Former Catholics
- Ammon Hennacy: Christian anarchist and activist who was Roman Catholic from 1952 to 1965. His essay On Leaving the Catholic Church concerns his formal renunciation of the religion.
- Halldór Laxness: Icelandic writer who converted to Catholicism in 1923, but later became disillusioned with it. Laxness did however return to Catholicism at the end of his life
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Franco-Swiss philosopher, writer and political theorist who converted to Catholicism as a young man but later reverted to Calvinism in 1754.
Read more about this topic: List Of Converts To Catholicism
Famous quotes containing the word catholics:
“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)
“When over Catholics the ocean rolls,
They must wait several weeks before a mass
Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals,
Because, till people know what’s come to pass,
They won’t lay out their money on the dead—
It costs three francs for every mass that’s said.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)