Daily Rome Shot 1397

One Comment

1. Charivari Rob says:

   23 July 2025 at 2:45 AM

   “Writers confirm” (that Batman is Catholic)? I’d take that with a great deal of salt.
   A couple of the famous ones (from 20-45 years ago) have expressed opinions over the years that Batman is Catholic (including based on some misplaced stereotyping about guilt), but unless one of them is writing or editing the character again and has made a change, there is nothing canonical about it.
   Historically, there was little detail of religious practice in Batman stories. Mostly, it was vague accoutrements of “mainstream WASP”, and nothing more specific than an ‘imaginary story’ or ‘alternate timeline’ where Bruce Wayne had settled down and married Kathy Kane, and there’d be a couple of panels alluding to a clergyman and the ceremony.
   Batman’s creators – Bob Kane and Bill Finger – were both Jewish (as were many other comics creators of that time) and there has been some writing about Batman’s Jewishness and a lot of analysis about the creators and crafting characters who would “pass” for mainstream American WASP consumer culture (see also Siegel & Shuster, and Superman).
   At various times, it was on-page somewhere that Kathy Kane was Jewish and observant. There was also the suggestion that Bruce Wayne’s late mother, Martha, was of Polish descent, which might support either notion – Jewish or Catholic.
   The most numerous crumbs in canon were that the Wayne family, from however many generations back, were from English roots and English money. The few vague depictions of religious practice by Bruce tended to generic mainstream Christian or leaning more Anglican/Episcopal than they did Catholic. Later stories suggested a 19th-Century ancestor was a Gotham judge named Solomon Wayne, who appeared to be a strict Puritan/Presbyterian.

Comments are closed.