Cardinal Burke calls young converts 'beautiful' image of God's grace

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Mar 30, 2012 / 04:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, head of the Vatican's highest court, described the beauty of receiving two young Americans in Rome into the Catholic Church.

“Today we are privileged to witness in a most beautiful manifestation the work of God’s grace flowing from the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus through the mediation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” said Cardinal Burke in his homily March 28.

Jonathan Wasserman, 19, from Kansas City, Missouri, and 19-year-old Kristina Landry from Ellington, Connecticut, are both students at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. As part of their four-year liberal arts course they have been studying in Rome for the past three months.

On March 28, within the historic surrounding of the Vatican’s Church of Saint Anne, both were received into the Church by Cardinal Burke. The former Archbishop of St. Louis is now resident in Rome as the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest court.

“I’m feeling great,” Jonathan told CNA moments afterward. “I feel incredible. It was a dream come true. I’m just glad to have this all. I’m just happy.”

“Yeah, it’s incredible, amazing, awe inspiring,” added Kristina.

Jonathan said he had become a Catholic because “it is the one true Church” and that “to be a Catholic is to have the truth with you,” while Kristina described Catholicism as “how we are meant to praise God.”

The Catholic faith, she noted, “really encompasses everything that is true.”

As part of their reception, Cardinal Burke also administered the Sacrament of Confirmation upon both students, telling them that “As baptism was your personal Easter, so Confirmation will be your personal Pentecost.”

Appropriately – given the papal surrounding – Jonathan took St. Peter as his patron saint while Kristina opted for the 20th century Polish nun, St. Faustina Kowalska. Both observed how the names reflect the influence that their time in Europe has had upon their conversions.

“Coming to Europe and seeing in Italy and especially in Poland that there’s just so much faith in the people and in the young people, that gives you a lot of hope for future generations,” Kristina said.

Jonathan agreed, adding that he has been inspired by living in Rome “and just being surrounded by beauty all the time.”

The Thomas More College Rome program is a semester long course in humanities, theology and Latin as well as the art and architecture of the Eternal City.

Program director Tony Assaf told CNA that students who participate “become a little extended family during these three intense months together.”

However, “this is the first time we’ve been able to celebrate the 'birthday' of a new brother and sister in Christ into our Catholic family during the course of the program,” he said.

The Gregorian chant which filled the 16th century baroque Church during yesterday’s Mass was provided by Jonathan and Kristina’s fellow students. Towards the conclusion of his homily Cardinal Burke gave the two new Catholics some practical advice on how to best live out their new found faith.

“Keep yourself alive in Christ through frequent reception of Holy Communion and through regular confession,” he told them, “throughout the day deepen Christ’s life within you by your prayers and devotions, especially devotion to the most Blessed Sacrament, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Holy Mother of God and the whole company of saints.”

On an intellectual note, he encouraged them to “never cease to study with fervor the truths of our faith especially as they are set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church” and never to “give way to discouragement or grow weary in your daily efforts to live those truths in a good and holy life.”

• Cardinal Burke calls young converts 'beautiful' image of God's grace 

Related:

• Moving Beyond
• Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke

Anglican Clergymen Become Catholic Priests: Taking the Final Steps to Ordination

Anglican Ordinariate’s new chief priest oversees course of studies, teleconferencing of married men.

by CHARLOTTE HAYS

Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson was installed as ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter on Feb. 12.

(National Catholic Register) CLEBURNE, Texas — Charles Hough already had quite a career, including 18 years in the prestigious post of canon to the ordinary in the Episcopal Church’s Fort Worth Diocese. Now he wants to become a Catholic priest.

Hough hopes to lead a group of former Episcopalians in Cleburne, Texas, who have asked to belong to the new Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, created by Rome for former Episcopalians. Every Saturday, from 9 to 4, he participates in a newly developed program of training for former Episcopal clergy.

He and approximately 60 other former Episcopal priests around the United States, many of whom are married, are studying for the priesthood using a teleconferencing system to hear lectures and discuss their intense course of readings. While some men join the teleconference alone, Hough gathers with several other men at a Catholic church.

A similar group meets in Baltimore for the weekly teleconference. Hough has special ties to one of the other Texas participants — Charles Hough IV, his son, another former Episcopal clergyman who hopes to become a Catholic priest.

Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, who was installed as ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter on Feb. 12, said the planning for the program of study for these men began late in the spring of 2010 and is based on a document prepared specifically for former Episcopal clergymen by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This was in turn based on Pope John Paul II’s pastoral exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Will Give You Shepherds) on preparing men for the priesthood. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document is the basis for course preparation in both the U.S. and the U.K. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, papal documents, and other assigned readings are the backbone of the studies in both countries...

