Joyce is right. The Catholic Church has seen big-name public figures such as conservative commentator Candace Owens, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), and possibly even psychologist Jordan Peterson come home to the faith, but it needs to be more careful of burnishing new converts as spokespeople. It can end badly and politicize a religion that cannot be reduced to simple political categories. 

The Catholic Church is pro-life and pro-family. It is also for immigrants, the poor, and workers. It should not be eager to embrace celebrity pundits who offer big money and audiences only to embarrass the church a few months, or days, later.

The largest and most obvious target of the Vanity Fair piece is Owens. Joyce ties Owens to Nick Fuentes, the execrable right-wing troll and antisemite: “In March, Owens denied knowing Fuentes or what his movement meant by that phrase [‘Christ is King’]. By June, when she relaunched her podcast— which immediately hit the top 10 — Owens was tweeting at him publicly, asking to get in touch. By July, she was speculating on air that various Nazi atrocities were ‘propaganda’ and dedicating multiple episodes to convoluted theories linking ‘crypto-Jews’ to ‘occult history,’ ‘ritualistic murder,’ and the satanic infiltration of all the world’s major religions — interrupting herself to read an ad from Hallow, ‘the number one prayer app in the world.’”

Vanity Fair also quotes liberal Catholic scholar David Lafferty: “When it comes to all the influencers circling around the Church” who seem more attracted to “external displays of piety” than core tenets of the faith, “it’s important to ask: What are they really converting to? Is it belief in what the Church teaches and the fundamental principles of Christianity? Or are they converting to anti-LGBTQ sentiment, anti-globalism, and anti-communism?”

One of the great things about the Catholic Church is that it helps you break through typical political categories and, as philosopher Roger Scruton once put it, “step outside of the circle of retribution.” I am a political conservative and Catholic who is pro-life, anti-communist, and for free speech and free markets. I also cannot stand antisemitism, am for workers’ rights and unions, and think people who struggle with homosexuality and gender dysphoria need love and compassion. The Jesuits who taught me in high school at Georgetown Prep were hard to categorize politically. They could be both anti-communist former boxers and passionate advocates of peace.

The new wave of celebrity Catholic converts reminds me of the last time this happened — in this case, with a famous person I became friends with through the faith. That person was Anne Rice, the author of a series of novels about vampires. From roughly 2005 to 2009, I was friends with Rice, who had announced a return to the church in 1998. In 2005, around the time Rice published Christ the Lord, a book about the young Jesus, I published a book called God and Man at Georgetown Prep about my adult reversion to Catholicism.  

I was blown away when Rice not only read my book but praised it. I’d read her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, at my brother’s suggestion in 1980 and, like everyone else, immediately recognized it as not an exercise in genre horror but a beautiful philosophical work. I’d been a fan for years.

Rice and I soon became friends, emailing every day. However, Rice was a Democrat and vocal about her support for some leftist causes, particularly around sexual issues. I was on the Right. I suspected that the tension between her politics and the teachings of the church would be impossible to sustain. I also knew that the grifters of Official Christianity would storm her the way they now go after conservative influencers. 

Still, I had faith. The inscription from Rice to me in her 2006 book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, still touches me: “Mark, This comes with my thanks for your truly wonderful writing, for the authors you’ve recommended, and with my love for you as my fellow writer and believer. Mark, I love you! May you enjoy every blessing! Anne aka Anne Rice 2006.”

Rice would leave organized religion in 2009, although she still called herself a follower of Christ. She left with a bang: “For those who care,” she wrote, “and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.” Anne Rice went to be with the Lord in 2021.

I’ve always found it ironic that even after leaving the church, Rice often acted with deeper Christian love than Candace Owens or other celebrity faithful. Rice’s final act of kindness toward me still makes me get emotional — and I know that right now she’s resting in the arms of the Lord. 

In 2007, I started not feeling well. One autumn afternoon, I emailed Rice about that and then went to take the dog for a long walk through the lovely fall woods in Maryland. ”I am with you on the walk,” she replied.

The illness turned out to be cancer, which I would successfully fight. I told her the news, and the next day, a FedEx truck pulled up in front of my house. It was a brand-new computer from Rice, along with a check for $10,000. 

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I have since gone on to be someone who actually played a pretty big role in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yet I’m not rich or powerful, characteristics that bring notoriety in the new conservative conversion machine.

Anne Rice’s final, angry rejection of the grift that can be part of high-profile Christianity reminded me of Jesus bouncing the money changers out of the temple. The church could use more like her.

Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi. He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.