Vampire Novelist Anne Rice Quits Christianity

Novelist Anne Rice has quit Christianity for the second time. The Interview With a Vampire author—who had renewed her Catholic faith in recent years and penned a spiritually-themed memoir—says that while her faith in Christ is still strong, she's been turned off Christianity by the church's attitudes on social issues, by Catholic sex scandals, and the excommunication of a nun who approved a life-saving abortion.

"In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being a Christian," Rice wrote on her Facebook page. "I came to the conclusion that if I didn't make this declaration, I was going to lose my mind," she tells AP. Rice, who's currently working on her Songs of the Seraphim fiction series, says she has no plans to return to writing about vampires, although she's a big fan of True Blood and the Twilight movies.