Had someone even suggested to me twenty years ago that I would today be a loyal son of the Catholic Church, I would have laughed him to scorn. Far from having an interest in becoming Catholic, I was convinced that the Church was indeed a great apostasy, a mongrel church containing some elements of Christian belief certainly, but also a plethora of Jewish and paganistic beliefs as well. It isn't that I gave a great deal of thought to the subject, however. I simply knew what the Catholic Church was about and knew it could not be the true church, and I knew it because that is what I had always heard. I could not imagine anyone possessing any knowledge at all could seriously give the Catholic Church a second look. Given my particular religious upbringing how could I have thought otherwise?
As far back as memory serves me, my parents had taken me with them to worship at the Pinhook church of Christ, a small congregation hidden away in the rolling hills of southern Indiana, not far from Bedford, the county seat of Lawrence County. The building itself was a typical country church: plain, white, no stained glass or other ornamentation. There was an outhouse in the back of the building, invariably swarming with wasps whenever I had to use it. It was, indeed, a true "meeting house" rather than church as most people usually think of that term, one befitting church of Christ theology (a term most churches of Christ spurn). We lived on a small farm just outside the city of Mitchell, Indiana, and drove twenty miles one way every Sunday to worship and every Wednesday night to Bible class. In between Sunday morning and Sunday evening services, my parents, cousins, aunts and uncles would gather at my grandparents' farm for Sunday dinner and socializing. Their farm was somewhat centrally located for everyone in the clan and enabled us to avoid making a forty mile round trip twice each Sunday.
My father (who died in 1985) was a true Christian gentleman in the old sense. As I grew older I came to realize just how cultured he really was; not in the formal sense of extensive education, travel, reading, or knowing which fork should be placed where on the table, but in the sense of knowing what life was all about and living out the Christian faith to the best of his knowledge and ability. He had several Bible commentaries on the bookshelf and in between feeding the hogs, plowing and planting, and working at the General Motors plant in Bedford, he studied the Scriptures. For years he taught Sunday school classes at both high school and adult levels and later became an elder in the church. My mother was a quiet homemaker who held the household together. I learned a lot of Christianity from her and my father; not so much in a doctrinal sense, but in seeing principles of Christian living put into practice. I don't believe I ever heard my parents utter the word "sex" all the years I was growing up, but they gave me the best sex education anyone could have. They showed me how a Christian husband and wife should treat each other.
My aunt also taught Sunday school at the Pinhook church and to this day I can sing many of the songs she taught us as little ones. In song we learned of the fall of the walls of Jericho; Zacheus's determination, in spite of his shortness, to get a glimpse of Jesus over the heads of the crowd surrounding Him; about letting our light shine and not hiding it under a bushel; and about the love of Jesus "down in my heart." I owe a great deal of my early knowledge of the Bible to her.
There were other teachers and preachers as well, from whom, over the years, Bible stories and lessons were learned. Unlike many Protestant sects, the church of Christ preachers and teachers seldom appealed to emotion. Sermons were generally well outlined lessons more than fire-breathing oratory calculated to "scare the Hell" out of the listeners, and were meant to instruct. Alexander Campbell, the de facto founder of the churches of Christ, felt a strong revulsion to the wild emotionalism of the frontier sects he encountered in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was very much convinced that God was a god of reason as well as emotion, and that God's plan for mankind was meant to appeal to man's head as well as heart. As a result, church of Christ sermons tended to be very logical presentations with many Bible verses included in the course of the sermon to back up what the preacher was saying. I can't begin to say how much of the Bible I memorized simply by hearing verses quoted again and again.
I mention the importance of early teachers in my religious upbringing for this reason: Later in my life when I began to study the Catholic Faith in earnest, it occurred to me that, in spite of our claim in the church of Christ, to take our religion from the Bible alone, most of what I believed I had not learned directly from the Bible itself, but by what others taught me about it. People that I loved and trusted formed my religious beliefs and those beliefs were confirmed by proof texts from the Bible. This fact became a major factor in helping me to see that accepting the teaching authority of the Catholic Church was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I had in fact, accepted the teaching authority of people who laid no claim to apostolic succession or infallibility, or any other guarantees of truth that the Church alone possesses. They were simply good, decent people trying to teach the Christian religion to the best of their understanding. More on this later.
I don't know how long my parents attended the Pinhook church, but I was there from the time I was born (1951) until 1965. In many respects going to church there was like a family gathering, at least for the adults, as many of the members were related. As a child I didn't realize just how many of the members were relatives, but my father and mother did. Flinns and Guthries were the first two families to settle that part of Indiana in the early 1800's, so it was difficult to find someone who wasn't related in some way. I suspect that family association was one reason that my parents continued to drive the distance to Pinhook, instead of attending the church of Christ in Mitchell, ten minutes from our house.
As a child attending the Pinhook church, I occasionally heard people make disparaging remarks about the church in Mitchell. I didn't really understand the problem at the time. It wasn't until years later that I knew what the tension between the two groups was about. Nevertheless, in spite of its not being seen in the best light by the Pinhook brethren, my father decided for family convenience to start attending Sunday night and Wednesday night services at the Mitchell Church of Christ. We continued for some time to attend Sunday morning services at Pinhook and have our traditional Sunday dinners at my grandparents' house.
At the time the minister of the church in Mitchell was a man named Roy VanTassel. He was short, slightly rotund, and bald with snatches of white hair around the ears and back of his head. He was certainly no orator, but he was one of the kindliest men I have ever known in my life. As I got to know him it made me angry to hear members of the church criticize him for this or that. Usually the criticism was for the most petty of reasons. His sermons were full of Scripture quotations and I could swear he must have memorized the entire Old and New Testaments. He was also very interested in having things for the young people in the church to do. He was not one for letting an increasingly secular society set the agenda for the children of this church. In spite of his "ordinariness," and his lack of oratorical skill, I came to have the highest regard for him as a minister.
Perhaps partly due to my respect for brother VanTassel (members of churches of Christ generally refer to each other formally as "brother" or "sister"), I finally took a step I had been contemplating for some time. In the churches of Christ it is a common practice to offer an "invitation" at the end of the sermon, not unlike some other Protestant bodies. When one responded to this invitation, the question was asked the respondent: "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?" Upon giving a positive reply, the person would then be baptized. Churches of Christ do not believe in infant baptism and they believe in immersion only, so there had to be enough water to cover the entire body. At the evening service some time in December, 1965, I rose from the pew when the invitation was given and went down front, made my confession and was duly baptized. I think I took my parents completely by surprise, but they were very happy I had made this decision.
I was a freshman in high school when I was baptized and at that point my father decided it would probably be a good idea if we switched membership from the Pinhook church to the church in Mitchell. It was closer, more convenient and, now that I was a Christian, I think he wanted me to have access to some of the youth activities that were offered at the church. I would not have that kind of opportunity at the Pinhook church. It was so far away for one thing. Additionally it was a rural church, not as conducive to congregational and youth activities beyond the usual church services and Sunday school.