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Father Corapi Conversion Story - A Lenten Retreat: God's Name is Mercy

Father Corapi - Conversion Story

"An elderly monsignor walked up.. 'Young man, that's a tremendous story, that's a great story... but is it true?'
And I said, 'Oh Monsignor, not even I could make up something like that."

A Deeper Look at the Many Evangelicals Turning Catholic

 From the National Catholic Register's Matthew Warner:

"According to a 2009 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, four people leave the Catholic Church for every one person that joins it. Keep in mind that this stat doesn’t count those born into Catholicism as “joining” it. However, it’s still a sad statistic. But we shouldn’t be misled by it.

There are also studies that show Catholicism has a higher rate of retention than all other religious groups. In other words, when people convert to Catholicism, they don’t do so because they didn’t like where they were and just wanted to try something new. Their conversion is deliberate and intentional and they generally stick with it. On the other hand, when people leave the Church, they generally drift around a bit from one denomination to another.  This says a lot. The Catholic convert is actually experiencing real, lasting conversion. Those leaving the Church seem to be lost and searching souls that most likely had no idea what they were leaving in the first place.

I’ve long noticed, as have many others, a kind of trend as well. It’s not so much from “Evangelicals” converting to Catholicism necessarily. It’s that of intellectuals converting to Catholicism. And that’s not to say these intellectuals were strictly intellectual. But I mean it to say that they took their reasons for believing very seriously.  We only have to look back a few generations to find Chesterton, Merton, Newman, etc. as part of the same trend.

In my own experience, I’ve seen that more people who convert to Catholicism do so on account of their reason. Whereas those that leave the Church do so based on some emotion or negative experience associated with the Church.

When I ask an evangelical why they left the Church. The answer is almost always an emotion. Something made them feel a certain way. Or they just didn’t like the way something was done in Catholicism. Or it didn’t suit their lifestyle. Or some other experience made them feel nice..."

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Father John Corapi - A Lenten Retreat: God's Name is Mercy

Part 1: Father Corapi's Conversion Story

Father Corapi's Personal Testimony - FREE!

Fr. John Corapi's life experiences prior to ordination are simply astounding and truly show the great work of God through our Blessed Mother. Filled with the desire to "be somebody" he embraced the promises of the world. from athletics to soldiering to millionaire businessman, his life became a string of successes that always left him flat and empty. God was molding him. Through the Blessed Virgin Mary, Father Corapi began to see the light where before there was only darkness, After a series of trials, he soon felt the unmistakable call to be a priest. Father preaches the "Good News" of our Lord Jesus across the country at conferences and parishes. He gives his powerful witness of hope and Mercy to all.

We encourage you to share links to this page and share Father Corapi's message of hope!
From the only authorized distributor or Father Corapi materials, Click here to receive this complete and uncut free audio "rental"

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Amazing conversion story. This audio rental requires you to go through the order process, no charge associated with it, and then prior to playing you'll need to download Microsoft Silverlight (M.S.'s version of Flash) if you don't already have it. - V.

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Exclusive: Newt Gingrich Opens Up on Catholic Conversion and Embracing 'Overt Christianity'

May 20, 2009 03:08 PM ET | Dan Gilgoff

Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Former House speaker and Republican überstrategist Newt Gingrich is off to Europe next week to shoot a documentary on Pope John Paul II's 1979 trip to Poland and how it helped to lay the groundwork for bringing down the Soviet Union. The film, Nine Days That Changed the World, is slated for release this fall.

The trip will take Gingrich and his wife, Callista, to Poland and to Rome for the first time since he converted to Roman Catholicism in March.

I caught up with Gingrich this morning and asked if he expected this trip to be different from previous visits to Rome. He gave a long answer that had him opening up about the reasons for his conversion to an extent he hasn't done publicly before:

I don't know that it's much different. That's part of what led to my conversion is the first time we [he and Callista] went to St. Peter's together. It's St. Peter's. I mean, you stand there and you think, this is where St. Peter was crucified. This is where Paul preached. You think to yourself, two thousand years ago the apostles set out to create a worldwide movement by witnessing to the historic truth they had experienced. And there it is. The last time we were there we were allowed to walk in the papal gardens and you get this sense that is almost mystical.

The moment that finally convinced me [to convert] was when Benedict XVI came here [to the United States] and Callista in the church choir sang for him at the vespers service and all the bishops in the country were there. As a spouse, I got to sit in the upper church and I very briefly saw [Benedict] and I was just struck with how happy he was and how fundamentally different he was from the news media's portrait of him. This guy's not a Rottweiler. He's a very loving, engaged, happy person.

I'd first seen Pope John Paul II when he came to the U.S. when Carter was president and I was a freshman congressman. And I [later] met him as Speaker.

