My Journey Home to Rome: Part I: Romulus and Remus

Part I: Romulus and Remus
Part II: Thin Places
Part III: Cafeteria Protestantism
Part IV: Failure of the Puritan Experiment
Part V: Reaching the End of the Protestant Road
Part VI: Crawling Through "No Man's Land"
Part VII: Four Pontoons to Bridge the Tiber River
Epilogue: The Unbought Grace of Life


On Holy Thursday more than a decade ago, I attended Mass at St. Michael’s Church in Remus, Michigan. My wife was ill, so I went alone. If you had known me at Easter just one year before, you would have thought it unlikely to find me in a Catholic parish, much less contemplating a crossing of the Tiber River. After the dismissal I remained kneeling on the back pew and realized that I would one day become a Catholic; it was only a question of time. I would become a Catholic as a matter of obedience, not that I was especially eager to dive across a great historic and cultural divide, but because I had come to believe that the Catholic Church really is what it claims to be: the Church founded by Jesus Christ Himself.

This journey began with a question: Where is the Church with a capital “C?” I was never one to be content with the idea that the Church was no more than a fractious guerrilla army. I knew from the words of Jesus in the Gospels that the Church had to be something greater than the sum of all the believers scattered among the world’s congregations and denominations. As a Southerner, I am used to the frequent question, especially when you move to a small town: “Have you found your church home yet?”

Here is my answer. [To be continued.]

Part II: Thin Places

[Photo above of Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana]