Cowboys and Catholics

Since I’ve been interested in the Catholic Church, I was always impressed by the fact that John Wayne, the archetypal Hollywood cowboy, was a Catholic (convert).  I don’t really know anything about his personal life, but I have a few random, possibly unrelated and probably irrelevant and unjustifiable thoughts about this fact.

1. I suspect that the Catholic priests, always in the form of an “old Spanish padre,” holds some important place in the genre of Westerns. I’ve forgotten too much about Westerns to confirm this, but it seems to me that cowboy heroes in movies are mostly indifferent to religion but end up being protectors of innocent religious people when they do show up.

2. If I understand the little I’ve read about his life, John Wayne showed his Catholic Christian values as a political figure; he was typically a hero for conservatives, but a frustrating one, since there were times when he would support the “liberal” side of issues when it came to showing mercy and forgiveness.  Politics have little or nothing to do with real cowboys, and there’s no reason to think that John Wayne’s political stances have any reflection on a real connection between Catholicism and cowboys; the same could almost be said of his religion.  Yet, it in the end, it is John Wayne.

3. There is a good deal about cowboys that people would not generally connect with Catholicism; they tend to be lone renegades, just doing their own thing, not telling anyone how to live, or letting anyone else tell them how to live.  Not too many people would think “Catholic” when they hear this idea.  (Although the Catholic Church does have plenty of renegades – but that’s besides the point, and it’s quite a different kind of renegade.)
Yet, there’s at least one thing somewhat Catholic about the archetypal cowboys. The archetypal cowboy knows he’s a sinner – even though he would never say it in those terms.  He knows that the way he lives is wrong, despite the fact he doesn’t want anyone to change it, anymore than he wants to change what’s wrong about others.  Also when it comes right down to it, he’ll stand up for fight for what’s right; he’ll protect those who really are good when they’re not strong enough to do it themselves.  These two points aren’t exclusively Catholic, but could fit into certain brands of Catholic thinking.

I wish I knew enough to prove some of these points or give examples. I could probably think of a few country songs I’ve heard recently, but I won’t bother for now.  In any case, if cowboys and Catholics have nothing else in common, John Wayne is a pretty good connection just by himself.