At that time she considered herself an agnostic and never attended religious services,[3] even after her marriage (6 Aug. 1910) to Harry Payne Burton, a journalist who had originally intended to become an Episcopal priest.

She was received into the Church on September 8, 1930, but even before that she wrote two poems, "So Died a True Christian" and "A Prayer for Ronald" (both 1927) that had a strongly Catholic flavour.

Along with her close friend and fellow convert Dorothy Day, Burton was the first major Catholic woman journalist in the United States.

[5] Katherine Burton in fact believed that balancing work and family was an extremely rich reward for any woman who could do so.

She also believed that most Roman Catholic writers of her time were stylistically flawed because they were "too arrogant and preachy", with the result that she wrote biographies that read more like fiction.