The other sense is that the church has had two of its most powerful popes back to back, in their intellectual ability to engage the secular world on behalf of Christ. And the weight of all that, and going with [Callista] to church every Sunday to the Basilica [in Washington, D.C.], a magnificent church with a wonderful mass. In that sense I felt differently a long time ago, which is why I converted.

And part of me is inherently medieval. I resonate to Gothic churches and the sense of the cross in a way that is really pre-modern.

Callista, who is Catholic and who was key to Gingrich's conversion, added that it was "10 years in the making," starting around the time Gingrich left the House in 1999. I asked Gingrich if his conversion had changed some fundamental political beliefs for him. He said it was the other way around—that political developments had made him more overtly Christian:

The whole effort to create a ruthless, amoral, situational ethics culture has probably driven me toward a more overt Christianity. I'll give you an example. As a college student at Emory when the Supreme Court ruled that school prayer was unconstitutional [in 1963] after 170 years of American history, I didn't notice it. As a graduate student at Tulane I probably would have said it's a good decision.

I've now had an additional 40 years to think about it. And I think about the world of my grandchildren. I don't think American children are healthier, safer, and better off today than they were in 1963. So I have actually become more conservative in response to the failure of the liberal ethos to solve problems.

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Father Corapi's Conversion Story - A Lenten Retreat: God's Name is Mercy

"An elderly monsignor walked up.. 'Young man, that's a tremendous story, that's a great story... but is it true?'
And I said, 'Oh Monsignor, not even I could make up something like that.'"

Newt Gingrich on his conversion to Catholicism

5:35 pm April 5, 2009, by Jim Galloway

Congressional Quarterly has posted a transcript of “Fox News Sunday,” including this exchange between Chris Wallace and Newt Gingrich about the former House speaker’s conversion to Catholicism:

WALLACE: Mr. Gingrich, you have been a Baptist most of your life, and last Sunday you converted to Catholicism. Why, sir?

GINGRICH: I’m not talking about this much publicly, but let me just say that I found over the course of the last decade, attending the basilica, meeting with Monsignor Rossi, reading the literature, that there was a peace in my soul and a sense of well being in the Catholic Church, and I found the mass of conversion last Sunday one of the most powerful moments of my life.

WALLACE: You have — it’s no secret — been married and divorced twice. Will you be able to participate fully in communion and all the other rites of the Catholic Church?

GINGRICH: Yes, we have done everything within the law of the church, following all of the rules of the church over the last 10 years. And it’s been a process. It’s been a very long process and something which was deeply affected, in part, by Pope Benedict XVI’s visit and the opportunity I had to sit in — as you know, my wife, Calista, sings at the basilica every Sunday, and I was allowed as a spouse to be there as part of the vespers program when the pope came. It’s been a long process.

WALLACE: And if I might ask, just briefly, what is it about the pope’s visit that led to this?

GINGRICH: I really believe, first of all, seeing the joy in his eyes, listening to his message, and I really believe that his basic statement, Christ our hope, is right. And I think much of what’s wrong with our country and with the western world is a function of looking inside ourselves, not just looking at money or looking at our wallets.

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The Newt Evangelization: Gingrich to become Catholic

From The Deacon's Bench:

"Buried deep inside this long and wonkish profile of Newt Gingrich in Sunday's New York Times, was this little nugget that, I suspect, went largely unnoticed:

At a moment when the role of religious fundamentalism in the party is a central question for reformers, Gingrich, rather than making any kind of case for a new enlightenment, has in fact gone to great lengths to placate Christian conservatives. The family-values crowd has never completely embraced Newt, probably because he has been married three times, most recently to a former Hill staff member, Callista Bisek. In 2006, though, Gingrich wrote a book called “Rediscovering God in America” — part of a new canon of work he has done reaffirming the role of religion in public life. The following year, he went on radio with the evangelical minister James Dobson to apologize for having been unfaithful to his second wife. (A Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich said he will soon convert to Catholicism, his wife’s faith.)"

PHOTO: by Nigel Parry for the New York Times.

Posted by Deacon Greg Kandra

Blair Converts To Catholicism

Former prime minister Tony Blair has converted to Roman Catholicism after years of speculation over his faith.

Mr Blair was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor during Mass in the chapel at Archbishop's House in Westminster on Friday night.

The Cardinal said: "I am very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church.

"For a long time he has been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family, and in recent months he has been following a programme of formation to prepare for his reception into full communion.

"My prayers are with him, his wife and family at this joyful moment in their journey of faith together."

Mr Blair's wife Cherie was already a practising Roman Catholic.

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• Flashback: Pope Has "Frank" Conversation With Tony Blair