As Wilde lay asleep in his deathbed, his friend Robert Ross summoned a Catholic priest to his side. Then, at Wilde's nonverbal request, Father Cuthbert Dunne performed the traditional rituals of a deathbed conversion to Catholicism, including baptism and anointment with oils. As Wilde was barely able to speak, there is much speculation about how genuine this last-minute decision was. Writer Richard Ellmann stresses that this was done perhaps without much repentance, or even consciousness, from Wilde. He instead quotes Ross as saying "I did this for my own conscience and a promise I had made...[It] may have been like putting a green carnation in his buttonhole." This could imply that the ritual was one last artistic flourish from Wilde, or even just a performance made on a half concious dying man without his awareness. Still, it was his last act before his passing.

Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1988.