As I mentioned earlier, I was vaguely aware that there existed tensions between the two churches. Whether this played a part in my father's decision I don't know. He never said anything about it if it did.
Four years of high school came and went. In retrospect it seems they fairly flew by. For the most part I enjoyed my high school years. I played on the baseball team, screamed like a banshee at Friday night basketball games (this was Indiana, remember), participated in various boyish pranks with my buddies, and in general had what I suppose was a typical rural, small town high school life. The teachers were good for the most part and, shockingly, didn't pass out condoms or try to convince us that everything our parents told us was just a way to oppress us and deprive us of our rights. We even sang "Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow" in music classes. I did not, as a result, grow up to hate Jews, and all other non-Christians or to "fear" people different from myself. There was an organization called the "Fellowship of Christian Athletes" and occasionally a local minister was invited to speak to the student body.
I can't say that I thought a lot about religion during those years. I was a firm believer in God and Jesus Christ, and believed without question that the church of Christ was the true church, the very one founded by Jesus. However, like my friends I was busy with schoolwork, playing baseball, getting summer jobs, wondering what the next Beatles song would be like, lusting after girls, thinking about college and what I wanted to do with my life, and in general living the good life. I faithfully attended all church services with my parents and when I was old enough to drive and get my own car, I drove myself to all services. I never once thought about missing church. Attending church was part and parcel of my family life and I would as soon have missed the family meal or being with all my relatives at Christmas as to have stayed home from church. Two of my best friends in high school went to other churches and on occasion I would try to draw them into the church of Christ. One was a Baptist. The other, John Dodds, who to this day is still my best friend and more like a brother, was a Nazarene. Each of us visited services of the others' church on occasion, although, believing as I did that the church of Christ was the true church, I always felt a little out of place at their churches. I once went with John at his request to a revival at the Nazarene church. The preacher wore black, had coal black hair combed straight back, and wire rimmed glasses. He looked like something right out of the Old West and screamed so loudly I thought the vein in his neck was going to pop. At one point he yelled, "I know there are sinners out there who need to come to the altar!" (the Nazarene equivalent to our "invitation.") I could have sworn he looked straight at me when he said it. I tried to slouch as much as possible under the pew so as to not be seen. I considered myself fortunate I escaped with my life. John still laughs about that to this day.
During this period of time my father continued to teach Bible classes at the Mitchell church and eventually was selected as an elder. Even during my teenage years I had the utmost respect for these men. I believed then they had my soul's best interest at heart. I still believe it. Although I came much later to see just how mistaken they were on some very important things, they were right about a lot of things as well.
This was very important to me because, although my own personal faith was solid and the community in general was supportive of the Christian faith (particularly in the Protestant sense), in the larger world things were coming apart at the seams. This was the 1960's and it seemed that many elements in society were doing their utmost to undermine everything good and decent. The traditional Judeo-Christian moral code was blasted by hippies, pot heads and free lovers as outdated and irrelevant. Timothy Leary encouraged us all to "turn on, tune in, and drop out." The Vietnam War had divided the country into warring camps, the cities burned and every week there was a new riot on college campuses. Jesus was a revolutionary, we were told, and if the churches would get out of the way, his "real" message for the modern world would come through. I was very fortunate when I left for college in the fall of 1969 that I had been given a solid foundation of faith with which to face the world. At least that is what I thought.
It is important to remember that throughout history there have always been those who thumbed their noses at the law, wisdom, custom, parents, and religion. What made the 1960's so devastating, however, was that the people now doing that kind of thing were not the outcasts of society, but more and more were the people who should have been upholding authority in the home, the state, and the church; political and religious leaders; school authorities; parents; college professors. In some churches pictures of Jesus were replaced by those of the communist revolutionary, Che Gueverra. Mao and Ho Chi Minh became idols of the academy. I went to college with the intention of getting an education. Boy, did I ever.
I matriculated at Indiana Central College in Indianapolis in the fall of 1969. ICC was a small, liberal arts college supported by the United Methodist Church. While the atmosphere was certainly more liberal than that of the community in general, with the connection to the Methodist church there was a restraining element that did not exist in strictly secular colleges. Most of my professors were quite liberal in their political and religious beliefs, but they were good teachers and I got on well with them. I butted heads with them on occasion, but, as is the case with many freshmen, I was too intimidated by those letters after their names (MA, Ph.D.) to disagree with them much. With all the knowledge these people had, how could they be wrong about much of anything?
I drove home most weekends my freshman year and was always at church on Sunday. When I didn't go home I attended a small church of Christ just outside Indianapolis. Here I heard some phrases used I hadn't heard at the Pinhook or Mitchell churches, but I ascribed that to personal quirks of some members. Certainly it was nothing to cause any shaking up of my faith.
In my speech class for one assignment I gave a fiery talk about the importance of Jesus Christ and how the only thing that matters is to forget about the doctrines of men and to cling to his true teachings. I remember seeing the professor give me a strange look after my speech (it was actually more like a sermon), but he never said anything about the content. He critiqued only the technical performance. While there were many devout Christian students at the school, for the first time in my life I met people who actually expressed doubt about God. I remember distinctly one such meeting. I was eating lunch in the cafeteria with two or three other students. It was always my habit to give thanks before eating and when I did, one of the students said, "Are you praying to God the food doesn't poison you?" Funny. As the subject of religion was mentioned, one of the students in all seriousness said, "What is religion?" I thought that was a very strange thing to say and felt somewhat sorry for him that he was that ignorant. Yet I began more and more to run into that kind of thinking. I still feel sorry for that poor fellow. He probably thought he was saying the most profound thing in the history of the world. I remember someone else asking, "What is truth?"
Although that particular incident didn't unnerve me, little by little, the rank skepticism of the college atmosphere began to take its toll. I don't think I even realized it at the time. Bits and pieces of things said by professors in history and political science classes, or read in some of the required readings forced me to face the fact that a good portion of the world I was now in most certainly did not believe in Christ, at least not in the way I did. Professors were the worst offenders at trying to undermine Christian belief but fellow students played their part as well, though I think often unwittingly. I realized for the first time in my life that I had never really thought about my faith. It was given to me by parents, teachers and preachers, and I had never questioned a single thing about it. I really had never had to defend it, at least with unbelievers. There was always an occasional tiff with a Baptist or Presbyterian friend about what the Bible said about something, but it was always in the context of belief. It is one thing to argue with a friend as to the true meaning of a Biblical passage. It is quite another when the other person responds, "Who cares what the Bible says?"
