From Times Online

Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, gay icon and deathbed convert to Catholicism, has been paid a rare tribute by the Vatican. His aphorisms are quoted in a collection of maxims and witticisms for Christians that has been published by one of the Pope’s closest aides…

It is said that Wilde converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. I prefer to believe the story that his last words were: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do”.

Another scurrilous deathbed joke from my childhood surfaces. It concerns Michael O’Leary, a celebrated reprobate who never darkened the door of the parish church. But eventually he was laid low by a heart attack and his family, seeing an opportunity to rescue him from the fires of hell, summoned a priest to give him Extreme Unction. In accordance with the rite, the priest bent down and said, “Michael, do you renounce the Devil, and all his works and pomps?” Whereupon Michael, summoning up all his remaining energy, hauled himself up onto one elbow and said, “Jesus, Father, this is no time to be makin’ enemies”.