“Pay to Pray”: Why Are All The Celebrities Becoming Catholics?
About "The Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex" and how The Hallow App is a byproduct
So most of the time, I identify with my mother’s side of the family, and the Albanians.
BUT - every year, come St Patrick's Day, till around Easter... my Irish roots from my father’s side start whimsically skeedaddlin’ riverdance style into the forefront of my personality.
Listen, I truly can’t help it. I mean, look at this guy - this is my great gramps Richard Carroll, who came over from Ireland in the 1860s.
Anyway, after St Patrick’s Day, it’s Easter! The best candy, the most pageantry when it comes to the Catholic Church of it all - Christmas may have your little angel singing about the birth of Jesus and a manger, but if you grew up the kind of theatrical Catholic I did - then you’ll be front and center to watch your kid reenact the STATIONS OF THE CROSS, a live telling of the last day of Jesus including.. a crucifixion. All reenacted by the local Catholic School children!
Did your school do this? Mine did... though not so sure if they still do - it seems the 8th grade in class at Mary Seat of Wisdoms School still does.
All this Catholic pomp and circumstance, coupled with Gwen Stefani’s TikTok ads calling for me to join former teen bad boy Mark Wahlberg’s new prayer app - Hallow - got me wondering.. IS THIS FUCKING PLAY ABOUT US??
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Y’all, I can’t begin to tell you how annoying it is that I just had one simple question - what is Hallow and why does Gwen Stefani want me to use it - that I thought could make for a very fun, very light Substack to distract us a bit from the doom & gloom & gold spraytan of the news lately. Instead, it turns out that Hallow is maybe kinda sorta at the center of something insidious.
OKAY WAIT WHAT
Back in 2024, Kathryn Joyce for Vanity Fair wrote an article titled “Behind the Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex.” Throughout the course of the article, Joyce outlines the various celebrities who have converted to Catholicism in recent years and either their pivots to the far right or their embrace of more Christian nationalist sentiment publicly.
Candace Owens, far right provocateur and former “White Lives Matter” activist alongside Kanye West, is now able to headline events like the Catholic Identity Conference to tens of thousands of people. The organization Catholics for Catholics have proudly boasted the conversions, or possible conversions, of Sound of Freedom filmmaker Tim Ballard, Shia Labeouf, Rob Schneider, JORDAN PETERSEN… and Vice President JD Vance, who converted in 2019.
But she also writes about how the state of the modern Catholic right is intrinsically tied to the Trump administration.
“When Trump lost, the Catholic right was a core part of efforts to overturn the election. Former campaign strategist and right-wing Catholic Steve Bannon transformed his War Room podcast into a “stop the steal” machine. Catholic groups normally focused on abortion or religious liberty joined lawsuits to block Biden’s certification. [Nick] Fuentes led his groypers in that November’s “Million MAGA March,” shouting “Christ is king.” Texas bishop Joseph Strickland addressed the carnivalesque December 2020 “Jericho March” rally—widely seen as a test run for January 6—while January 6 organizer Ali Alexander announced he too was converting (to “fight the evils in Christ’s own Church”). On the day itself, a Nebraska priest exorcised the Capitol.”
WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING?
The truth? Christian nationalism is having a bit of a moment, and it’s paying celebrities big bucks to be diluted to you through pretty faces selling you happiness, at a price of course, but with the condition that you submit to a right wing religious and “traditional” point of view. And the common denominator in all of this seems to be none other than The Hallow App, with campaigns being run alongside people like Gwen Stefani, Mark Wahlberg, QAnon peddler Jim Caviezel, antisemite and convicted abuser Mel Gibson, and alleged rapist Russell Brand. It’s also an app that was financed in large part… by Republican superdonor Peter Thiel, and none other than Vice President & Couch Connoisseur JD Vance.
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