I would have to say that I survived my first year at college with my faith relatively intact. True, I had been introduced to some attitudes I had never run into before, at least not in person, but by and large the forces of skepticism had made their assault on my citadel, and had been repulsed. However, just as a cancer can go for a long period of time before being detected, the attacks on my faith had planted a seed in my mind which began to take root and grow, even as I went about my life, unsuspecting.
During the summer of 1970, the summer after my first year in college, I worked at a factory in Orleans, Indiana, a small town just five miles south of Mitchell. My sister worked in the offices there and she was able to secure a job for me for the summer. The company manufactured radio and TV cabinets, and I worked in the print room where I ran the tops of the cabinets through a large roller which printed a wood grain finish on the unfinished cabinets. I did the tops. My compatriot, Chester Adamkiewicz, did the sides of the cabinets. Chester was a small, thick-glassed, dark haired fellow with a jutting jaw, incessantly chewing gum and strutting like a cock when he walked. He always called me "lad." He told me he had studied to be a priest at one time, but left the seminary. I never quite knew whether to believe him. It was one of the many unique experiences of my life to have worked with him.
Nothing much happened during this summer, other than the usual hi-jinx with my friends who were also home from college for the summer. Occasionally I led the singing at church. Once I was allowed to preach one of the Sunday sermons. Churches of Christ have no ordained ministry, so anyone with some Biblical knowledge who was willing to stand in front of an audience and preach might be allowed to do so. It was one way they had of preparing potential ministers. I did reasonably well, I suppose, for my first time, although I believe the sermon was quite a bit longer than even they were used to.
In the fall of 1970 I transferred from Indiana Central College to Indiana State University in Terre Haute. I am not altogether sure why I did so, other than that many of my high school friends were attending ISU. The atmosphere at ISU was quite different than that of Indiana Central, as I soon found out while sitting in my "academic advisor's" office picking out the classes I thought I needed while he leaned back in his chair, reading a newspaper, perfectly oblivious to my presence.
Although in high school I had thought about becoming an accountant, during my senior year I developed an interest in politics. How could one do otherwise in those crazy years? My course of study in college was therefore, history and political science, with a view toward attending law school. It was in those history and political science courses, however, that the skepticism of the academy began to take its toll on my religious faith. Although there was the occasional direct assault on Christian belief (or at least on Christian belief as perceived by liberal professors), most of the time the attack consisted of little hints here and there, a snide remark off the cuff, a bit of ridicule just for fun. After a while I found myself more and more simply putting thoughts about the truth of the Christian religion on the back burner. I never really became a non-believer, and I certainly held fast to the traditional moral teachings of Christian faith, but I began to see them more as part of our political and cultural heritage, and it was in defense of that heritage that gave Christianity meaning to me during those years.
It was during the turbulent sixties and seventies that I began my college career and I wanted more than anything to fight against the liberal/leftist cancer that had been eating away at everything good in American society. I didn't get much help from my professors in that regard. Quite the contrary. The most conservative professor I had in college was an older gentleman that I would characterize as a traditional New Deal Democrat. As I mentioned earlier in this essay, a novice student generally feels rather intimidated by his professors. After all, they have spent years in study and surely they knew more than my father and other members of my family from whom I took my political philosophy, such as it was. I knew the radicalism in politics, religion and culture just wasn't right and I hated it with a passion, but I didn't know how to fight it. The radical professors were so articulate and my conservatism was instinctive, not lending itself to very convincing rational argument. But, were my beliefs wrong, outdated, foolish, superstitious, just because I lacked the ability to defend them in argument?
While I had shelved the idea of defending specific doctrines of Christianity while accepting its moral teachings and believing in a "traditional, Western, Christian society," I was not so lackadaisical when it came to arming myself against radical political and economic views. I entered upon a course of action which caused my grades to drop and my knowledge to increase. I began cutting classes and going to the university library to read, a course of action I would highly recommend to anyone who really wants to learn something in college (That depends, of course, upon the college one is attending). I read a book entitled "Quotations from Chairman Bill; the Best of William F. Buckley." I also read a book entitled "Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking?" a book of essays by various conservative and anti-liberal writers and thinkers. As I read these books I would note the names of the writers and seek out other books by them. I found myself reading works by Buckley, Russell Kirk, Jeffrey Hart, Frederick Wilhelmsen and others which gave me the much-needed ammunition to defend those beliefs of mine which were so sorely under attack. I came to see that, while most "conservatives" are not particularly articulate about defending their beliefs, those beliefs most certainly could be defended intellectually, and were defended intellectually by some of the most well educated and sharp thinking individuals of the ages. I also noticed in passing that it seemed many of the writers who defended traditional beliefs were Catholics. My response to this was twofold: On the one hand I felt that these writers were correct in their beliefs in spite of being Catholic (after all, even a blind pig finds an acorn on occasion); on the other hand, however, I came to see that Catholics could be very learned in history and the other social sciences, and that perhaps, at least as far as defending certain traditional beliefs was concerned, the Catholic Church might not always be the enemy. One is often known by the enemies one makes, and I noticed that many of the enemies of the Church were also enemies of mine. But that was about as far as I could go with it at that time.
In 1972 on a blind date I met my future wife, Nancy. Six months after our first date we were married. After graduating from Indiana State with a BS degree in teaching I worked for a short time for an insurance company and then re-entered the trucking industry. I had worked part time for a trucking company while in college and enjoyed the work, so I contacted my old employer and managed to get hired. I had developed the habit of reading in college in order to defend myself against liberal/radical professors and students. I continued this practice after graduation as I then realized that my real education would be self education. I agreed with John Randolph of Roanoke when he said that his real education was gained "...from my library... and from intercourse with the world." I found that reading books I wanted to read was fun, unlike school where I had to read the latest radical chic manifesto. Indeed, it was reading a book about John Randolph by Russell Kirk that changed my whole attitude toward Christianity.
Kirk had written "John Randolph of Roanoke" as a master's thesis and the book was subsequently enlarged and published. Randolph was one of the most learned men of his day and had a large library at his Roanoke plantation. His speeches were full of classical and historical references. In one passage which struck me like a thunderclap, Kirk mentioned something about Randolph's "passionate Christianity." Don't ask me why that phrase slapped me in the face as it did. I only know it did. I thought, "If someone as learned as John Randolph was a devoted adherent to Christianity, maybe it is not merely a good and useful religion, but true as well." From that point on I began to buy and read books on Christian evidences and apologetics. Although my wife and I had been very sporadic about church attendance for some time, I still considered the church of Christ "my church" and many, though not all, of the books I bought tended to be books written by adherents to that church. I read McGarvey's "Evidences of Christianity," "Scheme of Redemption" by Robert Milligan; "The Gospel Plan of Salvation" by Brents; and many others. Gradually I came to see what a fool I had been. Not only was there evidence of the truth of Christianity, the evidence was overwhelming. All one had to do was look for it. For the first time in my life I was able to, as St. Peter says, give an account for the faith that was within me.
