This year’s US Leaders Special Report reflects the new realities of American public affairs. As one Catholic left the White House after Joe Biden decided to withdraw from seeking a second term of office, then Donald Trump returned to power with another Catholic – JD Vance – as his vice-president, and a cabinet packed with conservatives who wear their faith on their sleeve.
In this eighth section of the report we’re looking at discipline, excellence and Catholic witness on the field, on set and in studios. This section spotlights those Catholic athletes, coaches, filmmakers, musicians and producers who unite faith with training and craft, who mentor youth and who champion life and dignity.
Pete Bevacqua
Director of Athletics, University of Notre Dame
New York native Pete Bevacqua is a corporate, media and sports executive who served as chairman of NBC Sports Group. In July 2023, he become vice president and director of athletics at the University of Notre Dame. Bevacqua formerly held the role of president of NBC Sports Group and before that spent six years as the CEO of the PGA of America. He promotes Catholic morality within sport and is a board member of RISE, an alliance of sports organisations that promotes racial equality.
Pierce Brosnan
Actor
Pierce Brosnan the Irish-born star of James Bond films and Mamma Mia!, lives in Hawaii with his second wife, Keely Shaye Smith. After his first wife Cassandra Harris died from ovarian cancer in 1991, he spoke of the importance of his faith. A former altar boy, he was brought up by his mother and educated by the Christian Brothers. He stated: “My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer.”
Harrison Butker
Kansas City Chiefs placekicker
Harrison Butker is a three-time Super Bowl champion and one of the NFL’s most accurate kickers, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs. Beyond football, he is a prominent voice for traditional Catholic values, often speaking on faith, fatherhood, and virtue at public and Church events across the country. Butker is also a co-founder of MDKeller, a Catholic values investment group backing ventures that align with faith, family, and cultural renewal.
Jim Caviezel
Actor
James Caviezel is a film and television actor who most played Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ and will reprise the role in Mel Gibson’s follow-up, Resurrection, in 2026. Recently, he played the main character in Sound of Freedom of a former US government agent on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. He was raised in a Catholic family in Washington state and has been a key speaker at religious events, including, in 2005, the first Catholic Men’s Conference in Boston. Discussing his path to acting, he said: “God came to me in a movie theatre and told me to become an actor.”
Caitlin Clark
Basketball player
Caitlin Clark plays as a guard for the Indiana Fever basketball team and is a former player for the Iowa Hawkeyes. She was Time Magazine’s 2024 athlete of the year and is a parishioner of St Francis of Assisi Church in Des Moines, Iowa.
Chris Evert
Former tennis professional
Chris Evert is a retired American tennis player and former world number one. During her career, she wore a crucifix while playing. Evert secured 18 major singles titles, with seven French Open victories and a shared record of six US Open titles. Dominating women’s tennis in the 1970s and 1980s, she reached 34 major singles finals, earning recognition with the Philippe Chatrier Award and induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame. In her later years, Evert transitioned to coaching and now serves as an analyst for ESPN. Raised in a devout household, Evert graduated from St Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale in 1973. Since 1989, she has contributed over $26 million to a campaign against drug abuse and child neglect in Florida.
Brett Favre
Former NFL quarterback
Brett Favre is a former quarterback who played primarily with the Green Bay Packers. His career spanned 20 years and from 1995 to 1997 he was named Most Valuable Player three years in a row. At the time of his retirement, Favre was the NFL leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns and quarterback wins. Favre credits his Catholic faith for helping him face adversity in his life. The Brett Favre Fourward Foundation has donated more than $2 million to charities in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Marcus Freeman
Head coach, Notre Dame University
Marcus Freeman is an American football coach who has gained fame as the second African American head coach for the University of Notre Dame. He briefly played as a line-backer in the NFL before retiring in 2010 due to an enlarged heart condition, and since then he has found success as a coach for a number of college football teams. Freeman became a Catholic in 2022 at St Pius X Church in Granger, Indiana. He has said that part of his team’s pregame strategy is “making sure we spend some time for reflection in Mass”.
