Though he may be covered in tattoos from head to toe — quite literally — the only thing more obvious than comedian Shayne Smith’s body art lately might be his newfound Catholicism.
And the former motorcycle gang member is certainly in good company.
Jim Gaffigan, Kevin James, Stephen Colbert, Tom Leopold, Russell Brand, and Rob Schneider are just a few other comedians who share in the same faith — the latter half of the boisterous bunch having converted to Catholicism in their adulthood.
The former half has been just as busy keeping Catholicism alive: Gaffigan recently performed at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, at which Cardinal Timothy Dolan is a board member; Kevin James reportedly hosted a Catholic retreat before the pandemic; and Stephen Colbert is known for teaching Sunday school.
But what is driving these comedians toward Catholicism?
Smith, who officially converted last year, gave Fox News Digital his take — by first explaining what drew him to the age-old religion.
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“I chose Catholicism for all the rational reasons. I’m a big history guy, and I just thought… you know, if you ask Siri who founded your religion, and you’re not Catholic, she’ll say the name of just some guy. [But] if you ask her who started your church, and you’re Catholic, she’ll say, Jesus Christ. So I thought that was a pretty good start.”
Comedians Kevin James, Shayne Smith, and Jim Gaffigan, all of whom I identify as practicing Catholics. (Fox News)
“There are [also] very rational reasons outside of history. For instance, I read this book called “Dominion,” which was about a guy who set out to write a book about how religion had sort of muddled Western civilization and made the world a worse place. And he accidentally discovered that Christianity and, very specifically Catholicism, had been responsible for hospitals, the modern university system of scientific discoveries, medicine and Western civilization in general. And then he ended up becoming Christian.”
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But it was in his search for a natural explanation that Smith would discover the supernatural:
“I had an experience where I was compelled to go into a Catholic Church for no reason, and I did not have an education about Catholicism [at the time], so I didn’t really understand the Catholic Church in general. I was discerning Christianity and sort of leaning Protestant. But I stepped into a Catholic Church one afternoon — I finally just gave in to this compulsion — and I had an experience with our heavenly mother [Mary].”
Smith went on to describe a “very brief but incredibly powerful” experience that, at the time, he believed was a psychedelic vision of a woman who was “based in bright white light.”
“She reached out and touched me,” he described. “And I wept the hardest I’ve ever wept.”
Smith, who is no stranger to opening up about his “trailer park” upbringing in his partly autobiographical stand-ups, has described his mostly-single mother as tough enough to have once punched a “bad dog” unconscious. He went on to tell Fox News Digital that his “incredibly surreal” experience with Mother Mary instantly helped heal his relationship with his own mother.
“In that moment, a lot of things changed for me. I suddenly just felt like a lot of my issues with women had been healed. And I felt like my relationship with my mother had been healing, and all these other sorts of things happened.”
Smith left the church that day having made the decision to dedicate his life to Jesus.
And that started with his discovery of Marian apparitions.
“Only then did I discover that Marian apparitions are a thing that happens to people and, in fact, are things that sometimes happen to tens of thousands of people at once,” he added. “So there are rational reasons why I became Catholic, and then the other reason would be the supernatural experience I had with Mary.”
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Comedian-turned-Catholic Shayne Smith performed in front of a captivated crowd of Catholics at the annual SEEK conference, held in early January in Washington, D.C. (FOCUS)
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When asked why he believes other comedians might be trending toward Catholicism, Smith offered Fox News Digital a surprising answer: suffering.
“I think having a sense of humor…it all correlates to suffering. And Catholics are very aware of suffering. They’re not afraid to suffer,” he asserted.
“And in fact, often they invite it sometimes too much, and then we get the concept of Catholic guilt, which shouldn’t be a thing. We’re the only religion with a built-in guilt relief system. Like, go to confession, dork,” he jested. “But yeah, I think it really correlates to suffering. I think that Catholics are so tuned in to suffering and are very aware that their suffering matters and means something, and they’re not afraid of it. They sort of confront it head on. And I think that that is an essential part to having a good sense of humor.”
Smith went on to describe his comeuppance as a suffering yet successful comedian and podcast host, having begun as an atheist. He said, despite his appearance and former criminal career, the Catholic community has welcomed him with open arms — even after his public conversion resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of followers.
He told Fox News Digital that after having begun his stand-up career as a man who rejected religion, once he publicly converted to Catholicism, he was “basically canceled” by his former fan base.
“I got death threats. People mailed things to my mother, like it was crazy. And I was like, ‘okay, well, this is kind of the end of my career.’ And that’s okay, because faith is more important than money,” he continued. “But over time, it has reversed course. And now I’m more popular than ever.”
Smith went on to say that his early-on encounters with fans during meet-and-greets when he first achieved popularity would give him anxiety due to the inappropriate nature of their interactions, explaining that he was “getting touched by women” and “harassed by drunk people.”
But, since cleaning up his act, his fandom has changed dramatically.
“Now, I do meet and greets and people are asking me to pray the rosary with them. Women are so kind and gentle with me. People are giving me handwritten letters of encouragement and everything is so much more lovely and light and good, I’m, like, blown away.”
Smith hasn’t just cleaned up his act in the proverbial sense, but set the record straight with Fox News Digital: he is a self-proclaimed clean comedian to boot.
“Because I have Catholic sensibilities, my comedy is digestible by anyone,” he said. “I’m a Catholic person, and that is the central part of my identity and the most important part of me. But as far as my comedy goes, I’m just a storyteller. I would like to just be as funny as possible for the most amount of people possible.”
One of Smith’s recent performances took place in Washington, D.C. during SEEK ’25, an annual Catholic conference hosted by the Focus organization. There, Smith performed a stand-up routine on opening night to a captivated crowd he described as nothing short of “kind.”
“I would recommend SEEK to anyone of any age. It is Comic-Con for Catholics,” he jested. “I went to SEEK and I saw that Catholicism, while deeply personal, is also deeply communal… [God] wants us to come to him, together… He wants us to take care of and love each other and ourselves the way he loves us, which is, you know, infinitely.”
Brock Martin, the son of the Focus organization’s founder, spoke to Fox News Digital at the SEEK conference about the group’s mission.
“Whenever Focus is working with people… the first experience would be an experience of God’s love and his plan for you,” Martin said. “That’s an earth-shattering reality, that the God of the universe —the same person that made the cosmos — like, knows your name, has a plan for you, wants you to flourish, wants to spend eternity with you…”
In acknowledging God’s plan for his own life, Smith said he realized he couldn’t keep his Catholicism to himself.
“I realized that, to just stay home and make my faith something personal, or to just read the Bible, or to just be Catholic and keep it to myself… was not the point. And it was not ultimately the fulfilling and rewarding experience that I needed,” the comedian concluded.
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To hear more from Shayne Smith, fans can check out his new ‘Ghost Stories’ special on Angel Studios’ Dry Bar Comedy.