During the time I was doing this study I was working in Terre Haute, Indiana for the same trucking company I had worked for in college. As I mentioned earlier the churches of Christ do not have ordained ministers. Any man who had a reasonable amount of Bible knowledge and a willingness to stand in front of a crowd might be allowed to preach. My wife and I attended a congregation in Terre Haute with such a minister and he was one of the most intelligent men I have ever known. He had been in the Navy Seals during the Vietnam War and had picked up college classes when he had the opportunity. I think he had enough credit hours for two degrees, but he never really followed a degree program and did not have a degree. He had a large library and would lend me books just about every Sunday. I became good friends with him, admired him greatly and wanted to follow in his footsteps. My chance came shortly.
Just south of Terre Haute there was a small, rural congregation which needed someone to preach on Sunday morning and evening and the elders of the church agreed to let me fill the bill. For several months we traveled the ten or so miles from our house to the church for Sunday morning and evening services. They seemed to be well pleased with my efforts and we enjoyed being with them. I served as their minister while still working full time at the trucking company. I began to think about the possibility of quitting my job and preaching full time for a larger church. This was not to be the case just yet.
The owners of the trucking company I had worked for in college and for the previous two years decided to call it quits and sold the company to another trucking company. Sometimes this can work out for the best, but in this case it did not for me. I continued working for them for another year, but conditions got worse and I decided it was time to look for greener pastures. While looking through the want ads I came upon an ad for a similar position to the one I had just left. It was with another trucking company but did not say where. I sent a resume and shortly thereafter received a phone call from a representative of the company. It was located in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. My wife and I had never lived that far away from family before, but they made me an offer I couldn't refuse (especially as I was unemployed at the time), so we packed up and headed north.
Wisconsin Rapids was a pleasant city of about 20,000 or so when we moved there in 1978. One of the first things we noticed was that there were a lot more Catholic churches than in Terre Haute. We discovered in time that there was a large Polish population in the area, as well as some other "ethnic" groups that accounted for the larger number of Catholic churches. One of the first objectives after moving into our town house was to find a church of Christ nearby. I was a bit concerned about this as churches of Christ are not very plentiful outside certain areas of the south and Midwest. Wisconsin certainly was not known as one of their strongholds. To my delight, however, I found one just a short distance from our apartment. It was a small church consisting of probably thirty or forty members, but there it was nevertheless. I felt that God had guided me right to where I needed to be. I truly believe he did, but not for the reasons I initially thought.
When we introduced ourselves to the minister and gave him a little background as to how we happened to be there, he seemed delighted to have someone who was a "veteran" in the small congregation. Several of the members were ex-Catholics and some who were attending were still Catholics, but were attending with their friends or relatives who had converted, and I am sure he felt I would provide a needed reinforcement in bringing some of his congregation to a better understanding of "New Testament Christianity." What was more remarkable was that he was the grandson of the old man who used to lead the singing at the Pinhook church of Christ when I was a boy! What were the odds? His name was Robert Speer and my wife, Nancy, and I got to know the Speers well and became pretty close to them and their family. There were a number of bicycle paths around the city and we bought bicycles and often went riding with them. In spite of the smallness of the church we felt at home; at least for a while.
We weren't at the church long when brother Speer asked me to give a talk during Sunday school. I readily agreed and in the course of my talk I mentioned something about the Gospel Advocate. I noticed some strange looks coming my way from the Speers but didn't really think much about it at the time. The Gospel Advocate is a major church of Christ paper which was founded many years ago by David Lipscomb, after whom David Lipscomb College in Nashville, Tennessee is named. No one said anything to me about my little talk, but not long thereafter I began receiving a very attractive magazine called "Truth." It was published by some church of Christ ministers and appeared to have some very good articles in it. I was thrilled to receive it, until I started reading the articles and wondering what in the world was going on. Throughout the entire magazine the writings supported what was called in church of Christ lingo an "anti" position, and straight out condemned to Hell anyone who didn't go along with it.
Without going into a long, drawn out history of churches of Christ, let me explain a little bit about what "anti-ism" was. As with other Protestant churches and sects without a true center of unity and authority, the churches of Christ over the years had splintered off into many different groups, each claiming to be the true church. Initially the movement was meant to bring about Christian unity, at least among Protestants, but over the years various issues had split churches into different camps. There developed three major groups out of the Campbell-Stone movement: The Disciples of Christ which has become a very liberal Protestant denomination; the Christian Churches, a more conservative mainline church; and the churches of Christ, which were the most hard core conservative group. Churches of Christ are organized on a strictly congregational basis, that being the New Testament pattern of the church in their view, and therefore had no central authority to keep splinter groups from popping up. The local church was complete and had no need of any other outside entity to do the work that Christ commissioned His church to do. Sometime during the 1940's or 1950's, a new radio program called Herald of Truth was formed by some churches of Christ in either Texas or Tennessee. This appeared to be a good work and so the program solicited money from churches to help do the work. This caused a great divide between many churches. Most saw no problem with helping out a work of evangelization, but there were many preachers in the churches which saw this as compromising the integrity and autonomy of the local church. They fought against donating moneys to this program, to colleges and schools, to orphan homes and to many other organizations. They were denominated "antis" because they were against supporting all these activities. This was not simply a matter of opinion with this faction, either. This was a matter of faith, of Heaven or Hell and the articles in Truth magazine made this very clear. For the first time in my life I understood the friction that had existed between the old Pinhook church of my childhood and the Mitchell church of my young manhood. I also understood why I received such cold looks when I mentioned the name of Gospel Advocate, for the Advocate was very much in favor of the activities mentioned. Also for the first time in my life, I began to have some serious doubts about this being the true church. I was truly at a crisis of faith and had to make some kind of decision. My alternatives looked rather bleak.
I wrote to Truth magazine and told them to cancel my subscription, that I could not tolerate their hateful vendetta (and it truly was hateful), against brethren that I knew to be perfectly faithful, loyal members of the church of Christ. They canceled my subscription with a letter telling me it was too bad I was going to Hell. There were no other churches of Christ in Wisconsin Rapids, but I knew I could no longer attend this one.
About this time an event was occurring that was to change the course of the rest of the century and perhaps well beyond. That event was the election to the papacy of the first non-Italian pope in four hundred years. This was a news making event and the major networks all covered it extensively. Who was this Polish pope who took the name John Paul II? I began to watch the news with great interest and found the whole thing very moving. I remembered my experience in college of finding that many Catholics stood firm for traditional morality and for political, social and cultural sanity. Here was a pope who had stood against Nazis and Communists. Perhaps he would help turn the tide against the various totalitarian "isms" of our century. This sparked an interest in the study of Catholicism. I had read about the Catholic church before, but it was almost always articles and books by rabidly anti-Catholic writers. One exception had been Hilaire Belloc's "The Servile State." This book had given me a new perspective on the reformation and the modern age. I decided to read it again and pay more attention.
