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Dolly Parton Was a Saint. She Lived the Gospel

Dolly Parton Was a Saint. She Lived the Gospel

Last updated on: August 31, 2026 at 12:53 pm by Mary Pezzulo

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Dolly Parton Was a Saint. She Lived the Gospel 2026-08-31T12:53:37-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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A RCA Press photo of a young Dolly Parton, via Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain.

On Dolly Parton, Faith, and Works

I didn’t know very much about Dolly Parton.

There are some celebrities I know a ridiculous amount about and almost feel like they’re part of my family, and others who fall into the category of “seems like a nice person.” Dolly was the latter, to me. From what little I knew of her music, I liked it. I heard she ran a charity that gave away books and that she was extremely personable. But I didn’t know the half of it.

Since yesterday, when they announced Dolly’s death, I’ve been overwhelmed. I’ve been reading the stories about her and actually listening to her music instead of letting it play in the background while I do other things. She was a brilliant, immensely talented performer. But what really struck me is her kindness and generosity.

In case you’re as ignorant as I was: Dolly Parton was deeply committed to literacy, partly because her own father was an Appalachian farmer who never learned to read. She grew up in poverty and wanted to do everything she could to help other children get an education. She gave hundreds of millions of free books to children across the country through her Imagination Library, which mails a free picture book every month to every child under the age of five who is signed up. “If you can read, you can self-educate yourself, and you’re just lost if you can’t,” she said. She also personally gave $500 to each high school student in her hometown as a reward for graduating, and as a result, the dropout rate at the high school fell from over a third to six percent. She funded scholarships and the college tuition of employees at her theme park.

In addition to her work for education, she also donated enormous amounts to medical research, including AIDS research and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. She donated hundreds of thousands to hospitals in her home state of Tennessee, and there’s an entire children’s hospital named after her.

More people than I can count spoke of how kind and friendly she was to them; she seemed to have a nice word for everyone.

And then there’s the things her family is saying. Dolly wasn’t able to have children of her own, but took care of her whole family and loved and supported all of them; her nieces and nephews named her “Aunt Granny.” The announcement of her death, from her nephew, had me on the verge of tears.

Dolly seems like such a splendid person; I could hardly find anybody on social media saying anything bad about her. But, of course, there was one party pooper.

Social media, as you know, is about as pleasant as an open sewer, and it’s worst of all when a famous person dies. This meanness after a death isn’t reserved to any one cultural group or another. Atheists make fun of dead Christians. Christians say hideous things about dead atheists. Conservatives mock dead liberals. Left-wing edgelords will show up in your comments to tell you the deceased person was a colonizer pig. But nearly everyone was sad that Dolly was gone. Most everybody had positive things to say.

It took a full twenty-four hours, an eternity in internet time, before I found somebody saying Dolly was in hell.

I know I shouldn’t pay attention to trolls like this, but it is my job. I read his rant. The troll said that Dolly was probably burning in hell for being a false Christian because of her loving support for LGBTQ people, and because she didn’t have very good theology when asked questions about her faith, and because she didn’t go to church as often as he’d like her to. It was a cruel, nasty, toxic rant by a cruel, nasty, toxic person whose opinion doesn’t matter in the least. But I have known a lot of such cruel, nasty, toxic people.

I think this person was some stripe of Evangelical Protestant, but I’ve met Catholics who talk exactly the same way. They are excited to condemn people to hell if their theology isn’t expressed in a way they like, or if they’re nice to queer people, or if they don’t perform every ritual in the way the bullies approve of. If a person was generous and kind but didn’t say the right things, these people will condemn her to hell. If she lived her whole life serving others but didn’t show up to church when they thought she ought to, she’s in hell.

That way of thinking is the polar opposite of what Christianity is all about.

I think of that passage from James: What use is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to acknowledge, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless? Was our father Abraham not justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works also when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

I can’t tell you who’s in Heaven and who isn’t. I don’t know if there’s a single soul in hell, but I hope there isn’t. What I can tell you is, as far as I know, based on the testimonies about her impact, Dolly Parton is a saint. She lived the Gospel. I would say this even if she weren’t Christian, but she was a Christian as well. As a Catholic, I pray for her soul, but as someone who is overwhelmed by her beautiful life, I’m confident she’s in Heaven already, and I hope she prays for me.

Speaking of Heaven, did you know Dolly performed a cover of “Stairway to Heaven?” It’s gorgeous. I’ve been listening to it all day:

If you want to honor Dolly’s legacy, please make a donation to the Imagination Library.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

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