Charlie Kirk to a California bishop: ‘I’m this close’ to becoming Catholic

Our dad loved John Wayne. If there was a John Wayne movie on TV on any Sunday afternoon, we were going to watch it. If there was a Duke movie on the Late Show, he would stay up to watch it.
Both our parents were of a generation that “bought” into the Hollywood dream machine that created, managed and protected images for fans to adulate both on and off screen. There were no cell phones or no tabloid TV shows to burst the bubble of stardom that had been so carefully crafted and guarded.
Not that mom nor dad were that naïve, either. They knew how the world worked and knew instinctively that these stars’ images were mostly artifice. Our dad played along until something happened that openly contravened his religious sensibilities, like Catholic movie stars such as Tyrone Power or Don Ameche who made scandalous headlines by divorcing their wives and marrying other women.
John Wayne was different. His multiple marriages notwithstanding, the Duke was the closest thing to being star-struck our …