I went to the local library and took out books such as Hughes' "History of the Church," and "The Catholic Church and History'' and "How the Reformation Happened" by Belloc. Once again, I found much that made sense. I decided to read a book which I had purchased some years before called the "Campbell-Purcell Debate." It was a debate on the Catholic religion between Alexander Campbell, the founder of the churches of Christ (he would have denied that) and Bishop Purcell of the diocese of Cincinnati, Ohio. The debate took place in 1837 in Cincinnati. Campbell had a reputation for immense learning and I thought, in spite of the reasonableness of some of the things I had been reading by Catholic authors, this debate would show definitively the basic falsehood of the Catholic religion.
I was not prepared for the results. Not only did Campbell not thrash Purcell as I had expected (after all, how could Catholicism REALLY be defended?), he did not win the debate at all, and in fact looked pretty weak after all was said and done. Campbell was certainly a learned man in many ways, but his learning often was exposed by Purcell as rather shallow. Purcell on the other hand, showed himself a master of Scripture and Scripture languages, of sacred and profane history, and the writings of the church fathers. Needless to say, I was impressed with Purcell's presentation and defense of the Catholic Faith. I just didn't know exactly what to do about it.
It then occurred to me that one thing I could do about it was start attending mass. We were far away from home and there was no one I knew who would see me going into a Catholic church, so what did I have to lose? I contacted the pastor of nearby Our Lady, Queen of Heaven Catholic Church and told him of my interest. Believe me, I thought the heavens would verily crash around my ears when I first said, "I would like to speak to Father so and so." After all, didn't Jesus say call no man "father?" He listened intently and gave me a tour of the church and a small catechism to study. For the next few weeks my wife, daughter and I attended mass at this church. I found myself at this point wanting to become Catholic, but I still had problems with the Church doing things for which there was no apparent authority in Scripture. Churches of Christ were (rightfully) very big on the importance of authority in religion, and this aspect bothered me. I didn't realize it at the time but I was still too locked into the Protestant theory of the "Bible only."
In spite of my doubts I announced to my wife that I had decided to become Catholic. She was very concerned about the effect it would have on my family. Also, she had not had any opportunity to do any study of the Faith herself, so she wasn't too sure that this was the right thing to do anyway. Before the situation continued much further, however, we were contacted by someone from a church of Christ in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, about twenty or thirty miles north of Wisconsin Rapids. I don't know how they found out about my dalliance with the Whore of Babylon, but the minister at this church invited me to attend services there. He knew of the "anti-ism" of the Rapids church and of my disappointment in that. The church in Stevens Point was more like the Mitchell church I had come to call my home church. He asked me if I was truly considering becoming Catholic. I let on that this whole affair was just an opportunity for me to study the Catholic church closeup, and that I was not really serious about it. That was a lie, but by the grace of God I was prevented from making a mistake at that point. I really was not ready as yet to embrace Rome. Once I found a church of Christ I could feel comfortable in once more, I put the idea of becoming Catholic out of my head.
We stayed at this church for several months until the idea of leaving my trucking job for the ministry began to really gnaw at me. I knew I needed more education to do that, but there was no way I could attend one of the church of Christ colleges for four years. By this time my second daughter had been born and there seemed no way financially to be able to get the additional training I needed. However, I found out that the minister of the church in Stevens Point had attended, not a four-year college to train for the ministry, but one of the schools of preaching that had been popping up for the past several years among churches of Christ. These schools were generally located in and supported by particular churches of Christ, and they offered men who had been out of school for a while the opportunity of an intensive two-year Bible study in order to go out as ministers of the gospel. I thought perhaps this might be the way to go, so I began investigating some of them. I decided that if I were to do this I would attend the one in Memphis, Tennessee. There was one major problem, however. Due to the heavy study workload, students are not allowed to hold jobs. They must, therefore, have support from whatever source in order to attend. I had no such support, so I figured this might not work out after all. In the meantime, with no idea of what the future would hold I had left my job at the trucking company and my wife and I and our two daughters moved back to southern Indiana to live briefly with my parents until we could figure out our next move.
For the next several months I did substitute teaching, helped my father farm and did some occasional preaching at various small rural churches in the area. In the meantime I applied for a position as a history teacher at my old high school. They had an opening for someone to teach world and American history. I had an "endorsement" on my degree from Indiana State to teach American history, but lacked three credit hours to have one in world history as well. Even though I had my name on the contract, the school superintendent decided that he could not allow me to take the position. Why he couldn't have let me take the position and pick up the needed hours during the summer was a mystery to me then and still is. I was devastated. I thought our future was secure and now it was up in the air again. I decided to pursue the possibility of raising funds to support us while attending the preaching school in Memphis. I spoke to the elders at the church in Mitchell and also to some other churches and individuals and somehow managed to raise enough funds to keep body and soul together for two years. One of the supporters was a church in Memphis which also offered a house for us to live in while I was in school. Although I had never been in Memphis a day in my life and we had no idea what condition this house was in, nor in what kind of neighborhood, we loaded up again and headed for the Volunteer state. I felt a bit like father Abraham who went out not knowing whither he went.
When we arrived in Memphis we breathed a sigh of relief to find the house in a relatively decent neighborhood and in pretty good condition. After a couple of days settling in, I began my course work. The teachers at the school were all dedicated men who determined to prepare ministers of the gospel. Many of these men could have been working with large churches at good salaries, but felt the work they were doing at the school was more important. Most of them preached on weekends at small churches around the Memphis area. The student body was certainly diverse. Most of the men were at least in their middle twenties and some quite a bit older than that. Many had given up decent jobs and sold houses to come to school to prepare themselves as ministers of the gospel. In spite of theological differences I would naturally have with them now, they were all good men whom I admired then and now. The two years at Memphis were difficult but enjoyable. The wives of the students became very close to each other even as the students themselves did. The second year I was in school I managed to supplement our support a bit by preaching at a small church in Wilson, Arkansas. Apart from the time we drove through a tornado coming back to Memphis from Wilson one Sunday night, our lives were pretty routine. When the time came to leave the school, it was difficult saying goodbye to the friends we had made, but I looked forward to my first full time ministerial work.
I had gone to "try out" at two or three churches before graduating from the school of preaching and had finally accepted a position with a church just outside Louisville, Kentucky. My wife had reservations about going there and actually preferred a church in Missouri that we had visited. The Louisville church had fired the previous minister and this had many people upset. He was a "good ole boy" and many of the people liked him, but he apparently wasn't really doing much. However, I wanted to take this particular church because there was a Christian school in Louisville and I wanted to keep my daughter in a Christian school, and just seventy or so miles north was my parents' farm, so we would be able to visit on a regular basis. So, in January, 1982, my wife (who was now expecting what would be our third daughter), my two daughters and I moved to Fern Creek, Kentucky just outside Louisville to begin our work.