Mel Gibson
Actor and director
Mel Gibson is an actor and director, famous for the Mad Max series and many others. He directed The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) which due to innovative marketing became an unexpected commercial success. He has now announced a sequel on the Resurrection. Gibson is a sedevacantist traditionalist Catholic.
Jimmy Kimmel
TV host
Jimmy Kimmel is a TV host, comedian and producer. He is the host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC in January 2003. In 2018, Time Magazine named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people. He was raised Catholic and, as a child, was an altar server. He is a practising Catholic today and has publicly defended his faith and the Church.
Shia LaBeouf
Actor
Shia LaBeouf is an American actor and film maker. He fell in love with the Catholic faith while staying in a Capuchin monastery while he was studying for the role of Padre Pio in the titular 2022 biopic. The next year he was confirmed as a Catholic by Bishop Robert Barron.
Kathleen Ledecky
Olympic swimmer
Kathleen Ledecky is an American competitive swimmer. She was a USA Olympic team member in 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. She has won nine Olympic gold medals and 21 World Championship gold medals, the most in history for a female swimmer. Ledecky is a devout Catholic. She credits her faith to a strong Catholic formation, which included attending Little Flower Catholic School and Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda.
Conan O’Brien
TV host
Conan O’Brien is known for hosting several late-night talk shows since 1993, including Late Night with Conan O’Brien, the Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and Conan. O’Brien comes from an Irish Catholic family that came to America in the 1850s. A DNA test in 2019 revealed that he is 100 per cent Irish.
Mike Piazza
Former Major League Baseball player
Mike Piazza is a former baseball player who played for the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2013, he was inducted to the New York Mets Hall of Fame, and in 2016 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Piazza manages the Italian national baseball team. He is a devout Catholic and appeared in the documentary Champions of Faith, which explored the intersection between the faith and sport. Recently, Piazza appeared on the Fox
reality challenge series Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.
Mickey Rourke
Actor
Mickey Rourke and born in upstate New York, is a long-time movie star, perhaps most acclaimed for his portrayal of Charles Bukowski in Barfly (1987). A cradle Catholic, he continues to practice his religion today.
Ted Sarandos
Co-CEO, Netflix
Theodore Sarandos is the co-CEO of Netflix. He was involved in the production of dramas such as House of Cards and Stranger Things. He previously held many senior positions at several video distribution firms including Arizona Video Cassettes West, East Texas Distributors and West Coast Video. He comes from a Greek Catholic background and identifies as a Catholic.
Scottie Scheffler
Golfer
Scottie Scheffler is the world’s top-ranked golfer as of June 2025 and a three-time major champion. He won the Masters in 2022 and 2024, along with the 2025 PGA Championship. A practicing Catholic, Scheffler often speaks about the role of faith in his life and credits his wife Meredith for her support. Originally from Texas, he continues to reside there and co-hosts an annual faith-based retreat for young athletes through the College Golf Fellowship alongside fellow PGA Tour pro Sam Burns.
Martin Scorsese
Director
Martin Scorsese is a film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. He is the recipient of many accolades. Silence, his 2016 production, follows two 17th-century Jesuit priests as they travel from Portugal to Japan in an attempt to spread Catholic Christianity. His recent eight-part docudrama series Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints explored the lives of key figures such as Joan of Arc and Maximilian Kobe. Scorsese had identified as lapsed; however in 2016, following the release of Silence, he seemed to reaffirm his faith when he stated: “I am most comfortable as a Catholic. I believe in the tenets of Catholicism.” He is widely considered to be one of the greatest influences on modern cinema.
Martin Sheen
Actor
Martin Sheen is an actor best-known for roles in Apocalypse Now, Gettysburg, The West Wing, Grace and Frankie and The Way. He was raised Catholic but fell away from the faith, returning to it in 1981, and he later described himself as Catholic only in a spiritual sense. Sheen supports the Catholic Worker Movement and opposes abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment. Sheen has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Dayton and Loyola Marymount University for his commitment to Catholic values.
