Digging into the Great Quotes File, we find a quote that I first found attributed to that apostle of common sense, G. K. Chesterton, and was pleasantly surprised to later find attributed to an unexpected source:
"Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace." –Oscar Wilde
Who was Oscar Wilde?
CLICK HERE.
As you may know, Oscar Wilde lived an actively homosexual life for some years. What you may not know is that he was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed. For more on that story, check out Joseph Pearce’s biography The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde.
GET THE BOOK.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
View all posts by Jimmy Akin
There’s also a fantastic article on Catholic Educator’s Resource Center (Andrew McCracken)….
The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde.
…It’s a fascinating read.
Oscar Wilde “I can resist everything but temptation”
I love Oscar Wilde. His comedy was hilarious, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol is facing reality at its starkest.
I have to say, though, that I found The Portrait of Dorian Gray pretty repulsive and didn’t make it very far into the book.
However, since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday was yesterday, it should be remembered that A Study in Scarlet and The Portrait of Dorian Gray were commissioned at the same literary lunch, attended by Doyle, Wilde, and their publisher. Oh, to have a transcript of that conversation….
The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people, the Anglican Church will do. Oscar Wilde
maureen, PDG is supposed to be repulsive. that’s part of its beauty.
favorite OW quote time: “We are all laying the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.”
What’s really sad is that today’s homosexual community refuses to accept the fact of his conversion, claiming that a friend dragged a priest in at the last minute, that Wilde was unconscious, etc. The article linked above by Steve G, and knowledge of Wilde’s life and writings, makes it clear that Catholicism had a hold on him his entire life and his end was the logical working out of is life. Also, the priest who examined him on his deathbed, while he was lucid, had no reason to lie when he said he was convinced that Wilde truly wanted to become a Catholc.
God conquers all