Although the church was located very near to downtown Louisville, it was in reality a rural church. After working with them for a few months, I could feel some of the initial animosity toward the new kid on the block fading. I actually felt I was beginning to see some results. I taught the Sunday morning and Wednesday evening Bible classes and preached two sermons each Sunday. Frankly, I much preferred the Bible classes to the sermons, which I suppose reflected my teaching background.
During the course of my first year at this church, some of the doubts about the church of Christ which had first seriously distracted me in Wisconsin began to pop up occasionally. Questions would be asked in Bible classes which I had difficulty answering to my own satisfaction based upon a "Bible only" theory. What about abortion? Euthanasia? Birth control? I read various church of Christ papers and noticed how strongly convinced the preachers were of their position. But, why were they so sure? How could they be so certain? Especially, how could I who had nothing more than two years of Bible school training know that I was right about something and a man who had a Ph.D. and had been preaching for fifty years was wrong, say about the necessity of baptism? Then, what about those church of Christ preachers who had taken such a strong stand on one issue at one time, then completely turned around and held the opposite position, still stating that it was the Bible that taught such and such? Most preachers would say we can disagree on matters of opinion, but who could authoritatively say that something was merely an opinion and not a matter of faith? Certainly those "antis" in Wisconsin and elsewhere didn't think contributing to an orphan home was an opinion. Those splinter groups which broke away years before over using multiple cups for communion instead of one cup (Jesus took THE CUP, not cups) didn't think they were fighting over an opinion. Those other groups which had split off because they didn't think it was scriptural to divide a church up into classes for Sunday school didn't think they were fighting over an opinion.
In the winter of 1982, as Christmas season approached I was listening to the radio and a song entitled "He is Born" came on the air. It was sung by the late Karen Carpenter and is one of the most beautiful Christmas songs I have ever heard, especially the way she sang it. I was moved to tears, partly by remembering all those wonderful songs she had sung over the years and would sing no more, and partly by the sheer beauty of this particular song. As I listened to this song I thought to myself, "I WANT to celebrate the birth of Christ!" It may seem a little silly to some for a Christian minister to say something like that, but churches of Christ do not celebrate Christmas. It is not "authorized" in the Bible. Fortunately for me, my family always celebrated Christmas with the tree, manager scenes, carols and the whole nine yards, even all the while saying that we weren't observing it as a "religious" but a "national" holiday. Still, I could not say or do anything "official" by way of celebrating Christmas and certainly we could have no special ceremonies at the church. Yet, I thought how strange it was that we had no problem celebrating Halloween, July 4, Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, etc. Why was it all right to celebrate political and secular events, but not the most important event in the history of mankind? We had always ridiculed the idea of "holy" days, taking the position that all days were holy as they were created by God and that we celebrated the birth and life of Christ every day, not just once a year. While that may have sounded good in theory, in fact it meant that no day was really considered holy and we never really celebrated the birth of Christ at all. Of course, we would always go to great lengths to celebrate our own and our friends' and families' birthdays. All these inconsistencies began to roll over my mind and it seemed that every day brought another issue to the fore. Finally I told my wife that I was going to have to leave the church of Christ and find somewhere more congenial.
Ah, but where? My wife mentioned the Lutheran and Episcopal churches, and I thought briefly of Orthodoxy. Still, I have to admit that I knew in my heart where my study would have to be directed. I knew too much history to be able to join any other Protestant church. After all, I can remember the timelines we used to use in churches of Christ in showing people when all the various denominations came into being. I knew they were all born much too late to be the true church. The Orthodox church I did not completely rule out at first. Still, I knew it was to the study of the Catholic church I had to turn. Just a few short years before I had come within a cat's whisker of joining, but God knew I was not ready. Now I knew I had to fish or cut bait. I made up my mind to determine to my own satisfaction whether the Catholic church was in fact what it claimed to be.
One of the major hang-ups I had had years before in looking at the Catholic faith was my prejudice in favor of a Bible only basis for authority. I realized I had to completely trash any preconceived notions I had about practically everything and try to be as objective in my study as possible. It wasn't always easy to do, but it was necessary in order to give the Catholic faith a fair hearing. So the journey began.
As I mentioned earlier, the church in Fern Creek was a rural church. Once I had prepared my Sunday school lessons and my sermons for the week and perhaps made a call or two at the hospital or someone's home, the rest of the week was mine to do as I pleased. I took advantage of this to begin my study. Fortunately, Bellarmine College was located in Louisville, so I took out a library card and began hauling stacks of books about various aspects of the Catholic church back to my study and plowing through them.
My first and most obvious task was to find out what the Catholic church truly taught, not what non- and anti-Catholics said the church taught. To this end I took out several volumes explaining Catholic doctrine in general. Then I took out books of history, books about saints, books relating to one particular aspect of Catholic teaching, and so on. I wanted to cover as much ground as I possibly could. I can not begin to mention all of them, but a few deserve special mention due to the effect they had on my ability to understand. Some of these were "Faith of Our Fathers" by Cardinal Gibbons: "Europe and the Faith" by Belloc; "The Spirit of Catholicism" by Karl Adam; and a particularly powerful volume entitled "Lectures on the Eucharist" by Cardinal Wiseman. Once I had satisfied myself that I had a pretty good grasp of real Catholic teaching, I began to go over some passages of scripture that had always been somewhat vague in my mind. It isn't that we didn't have explanations for them, it's just that when I began to seriously consider our explanations, they didn't seem to make a lot of sense. I determined I would read the scriptures with a Catholic view in mind to see if the scriptures made sense from that perspective. I wasn't searching for Catholic "proof texts," but simply trying to see if the Catholic explanation of certain texts was a reasonable one. In every case I found it to be so. I wasn't convinced the Catholic exegesis was necessarily correct, but at least I saw that one could reasonably believe it and that perhaps the Catholic church wasn't as unscriptural and anti-scriptural as I had always thought.
One of the next steps I took was to begin reading some of the church fathers, in particular those writings closest in time to the New Testament scriptures. It was always our claim to stick with the original meaning of the Bible and hold on to "New Testament Christianity." Surely we could see our understanding of the Bible reflected in the writings of those closest to the apostles. What I found, and I am not entirely sure whether to my delight or chagrin, was thoroughly Catholic, the same kinds of things that might just as easily have been written yesterday by a Catholic bishop. On such issues as the Eucharist's being the true body and blood of Jesus Christ and a true sacrifice; the infallibility of the Church; the episcopacy; and the primacy of Rome for example, I found the Catholic Faith proclaimed by these fathers, not Protestantism and certainly not our brand of it.