Jordan Spieth
Golfer
Jordan Spieth is an American professional golfer on the PGA Tour and former world number one who has won three major titles and the 2015 FedEx Cup. He was born and raised in a Catholic family and attended St Monica’s Catholic School and Jesuit College Prep in Dallas. He continues to practise his faith and attends the PGA Bible Study.
Bruce Springsteen
Singer and musician
Bruce Springsteen is a singer, songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 150 million records worldwide and more than 64 million albums in the US, making him one of the world’s bestselling artists. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammys, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award and a Special Tony Award. His best-known albums include Nebraska, Born in the USA, The River and Born to Run. Springsteen was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2016 and awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Biden in 2023. Born into a Catholic family, Springsteen attended the St Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold, New Jersey. “It’s pretty overt,” Springsteen has said of Catholicism in his work. “It informed my language”. This Catholic language was influenced by the Traditional Latin Mass, in which he participated as an altar boy. Nick Ripatrazone wrote for the Catholic Herald in 2021: “For one born and raised in the faith like Springsteen, there’s no leaving it behind. From his first album to his latest, Springsteen has confessed to the congregation: he’s a sinner. His songs are his penance, and the beauty of such art is that we get to feel the hard-worn grace ourselves.”
Ben Steele
NFL coach
Benjamin Steele is a former tight end for Green Bay Packers and offensive line coach for the Denver Broncos in the NFL. Steele played college football at Fort Lewis College and Mesa State College. He is a devout Catholic who encourages his men to be champions of the Rosary on and off the field.
Douglas Urbanski
Film producer
Douglas Urbanski is a film producer who has been nominated twice for an Oscar, once for a Golden Globe and has won a Bafta for motion picture producer. In addition to his Oscar-winning films Darkest Hour and Mank, along with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Social Network and Nil By Mouth, his films have received 21 Oscar nominations, ten Golden Globe nominations and 33 Bafta nods. He exec-produced Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope and the series Slow Horses. He serves as a Eucharistic minister at St Victor’s in West Hollywood.
Eduardo Verástegui
Actor
Eduardo Verástegui is a Mexican-born actor who has appeared in CSI Miami, See You in Miami and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. In 2023, he produced the film Sound of Freedom which follows the story of Tim Ballard, a former US government agent who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. Raised in a Catholic family, he rediscovered the faith through the example of his English-language coach. He is committed to going to Mass daily, reading the Bible, saying the Rosary and going to Confession once a week. He voiced Jesus in the Spanish dubbing of Son of God. He is actively involved in the pro-life cause through his movement Manto de Guadalupe.
Mark Wahlberg
Actor
Mark Wahlberg is an actor, producer and director of many films. He co-funded the recent religious movie Father Stu, about a boxer turned priest, in which he stars with Mel Gibson. Wahlberg is also the executive producer of several series on HBO, including Entourage, and the co-owner of the Wahlburgers fast-food chain. He has stated that the Catholic faith is the most important part of his life. He wakes up daily at 3:30am, in part to ensure he has time for prayer. He is active at the Good Shepherd Center for homeless women and children in Los Angeles.
Clay Walker
Performer and entrepreneur
Clay Walker was born in Beaumont, Texas and has long been a country music star – “Jesus was a Country Boy” is one of his hits. At 25, he received a devastating diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, which has miraculously not progressed. “Make no mistake about it, the root of Christianity is Catholicism,” he says, and has raised his seven children in the faith.
Kate Ziegler
Former Olympic swimmer
Kate Ziegler is a former competitive swimmer who specialised in freestyle and long-distance events. Ziegler won a total of 15 medals in major international competition, including eight golds, five silvers and two bronzes. She retired from swimming in 2016 and has since earned an MBA. She is a devout Catholic who, when asked of her success, said: “God is faithful and so good, and He helped me.”
Photo: graphic by Arcadia
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
