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Clare Boothe Luce

In many ways, Clare Boothe Luce was also a strong individualist, but she did reach out for help in times of spiritual crisis. She was very intelligent and presented a challenge to those from whom she sought help. Fortunately, she did find someone who satisfied her probing mind.

Clare Boothe Luce was born in 1903 to William Boothe and his second wife, Anne Clare. Clare's father played a violin in the orchestra of a touring musical revue. He changed jobs often and the family was frequently on the move. As a result of their mobility, Clare and her brother had difficulty getting a formal education. Clare's father encouraged them to read a lot, a habit that partially supplied for their lack of formal schooling.

In 1912, William Boothe deserted his family and ran off with a young actress he had met on his tours. Anne Clare moved the children to New York where she tried to get them on stage. Their lack of interest and talent disappointed her and she gave up trying.

Clare began regular schooling in 1915 at a boarding school. Despite the little time she had spent in any school, her extensive reading made it possible for her to amaze everyone by becoming first in her class.

Although in many ways Clare was very independent, she allowed her mother to arrange her marriage. When she was twenty years old she married George Brokaw who was twenty-three years older. They had a daughter, Ann, before the marriage broke up six years later.

When Ann was nineteen, Clare and her daughter were in California where Ann was preparing to enroll at Stanford University. On January 9, a Sunday morning, Clare and Ann went for a walk. They passed a small Catholic church and Ann suggested that they go inside. Mass was just beginning and they stayed through to the end. This seemingly casual attendance at Mass took on great significance for Clare. Unknowingly to Clare at the time, it was the first step in her conversion.

The next morning Ann left early with a friend to drive from San Francisco to Stanford where they were to register for classes. Clare was to meet then there in the afternoon. Late in the morning, Clare's secretary awakened her screaming, "Wake up! Wake up! Your daughter is dead!" The girls were riding in a convertible and were hit from behind. Ann was thrown from the car, hit her head on a tree and died instantly.

In a daze, Clare went down the hill to the little Catholic church where they had been the day before. She tried to pray but discovered that the only prayer she knew was the Our Father. God or religion had never been part of her life.

She did not think of herself as an atheist nor an agnostic. She just did not have any kind of a relationship with God. Now, she turned to God, not so much in prayer but rather in resentment asking why this happened.

Clare tried talking to the young parish priest, telling him that she had some questions and wanted some straight answers. She asked why Ann was killed and demanded to be told the meaning of life and death. The inexperienced, young priest tried to respond but his answers could not satisfy her questing mind.

Ten months later, a judge ruled that the entire estate of Ann Brokaw should go to her half sister. The estate consisted of the multi-million dollar holdings her father, George Brokaw, had left her. Clare had plenty of money herself and was not disturbed that Ann's half sister received the inheritance. All the publicity, however, revived the events of Ann's tragic death and Clare became despondent. She wrote:

Some time after midnight, alone in my room, all the doubts I had ever felt concerning the dogmas and doctrines I had held in all the years before, all the futile and sterile relationships I had ever nursed or tolerated in pride or vanity, all the lacerations of the spirit suffered so helplessly in contemplating my meaningless world soaked in blood and violence, converged in a vast, sour tide within me. I tasted long the real meaning of meaninglessness: it is to believe that one is crawling to extinction unloved, unlovable and unloving in the same kind of world.

Remembering four of her friends who had committed suicide long ago, she contemplated taking her own life. The next day, however, she received a letter from a Jesuit, Father Wiatrak, who had previously written to her about an article she had published about China. Now he suggested that she read the Confessions of St. Augustine. Instead she searched for a Bible but could find none. She did, however, find the telephone book and called Father Wiatrak. He suggested that she go to Washington, D.C. and talk to Father Fulton Sheen.

Later, Bishop Sheen would describe Clare at their first meeting as being rebellious, questioning and defiant. He asked her to dinner but refused to talk about religion during the meal.

Later in his office, he set the structure for their talks: "I will talk about five minutes on the subject, uninterrupted. Then at the end of five minutes you may take an hour to talk."

After about three minutes, Sheen mentioned the goodness of God. Clare jumped out of her seat, stuck her finger under his nose and demanded, "Listen, if God is good why did He take my daughter?"

"In order that you might be here in faith," he replied.

"Is that why you invited me to dinner?"

"That is the reason," admitted Sheen.

This was the first of many meetings between Father Sheen and Clare. God had touched her heart and between her two terms as a Congresswoman she became a Catholic. Later, when asked why she became a Catholic she answered, "It is very simple. . . to get rid of my sins. . .to have my sins forgiven. This will not make sense to people who have never sinned."

Although she was a public figure, Clare never made a secret of her conversion to Catholicism. She declared openly and with conviction that her discovery of the goodness of God and her acceptance of Catholicism was the turning point of her life.

A comparison of the records of Clare's first and second terms in Congress reveals how Clare had changed as a result of her conversion. She became more active and more vocal during her second term in Congress than during her first term. In itself this increase in activity would not be significant. Clare was now, however, very aware of Christian social principles and her activity involved introducing into Congress bills that would help the poor in America and the starving in post war Europe. What subsequently became known as the Marshall Plan was initially introduced by Clare. Her conversion, therefore could also be considered a sociopolitical conversion as well as a religious conversion.

Unlike some of the other people we have considered, Clare did not change her lifestyle nor her career. Instead she infused into everything she did her new-found faith. She made no apologies that her Catholic faith was foremost in her life and she exerted a powerful influence on the many important people in her political and social world.

Twenty-three years after Clare's conversion, Bishop Sheen was asked to describe her. He replied:

I have not hit yet upon the answer. It has something to do with light. I have never met or talked with a more brilliant mind than Clare. She is scintillating. Her mind is like a rapier. It catches foibles at a second and in that it stands out, and faith had to be the perfection of such a mind.

From Clare Boothe Luce by Ralph Shedegg