Perhaps the one book that did more to put things into perspective for me was Hilaire Belloc's "Europe and the Faith." It was always our position that the church that Jesus founded was pure, but that not long after the death of the apostles false doctrines and practices began creeping in until eventually, in some way at some time (always vague), the Catholic Church emerged and the true church disappeared (or as we liked to say, "went underground."). Belloc's analysis of the Church in the first several centuries showed clearly how untenable such a position was. At the earliest times there were bishops in the church, teaching with authority the Faith of Christ. There was the mass and the description of it by Justin the Martyr strikes a familiar chord with modern-day Catholics. Little by little I came to see the truth of what Belloc was saying and I finally began to truly understand history. The position which I had formerly held made a mockery of Christ's promise to be with His Church to the end of time and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.
One very significant point which Bishop Purcell brought out in the debate with Campbell was that Protestants do not have a correct rule of faith. By that he meant that Protestants, churches of Christ along with all the others, start with the Bible as authority. Clearly Jesus Christ is the authority, but how is that authority made known to us? Was it by a book or by a teaching body authorized and empowered by Him to teach the Faith throughout the ages? If one starts with the Bible, there is a problem from the get go. This really is a very obvious fact, yet to someone reared in the Protestant tradition it does not seem to register. The fact is the only "Bible" that existed in any organized form for many years after the Church was founded was the Old Testament. I tried to put myself back in time and asked myself, "If I were a Christian in the year 40 AD and someone asked me what Christians believe about such and such, to where would I turn to get the answer?" Clearly, I could not go down to the local Christian bookstore and buy a nice leather-bound copy of the Bible, with chapter and verse all laid out. Rather I would turn to one of the official teachers of the Church, a local bishop, to get the authoritative answer. As Bishop Fulton Sheen pointed out in one of his tapes, the Church spread the gospel all over the Roman empire long before the canon of the New Testament was even formulated. As to the New Testament we now have, how could I know this really was the true Testament of Christ? There were many writings, many quite orthodox, which could easily have been considered inspired writings, along with many which were not so orthodox. Who decided which were legitimate and which were not? The Catholic Church. Therefore, our first act of faith is not really in the Bible itself, but rather in the Church which formulated the canon of scripture and assured us that the writings accepted as "scripture" were justifiably included. I mentioned earlier in this essay that I had accepted Christ and many of the doctrines of Christianity in my earlier years, not from the Bible itself, but from teachers and preachers that I trusted to tell me the truth. However, not one of them claimed any divine protection against error. The Church did. One of the ways in which the Church judged the writings which abounded in the early years was by comparing it to the Faith which had been handed down from the apostles and their successors. St. Paul exhorted his readers to hold fast to the truth that they had HEARD.
All kinds of thoughts began popping into my mind once I finally realized the truth that it was the Church, this organized corporate body established by Jesus Christ, which converted the world then and continues to do so now. For example, if it is to the Bible we must turn for our faith, what happens to all those countless millions of people through the ages that have not been able to read? Certainly, someone could tell them what was in the Bible, but then the faith would initially be in the person doing the telling, that they were being honest and could speak with authority. What about most of the world's population who would not even begin to understand the original meaning of the Bible? After all, the Bible was originally written in Greek and Aramaic, not English. How do we know that the English translation we have is correct? Once again, we would have to put our trust in the person or persons doing the translating. Once I had come to understand this principle of authority, I had little problem with any Catholic doctrines.
I was ninety-nine percent convinced of the truth of the Catholic Faith, but now that I had a pretty good understanding of what it was about, I wanted to give the other side a chance to refute it. I began to go back through books that I had in my library that dealt with the Catholic religion in a negative way. What I found fairly disgusted me at this point. Much of what I read was simply a rehash of old anti-Catholic writings from years past, taken from such scandal sheets as "Maria Monk" and other such ilk. The objections were totally false, misunderstood or misinterpreted, and even when true, irrelevant. Sacraments and sacramentals were often spoken of as the same things and the simplest Catholic teaching was often completely misrepresented. In one commentary on the book of Matthew by a highly respected church of Christ minister from the early part of the twentieth century (a man praised as a Bible scholar and indeed president of a church of Christ college), the statement is made that it is misleading to refer to the Virgin Birth of Christ as the Immaculate Conception. I agreed with that totally, as they are completely different things. This angered me. I certainly was no "Bible scholar" and have never been president of a college, but it was easy enough for me to pick up a Catholic catechism and learn the difference. Why wasn't it just as easy for these writers to do the same? I would have had no problem with their learning true Catholic teaching and then setting out to disprove it. They seemed in many cases, however, to be more concerned with knocking down a straw man. Fulton Sheen once said that there are very few people who really hate the Catholic Church, but there are many who hate what they think the Catholic Church is.
Although by accepting the true principle of the Church's teaching authority I easily accepted most Catholic doctrines with no problem, still there was one that kept bothering me and that I knew I had to come to grips with in order to convert, and that was the doctrine of the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Having heard all my life that the Lord's Supper was symbolic, it was difficult to overcome that lifelong prejudice. Cardinal Wiseman's lectures on the Eucharist had virtually convinced me of the truth of the Catholic position, but there was lingering doubt. One day in my study while thinking about this issue I was reading the sixth chapter of John's gospel. Jesus said that "except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." I thought, that HAS to be spiritual or symbolic. There is no way the Catholic position can be correct. I continued my reading until I came to the passage which says that many of His hearers said, "This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?" I read where those who said that turned from Jesus and walked no more with Him. I don't remember there being a flash of lightning about me, but there may as well have been. "Oh, my God!" I thought. "I'm just like those who turned away and walked no more with Him." From that point on the die was cast.
It is one thing, of course, to be intellectually convinced of the truth of the Catholic Faith. At that point the will has to kick in and make one do something about it. Here I found myself stumbling a bit. I had read many books of conversion stories and in many cases the person involved was convinced in his head, but the will flagged. There were family and friends to consider. Inheritances could possibly be lost by embracing Catholicism. In my case there were two problems: First, I made my living and supported my family by preaching for a Protestant church. That would have to end. Secondly, I knew what my father believed about the Catholic Church and I dreaded to tell him what I was planning to do. For one thing, he had been physically ill for some time and I truly feared such news might cause a drastic worsening of his condition. In all honesty, however, it was cowardice on my part. I just didn't want to have to face telling him and having to deal with an extremely uncomfortable situation. However, one passage kept coming to mind: "If you love father or mother more than me, you are not worthy of me." I knew what I had to do.
Still, I had one more relapse. Dreading telling my father and family about converting to the Church, I convinced myself briefly that the Catholic Faith couldn't really be true, no matter how good it sounded. "The church of Christ is right," I said to myself, and the following Sunday preached one of my strongest sermons. I guess there has to be one last purge in these matters, for when I returned to the house I collapsed in a chair and said. "I surrender."
