When Rima Fakih was crowned Miss USA in 2010, she was believed to have been the first Muslim winner. But since then, she has come to Christ: in early 2016 she converted to Catholicism in preparation for her marriage to her Catholic fiance.
Fakih married Wassim Salibi, who is a Maronite Catholic, in Lebanon where she grew up. The Maronite Catholic Church is one of 23 Eastern Catholic Churches that, while maintaining their Eastern traditions, are in full communion with the Pope.
Fakih has said in interviews that her family was nominally Muslim growing up and that she attended Catholic schools. However, she says she started to take her Muslim faith more seriously in college.
She’s also not the first in her family to convert. “My brother-in-law is Christian,” she told the Huffington Post in 2010, “and he (and my sister) baptised their two sons. I have an uncle who converted to Christianity, and he’s a priest now.”
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