Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome

Being a Catholic in America or Britain hasn't always been easy. Since the days of "Bloody Mary," Catholics were viewed with suspicion and often actively discriminated against in Britain. Meanwhile, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment combined in many American cities to create violent mob scenes that targeted Catholic churches and other religious establishments. As recently as 1960, John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was an issue in the American presidential race. Church fortunes took a turn for the better in the years following World War II, and many of its leading intellectual lights have been converts. In Catholic Converts, Patrick Allitt, an associate professor of history at Emory University, takes a fascinating look at the men and women who came to Catholicism from other faiths and helped to shape it. Notable converts include Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Marshall McLuhan and Dorothy Day.