In the comments section of the Should I Become Catholic post, RL asks several very relevant questions. I didn’t really think it possible to do them justice in the comboxes, so I decided to do a separate post and pull out the questions in a slightly different order than originally posted. Hope this helps, RL.
One question I’ve heard often is how to handle your own conversion with family members. It’s come up on this blog, I’ve heard about it asked on Catholic radio, and seen it in other places. I have no magic answer here, but I thought I’d open a thread to see if anyone else has any ideas.
One thing I did hear was to ask a third party to talk to the reluctant family members. I suppose this is a good idea as far as it goes. To me it seems a bit more complicated than that (and it’s going to depend a great deal on the individual situation).
When I told my mother that I was going to convert, well, let’s just say that the expression on her face will remain with me to my dying day. She was disappointed and suspicious (and, I suspect, still is). But one thing I did was present it as a fait acompli. I presented it as “I am going to convert,” rather than, “I’m seriously thinking about converting.” I think the finality of it saved some argument.
It’s a serious problem for some people, so I thought it might be useful to open a thread and see where it goes.
I live in a suburb of Dallas. I wasn’t born here, it’s my adopted home. I have had, over the years, opportunities to leave, but I like it here. It’s a good place to raise a family, a nice place to live, and I prefer hot weather to cold. It is my home, the place where I was married, the place my kids were born, the place where I became Catholic. In spite of all its problems, Dallas is a good and decent place to live.
When people think of the word “Dallas” and the word “infamy” together, they almost always think back to November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza. It’s a natural thing to associate with Dallas’ worst moment in history. It was a traumatic event, so visceral that people remember where they were when they heard the news of Kennedy’s death. It is, however, wrong. JFK’s assassination wasn’t Dallas’ darkest moment.
Everyone’s heard of the Culture War (or, as Robert P. George would call it, the Clash of Orthodoxies). It is one of the fronts upon which American Christians fight their ongoing battle against evil. Everyone’s also heard the term Ground Zero before, certainly since September 11th. The term, as it was originally coined, is the point on the ground immediately below a nuclear blast. It’s changed a bit since the 1940’s, but it still means a point on the ground where a devastating explosion or event takes place.
There has already been a nuclear blast in the culture war. That blast took place on January 22, 1973. That is the date upon which the culture war really turns. Things before that date were fundamentally different than they were after, and many – if not all – of our current political division hinges upon what happened that day. That was the day that abortion was legalized in this country; 34 years ago today. The case itself was Jane Roe vs. Henry Wade. Henry Wade was the Dallas county prosecutor in the case. Roe started here.
I live at ground zero.
Each year for the past – I’m not sure, maybe 12 years – the diocese of Dallas, led by Bishop Charles V. Grahmann himself, has conducted a March for Life that starts at the cathedral and ends at the federal courthouse where Roe was originally argued.
You’d think, for such a monumental event in the history of our country, that there would be more. You’d think there would be something visible, a scar, a monumental rebuilding effort, federal agencies picking through rubble. You would expect ground zero to be like the remains of the World Trade Center after the towers came down, or Hiroshima or Nagasaki after the bombs were dropped. There should be something obvious, something visceral, something to tear at your heart and rend humanity. But Dallas isn’t scarred. You can’t tell what happened to look around, and many people here have let it slip to the back of their minds, or simply forgotten.
How many people died on September 11th? How many people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How many people have died since Roe?
Norma McCorvey lived here. Henry Wade lived here. For some reason, this anniversary – one that I’ve always overlooked or only been dimly aware of – this year it really, really hurts. I don’t know why this year is different. Maybe it’s this realization: the gate to Hell is in Washington, but the key to that gate was found here in Dallas. My home…where my kids live…
I live at ground zero for what will someday be the greatest of human tragedies. In six years the US abortion industry will equal the greatest mass murderer in human history, surpassing the 61 million non-combat killings in Stalin’s Soviet Union.
It began here. Maybe we can find a way to end it here. It's at least time to start looking.
This was a recent search string that turned up on my stats page. I don’t know whether or not the person asking this question is still coming by here or not, but I thought it a sufficiently important question to take a shot at answering.
But the fact is - I can’t answer it. I can, however, offer a little guidance.
The question itself is a bit off. It should not be “should I become Catholic?” In reality, the question is, “do I believe what the Catholic Church teaches?” If the answer to this question is yes, then you most certainly should become Catholic. If the answer is no, then you most certainly should not become Catholic.
The trick is to learn as much about what the Church teaches as possible, and then make the decision from that understanding. Some people here have readily accepted the Church’s teachings and are, in the words of one person, swimming the Tiber as fast as they can. Others have their toes in the water as they explore the possibility and try to gain more understanding of where the teachings will lead them.
Alas, I cannot answer your question directly. If you feel the pull of the Spirit then by all means learn as much as you can. Approach it with an open mind and an open heart, and with vast quantities of prayer, and you can’t go wrong.
Well, December really took it out of me – far worse than I had thought at first. I came into January absolutely exhausted, both physically and psychologically. I got a tremendous amount of work done – and a very nice bonus as well – but it’s been difficult to get back on my horse here at ye ole blog. I went back and re-read some of the papacy posts again and I think this shows. The writing wasn’t as crisp as it could have been.
And this past week has turned Texas into a twisted winter wonderland, so my hours have been really weird lately.
I need a battery recharger that doesn’t involve caffeine.
Mark
One of the stats that I can get is a list of foreign domains that visit this site. It registers for every non-dot-com and non-dot-net that pops up. For the past two months Finland has been number 1 in hits. Here's how December played out:
Finland – 383
Canada – 100
China – 99
United Arab Emirates – 39
Spain – 31
(Just to rattle Don's chain a bit, New Zealand has dropped to seventh!)
It's interesting to see how far and wide such a modest blog can be seen.
Well, there you have it. The papacy posts are done. Personally, I think the weight of evidence is clear. But let me repeat something that I mentioned in the first post on this subject – There is room enough to disbelieve if you choose to do so.
But when you stop and think about it, this room for disbelief is critically important. If we had absolute proof from God, then faith would be of diminished importance. All that would be required of believers is submission to the proof. In such a case, Christianity would be much more like Islam. In Islam, the true believer is measured by how well they submit to the will of Allah. Not so in Christianity, where faith in God is more important than such simplistic submission.
Faith in God, to a Catholic, includes faith in His Church – the Mystical Body of Christ. Christ is the spiritual head of the Church. The pope is the earthy head.
Don’t be put off by the fact that some people choose to disbelieve in the Church and the papacy. Don’t be put off by the fact that some people will advocate against them both. We all have choices to make in this life, and they have made theirs. What does your heart tell you? What does your head tell you? And where do you place your faith?
It's taken me a while to get the most recent Habemus Papam post online. I've had problems getting the pictures to format correctly. Let me know if they look...odd. I've only been able to check them on Safari today.
Also, you'll have to excuse my lack of scanner ability. Some of the pictures are crooked. My scanner was built in the early 14th century and every attempt tried my temper. In fact, it got thrown out when I finally got these scanned.
Renovations & Discoveries
In 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, it was decided to renovate the catacombs beneath St. Peter's Basilica. The idea was to make a little more space for people to visit the area where former popes were laid to rest. It was physically impossible to raise the roof without damaging the floor of St. Peter's. Instead, the plan was to lower the floor of the catacombs by a few feet to give visitors more headroom. They pried up the heavy marble floor and began digging. It wasn't long before they struck the first piece of buried Roman ruins.
