Gingrich came from a Lutheran family. However, he was not a practicing Lutheran, and upon entering the academia, and subsequently politics, he began to attend service with his colleagues who were predominantly Southern Baptists, and he became one by default. However, at the turn of the century, he began to immerse himself with history of Catholic Church, quite possibly influenced by his wife Callista, and he was quoted saying, “Slowly, over a decade, the centrality of the Eucharist in the Catholic Mass became more and more obvious to me.”
The final push however arrived in the form of Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to the country in 2008. Gingrich revealed that “the joyful and radiating presence of the Holy Father was a moment of confirmation about the many things I have been thinking and experiencing over the last several years”. He converted to Catholicism the very same evening.
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