Becoming Catholic at 98: World War II veteran joins the Church

A World War II Army veteran, Raymond “Ray” Martin Sr., has joined the Catholic Church at 98 years old.

Before finding his way to the Church in Tuscan, Arizona, Martin served in Okinawa, Japan, and in the Philippines; he then spent 27 years as a police officer in Illinois.

Martin’s connection to Catholicism began with his late wife, Ann Marie.

When Deacon Jacinto “Jack” Trevino, a hospice chaplain and parochial associate at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in the Diocese of Tuscan, met with Martin in December 2025, the two bonded over a shared background in law enforcement and spoke about his wife and her faith.

“Ray is an amazing person,” Trevino told EWTN News. “We hit it off from the beginning. We talked about the job a lot — and shared some laughs.”

It wasn’t all laughs, though. As they got to know each other, their conversations grew serious.

“Ray talked about his wife, who passed,” Trevino recalled. “He said she was Catholic and he would attend Mass with her and pray the rosary.”

“One day he mentioned that he was never baptized or had any of the sacraments and he wanted to be Catholic,” Trevino continued. “We began deeper discussions of the faith.”

Martin, it turned…