That afternoon I called my parents and broke the news to them. My father went into hysterics. I could hear him crying in the background and it almost killed me. When my mother finally calmed him down somewhat he came back on the phone and in a trembling voice said, "Son, I don't know why you are doing this but I want you to know I love you and always will." I swear I think it would have been easier had he said, "Don't ever darken my door again!" What I hated more than anything was the fact that he feared for my soul based upon ignorance of the Church. What a wrenching experience. I remembered a bumper sticker I had seen not many days before: "The Truth Will Make You Free; But First It Makes You Miserable." I could vouch for that.
My next step was trying to find other employment. It was one of the most stressful periods of my life and I am sure of my wife's life. She had not had the opportunity to study as I had and was trusting my judgment in the matter. However, she was also concerned about how we were going to make a living. If the church found out what my plans were we would be out of a job. I typed a resume and began sending it out to as many places as I could think of. I also decided it might not be a bad idea to type a brief cover letter explaining why I was leaving the ministry. These were the days of television evangelist scandals and I wanted to make sure a potential employer didn't think I was leaving due to some scandal involving money or women. I briefly explained in my letter that I was leaving due to my conversion to the Catholic Faith.
During this period of time as searched for work, I subscribed to the National Catholic Register. In one issue I found a set of tapes by Bishop Fulton Sheen offered by a Catholic lay organization called "Keep the Faith." I ordered them and as I listened to them I realized what wonderful sermons they would make, so I began using them in my Sunday sermons. Of course, I had to edit out the strictly Catholic references in the tapes, but I began to get compliments on my sermons that I had never received before. One of the elders of the church even complimented me on how "Biblical" my lessons were.
I did manage to avoid one small crisis in this personal limbo. One Sunday evening we had a visitor at our services. As it turned out the lady was Catholic. I don't know why she was looking elsewhere, but the elders were ecstatic at the possibility of converting someone from the Church. I was faced with the possibility of trying to convert someone from the very Faith I had already been convinced was true. Thanks be to God she never came back. I guess she didn't like my sermon.
I was so stressed out during this period of time that I consulted with a priest in a church just down the road from us. I told him that I felt torn because I knew what I was going to do as soon as I could find other employment, yet to support my family I had to continue preaching for a Protestant church. He told me to just preach the truth about Christ without touching upon things that were viewed as Catholic. So, I continued to preach very generic sermons about Christianity. That seemed to satisfy my listeners.
One Wednesday morning in August, 1983, a few months after I had begun looking for other work, I decided to drive to New Albany, Indiana, just across the Ohio River, and visit a little Catholic bookstore there called "Our Lady's Church Goods Store." While there I purchased a rosary and a crucifix to wear around my neck. I still have them. I began learning to pray the rosary and prayed long and hard to find a way out of there. I wanted to leave on good terms if possible. After all the work we had done at the church I didn't want to leave it in shambles.
After Wednesday evening Bible study one of the elders came to the house and said they needed to meet with me about something. When I reached the classroom in the church where they all were, there was also the church janitor and his wife sitting in the room. I noticed she was crying. To make a long story short, I had thrown a copy of my cover letter in the trash can and the janitor found it, read it, and gave it to the elders. The cat was now out of the bag in a big way. There was no leaving on good terms now. They confronted me with it and asked me if it were true. I assured them it was. After a brief discussion with them about what brought me to that point, they all expressed disappointment in me and one of them said, "Brother Flinn, you have a lot of books in your library. I think you may have read one book too many." This same elder after the meeting said to me, "I told several people what a wonderful man you were and how you preached such Scriptural sermons. I am going home and pray that God will forgive me for saying that." I found it a little amusing that I went from preaching Biblical sermons to being a complete outcast, without changing one iota of what I had been preaching all along. I volunteered to stay on until they secured another minister. That went over like a lead balloon.
At first I was told that we had to leave as soon as possible. Apparently this wasn't good enough for some of the people in the church, for I was soon told we had one week to get out. At this time we had three small daughters aged eight, four and one. How in the world could I find somewhere to go in one week? I began praying my rosary in earnest. I received a call from a trucking company in Columbus, Ohio which had received my resume. My wife and family made a trip to Columbus that same week and, in one day's time, managed to find a place to live. That was pretty amazing as I didn't even officially have the job for which I had interviewed. The lady at the rental office decided to risk it and allowed me to sign the lease. Back in Louisville a couple of days later, I heard that I had been hired. With the help of two of the families in the church we loaded up the U-Haul and headed for Ohio.
I worked evenings so we were not able to attend RCIA classes. However, the assistant pastor of Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal told us to come into his office once a week and we would receive instructions. During the course of our instruction I received numerous phone calls from former classmates of the Memphis preaching school. These men were all sincerely concerned for my spiritual well being and I appreciated them for that. However, they simply were not at a point where they could understand what I was doing. A couple of them expressed sadness, but not all the calls were solemn. My favorite was from a fellow who had been the class clown in Memphis. He didn't mean for this statement to be funny, but it struck me that way. He asked, "Do you believe the Pope is infallible?" I knew, of course, he had no idea of the Catholic understanding of that. I replied, "If I didn't believe that I wouldn't be converting." He then said, "Well, if he is infallible why does he use notes when he speaks?" I know he thought he had delivered the knockout blow. I responded, "So he doesn't forget what he wants to say next."
Our instructions seemed to go on forever. I was so anxious to enter the Church that I wanted to jump right in. I knew, however, that my wife needed to have some time for preparation, and I also knew that the Church wants people to enter with both eyes wide open. Finally, on January 29, 1984, my family and I were received into the Catholic Church. Fr. David Funk, associate pastor of Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Columbus, Ohio, baptized us (my wife and I conditionally) and gave us the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist for the first time. It was one of the happiest days of my life.
"The truth will make you free, but first it makes you miserable." Indeed it did, on both counts. My own road to Rome was filled with many twists and turns, with not a few potholes along the way. But the arrival made the trip, however rough, well worth it. Why? I can't think of a better answer to that than Hilaire Belloc's response to the Anglican, Dean Inge:
"For what is the Catholic Church? It is that which replies, co-ordinates, establishes. It is that within which is right order; outside, the puerilities and the despairs. It is the possession of perspective in the survey of the world. It is a grasp upon reality. Here alone is promise, and here alone a foundation.
Those of us who boast so stable an endowment make no claim thereby to personal grace; we are not saved thereby alone. But we are of so glorious a company that we receive support, and have communion. The Mother of God is also ours. Our dead are with us. Even in these our earthly miseries we always hear the distant something of an eternal music, and smell a native air. There is a standard set for us where to our whole selves respond, which is that of an inherited and endless life, quite full, in our own country."
Amen.