A reader writes:
My journey into the Catholic Church was a very long and slow one; I came from a non-religious background, but was always very interested in religion. I had never spoken to a priest in my life and had no idea what to expect. I had a wonderful ideal in my mind of what being Catholic should be like, but no connection at all with any local parish and was wondering where to go to get started on my Catholic journey.
For several years I had enjoyed listening to a daily talk show on a local Christian station, hosted by a kind, wise, welcoming, gentle, humorous Protestant minister. He had recently left the station and his time slot was taken over by another host, a man who made it a point to speak frequently in a negative way about gay people, something the previous host had never done.
I’m not gay, but I became extremely annoyed that the very likable previous host had been replaced by this man, whose idea of being Christian seemed to involve large amounts of anti-gay rambling. Around this time it was World AIDS Day and the local newspaper ran a story about a Catholic priest in a nearby parish who was involved in events marking the day. I don’t remember exactly how he was quoted in the story, but when I read it I felt that, ah, here indeed was a person whose attitudes were an antidote to all the nastiness that I heard coming from that radio host.
So I contacted that parish and although I didn’t actually meet the priest in question,for another 7 months or so, when the RCIA "year" started late the following summer, I very happily became Catholic in that parish. As it turned out, the priest, an assistant pastor, was also RCIA director for the parish. It was and is a wonderful parish and the day I walked in was just kind of like opening a little door into heaven.
The priest has long since moved on to become head chaplain in a large public hospital. We still keep in touch and last weekend I attended a celebration of his 50th birthday, with a jolly contingent of good folk, heavy on those of the Pax Christi and Catholic Worker sorts of persuasions.
My conversion was 14 years ago. And I guess God prepares us, since I now know also that one of my children is gay.
The Dish 