Anthony Fauci Was Raised Catholic, But He No Longer Practices — Here’s Why

Dr. Anthony Fauci spent decades as the public face of American infectious-disease policy, but questions about his personal faith have followed him since long before COVID-19. The short answer: he was raised in a devout Italian-American Catholic household and educated by Jesuits from grade school through college, yet in his own words he no longer practices the religion and has described himself, at different points, as spiritual, “less enamored of organized religion,” and even a humanist. Here is what is actually documented, in his own words and in verified reporting.

Brooklyn Catholic Roots and Jesuit Education

Fauci was born on December 24, 1940, in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, the son of pharmacist Stephen Fauci and Eugenia Fauci, both children of Italian immigrants. Reporting from outlets including Religion Unplugged and the National Catholic Reporter describes the household as devoutly Roman Catholic; the family later moved to Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights, where his father ran a neighborhood pharmacy below the family’s apartment. Young Anthony attended Our Lady of Guadalupe grammar school before winning a seat at Regis High School, a tuition-free Jesuit academy in Manhattan, graduating with the class of 1958 after a roughly 70-minute daily commute by bus and subway. At Regis he studied four years of Latin and three of Greek and captained the basketball team. Addressing fellow alumni years later, he called his time there “the best educational period I could ever have imagined having,” per the National Catholic Reporter. He continued on to another Jesuit school, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, graduating first in his class before earning his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medicine) in 1966. Fauci has credited that Jesuit formation with shaping his adult values, telling C-SPAN it helped instill the “principles that I run my life by.”

Faith, Science, and Public Health

Fauci has spoken about religion only occasionally, and his public comments show a gradual drift from the Catholicism of his upbringing. In a widely cited 2003 interview, he described himself as having become “less a Roman Catholic religion person,” saying he instead maintained a general sense of spirituality rather than regular church attendance. By 2015, discussing his outlook with C-SPAN, he said he was “less enamored of organized religion than I am with the principles of humanity.” His most detailed public accounting came in a December 2023 interview with BBC journalist Katty Kay, in which he pointed out Georgetown University’s Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart, where he married bioethicist Dr. Christine Grady in 1985, and confirmed he no longer attends. Asked directly whether he still practices Catholicism, he said no, citing “enough negative aspects about the organizational Church” — while adding in the same conversation, “I identify myself as a Catholic.” The remarks drew criticism from Catholic commentators at outlets including Catholic World Report and CatholicVote, who framed his stance as typical of a broader drift among cradle Catholics of his generation. Fauci has generally described his position as an ethical one rather than an anti-religious one, saying his personal ethics are “enough to keep me going on the right path.” Notably, in May 2021 he opened a Vatican-organized virtual health conference alongside Pope Francis, telling participants the pandemic had reinforced for him that “faith and science are constantly evolving.”

Legacy and Personal Reflections

Fauci’s complicated relationship with his Catholic upbringing has become part of how both admirers and critics frame his public legacy. In July 2021, the American Humanist Association named him its Humanist of the Year, an honor recognizing secular, ethics-based public service, according to Religion News Service — a choice welcomed by secular groups and criticized by some religious commentators as confirmation of his distance from organized faith. Fauci has never publicly described himself as an atheist; he has instead consistently used the language of cultural identity and personal ethics rather than doctrine, prayer, or church membership. Religion Unplugged has noted that his Catholic and Jesuit roots are often overlooked in coverage of his public-health career, even though the Jesuit emphasis on service and disciplined inquiry is frequently cited by biographers as a throughline connecting his upbringing to his 1984–2022 tenure leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Available public interviews do not include extended remarks from Fauci on private prayer or belief in God, and there is no verified record of him affiliating with a different denomination or formal secular organization beyond the humanist recognition. Based on his own statements, his religious identity today is best described as a nonpracticing, culturally identified Catholic guided primarily by personal ethics.

FAQ

Did Anthony Fauci ever meet Pope Francis?

Yes. In May 2021, Fauci opened a Vatican-organized virtual conference on COVID-19 and global health alongside Pope Francis, addressing how science and spirituality might jointly respond to the pandemic.

Is Anthony Fauci an atheist?

There is no public record of Fauci identifying as an atheist. He has said he still identifies as Catholic and was named the American Humanist Association’s 2021 Humanist of the Year, but has not renounced religious identity outright — he simply describes himself as nonpracticing.