From the earliest day of Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, readers have enjoyed the stories of people who entered into full communion with the Church from other faith (or no faith) backgrounds. That tradition has continued in recent years, with OSV Newsweekly publishing converts' stories in its Easter edition (click here to read this year's stories). One of the most popular conversion stories in the early part of Our Sunday Visitor's history was that of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the legendary "Wild West" showman. In a 1918 edition, Father C.V. Walsh, the priest who baptized the folk hero on his Denver deathbed, provided readers with details of the experience. Here are excerpts from it:
"When it appeared that Buffalo Bill was dying, Mrs. Harrington [a family friend] suggested to Mrs. Cody, the wife of Buffalo Bill, that she should get some minister to baptize him, as he had never received the sacrament of baptism. Mrs. Harrington, who is a Catholic herself, had no idea that anybody but a Protestant minister would be summoned. But Mrs. Cody, who has Catholic connections and knew, no doubt, that her husband's family were Catholics, replied that if he was to be baptized it must be at the hands of a Catholic priest. Buffalo Bill himself was consulted, and declared that he wanted the baptism. ...
"How natural such a proceeding was on the part of a man who was acquainted with the Church and had long considered its claims and its principles every Catholic will readily see. And even non-Catholics should be able to understand that when a man is on the brink of the grave and about to appear before the presence of his Creator and Judge, he thinks swiftly and accurately concerning the affairs of eternity. ...
"May the sacred ending of this wild and adventurous career lead many to aspire to follow Buffalo Bill in the last great act which crowned his life, and to accept his guidance through the last of shadows, when he chose the one secure and God-appointed way to travel safely to heaven over the great divide."
