on this list, and in that study, are therefore still Catholics in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Most, however, of those who appear below (and are currently registered and in the records of their respective new churches or religious organizations ), are considered former Catholics or "ex-Catholics".

Note: The title is a shorthand, the list actually refers to those who leave the Roman Catholic Church or any Eastern Catholic Church in communion with it. Individuals like Eddie Doherty who were allowed to transfer from the Latin Catholic Church to an Eastern Catholic Church are therefore not counted as "ex-Roman Catholics" for the purpose of this list, while Eastern Catholics who convert to a religion not in communion with Rome do.

Read more about List Of Former Roman Catholics:  Atheism, Agnosticism, or Non-religious

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, roman and/or catholics:

    I made a list of things I have
    to remember and a list
    of things I want to forget,
    but I see they are the same list.
    Linda Pastan (b. 1932)

    Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
    Went down the list of the dead.
    Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
    The crews of the gig and yawl,
    The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
    Carpenters, coal-passers—all.
    Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)

    A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, “Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?” holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. “Yet,” added he, “none of you can tell where it pinches me.”
    Plutarch (c. 46–120 A.D.)

    Communism, my friend, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism ... is more than the Roman Curia. There is a mystique as well as a politique.... Catholics and Communists have committed great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate.
    Graham Greene (1904–1991)