Hollywood star Tom Cruise, now one of the most prominent members of the Church of Scientology, had notions of becoming a Catholic priest until he was asked to leave a Franciscan seminary for stealing liquor intended for a priests’ celebration.
After his parents’ divorce, the 14-year-old Cruise — then Thomas Cruise Mapother IV — gravitated toward a friendly priest who was recruiting students to attend the St Francis Seminary School in Cincinnati.
“I think he wanted a good education,” the priest, Father Ric Schneider, told the New York Daily News.
“With his parents going through a divorce, it was tough on him, that’s maybe one of the reasons why he came here. He was a typical teenager, trying to find his way in life.”
According to Shane Dempler, his closest friend in the seminary, Cruise was sincere about becoming a priest.
“He had a very strong Catholic faith,” Dempler said. “We went to Mass, spent time in the chapel and enjoyed hearing stories from the priests. We thought the priests had a great lifestyle and we were really interested in priesthood.”
The seminary — where students had to learn Latin, Greek and German — had a drama club that Cruise joined for the two years he was there.
Priests at the seminary have said Cruise chose to leave the school when his family relocated, but Dempler remembers it differently.
One night, he said, he and Cruise stole some liquor from the Franciscan priests, who were planning a celebration.
Dempler sneaked into the room where the liquor was stored and threw bottle after bottle out the window to Cruise, waiting below. Most bottles broke, but they managed to get some intact and hide them in the nearby woods.
“The priests didn’t even realise until some of the other boys found out about our plan and snuck into the woods and got drunk,” Dempler said. “They were caught staggering down the road to the seminary and forced to confess.
“The school wrote a letter to our parents saying they liked us both, but would prefer if we didn’t return. So we weren’t kicked out, just preferred not to go,” said Dempler.
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Image: Urban Christian News