Mr. Novak grew up Jewish and was in a Jewish fraternity in college, but, like Mr. Evans, he was critical of Israel. He prompted a firestorm when he said the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 had been provoked in part by the United States’ closeness to Israel.
After largely ignoring religion and dabbling in Unitarianism, Mr. Novak, in 1998, at age 67, converted to Roman Catholicism. In a ceremony, Msgr. Peter Vaghi proclaimed that the “prince of darkness” had been transformed into a “child of light.”
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who was in attendance, warned against jumping to conclusions.
“Well, we’ve now made Bob a Catholic,” Mr. Moynihan said, according to Washingtonian magazine. “The question is, Can we make him a Christian?”
