Doc Holliday

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2024

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A legend of the Wild West, John Henry "Doc" Holliday was born in Georgia to Presbyterian and Methodist parents. But his sweetheart growing up was Catholic — and his first cousin — Martha Ann "Mattie" Holliday. After an excellent education and becoming a dentist, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. To survive he had to move to a more arid climate, like west Texas, and parts of the desert and great plains states. Eventually he had to stop being a dentist, and he became a professional gambler and gunslinger. He befriended the Earp brothers, especially Wyatt, and was involved in many adventures with the Earps, including the famous shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Eventually the tuberculosis worsened and he died at 36 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. But he had maintained a correspondence with his beloved Mattie. She had become a nun, and her influence led to Doc summoning a priest and becoming Catholic shortly before he died. The romance between Doc and Mattie was later captured in the 1939 movie <i>Gone With The Wind</i>, because the author of the book, Margaret Mitchell, was a second cousin, once removed of Mattie Holliday.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we're talking about John Henry Holiday, better known to history as Doc Holiday.
0:27.6	He's another surprising Catholic who was a deathbed conversion.
0:31.2	Yes, and not much in his life prior to his deathbed conversion would have suggested such an ending.
0:36.1	But two things.
0:37.3	One, he did have a beloved
0:39.1	cousin who became a nun, and two, one doesn't have to be Catholic for a long time to be Catholic.
0:45.1	Something about workers in the vineyard comes to mind. Yes. You're referring to the parable
0:49.5	told at the opening of Matthew chapter 20. Yes. Jesus tells about a vineyard owner who hires men to work in his vineyard early in the
0:57.4	morning, and then again four other later times throughout the day.
1:00.9	And then at the end of the day, he paid all of them the wage for a full day's work,
1:04.8	even those who had only worked about one hour.
1:07.2	Right. It's a parable that shows God's desire to welcome into his kingdom, even those who
1:12.5	only came to him at the last second. Yes, indeed. So if Doc Holliday really did come into the church
1:18.2	and make a good confession shortly before his death, he's got a good chance of at least being in
1:23.5	purgatory right now. Which is not a place we usually think about when we think about Doc Holiday.
1:29.1	No, for one, it's easy to think of him as just a fictional character.
1:32.5	He's almost a mythical Western persona associated with Wyatt Earp and a shootout at the OK
1:37.4	corral.
1:38.4	He's been depicted often in movies and TV shows, but the only depiction that was almost
1:43.0	entirely as the good guy was the awesome
1:45.8	1993 film Tombstone. Val Kilmer was really good in that movie. It was a fantastic film.
1:53.1	The other reason it can be tough to think of him as one who is on his way to heaven, if not
	...

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