Escaping from the Hornets’ Nest

I found this letter (pictured) while looking through some old papers, and I thought it was too rich not to share it.

The letter is a response to me by Donald Wuerl, who now is the disgraced Cardinal Archbishop of Washington DC, having forgotten that he knew about Cardinal McCarrick’s homosexual abuse of minors and Roman Catholic seminarians, but who then (1984) was the rector of St. Paul’s Seminary in Pittsburgh.

I had apparently written to him requesting information about admission to the Seminary, and in this letter, he referred me to the “Vocations Director” for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. By the end of that year, I had applied for and was accepted to this seminary program, and I remember having attended a small lunch at the Seminary, for incoming students, that was hosted by then Father Wuerl. That’s where I met him.

Most people know me as someone who knows Roman Catholicism in a very thorough way. My Protestant friends look to me for advice when they interact with Roman Catholicism in one way or another. Some Roman Catholics know me as an apostate, and some (Dave Armstrong Google Alert) consider me to be a bitter anti-Catholic.

But this letter reveals my bona-fide credentials as a genuine Roman Catholic, back in the day.

To make a long story short ... I was a “cradle Catholic”, born to a devout Roman Catholic mother and a somewhat lapsed father. I was one of 12 individuals in my graduating high school class (1977) who made it through all 12 years of CCD classes (the Roman Catholic version of Sunday School).

In 1979, after some serious soul searching and reading the New Testament (specifically, John 17), I had a fairly intense new birth experience. It was a moment with a definite before-and-after. I knew without a doubt that Christ loved me, and that I had received a new and eternal life in Christ.

The problem for me was, this experience came outside of the normal sacramental channels. I wondered, “since this new birth is such a real thing, why doesn’t the Church know about it?” Of course, the Charismatic Catholic movement had been going on for about 12 years (starting in 1967 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, of all places). But knowing that only pushed the question back further: where did this fit into the Roman Catholic teaching on Sacraments (the true channels of grace)?

I started attending Charismatic Catholic services (including Masses) at my home church, but I also found and listened to Christian radio, and I came into contact with “contemporary Christian music” and eventually a local Christian radio personality whose name I won’t give away right now. (I’ll call him “Alan Wingnut”, because that’s a fictionalized name that I gave to him in a novel that I had purposed to write back then).

Alan and I had many talks in those years about my questions about Catholicism, and the struggles I had about it. He was attending a Protestant Charismatic church in a neighboring borough, about a half hour away from where I lived, and he invited me to attend. I first visited that church and then started showing up on a regular basis – much to the chagrin of my parents. Especially my not-really-devout-Catholic father (to my surprise).

One evening, shortly after I was graduated from college in 1981, I attended an evening service, where a Christian singer named Jeff Steinberg was performing. (I’ve written here before about Jeff, in multiple places, and I’d encourage you to contact him, buy his book, buy his albums, and invite him to perform at your church. Please let me know if you’d like me to make a personal introduction.)

This new church met in a converted elementary school, and we had worship services in what had been a very large re-purposed cafeteria, with a full stage. On Sundays, they typically featured a full “worship band”, but for this evening service, the stage was cleared, the only person on the stage was Jeff.

I entered a bit late and hurried quickly to one of the seats in the front row of the audience, where I sat with some of my new evangelical friends.

L-R, Jeff at age two; his autobiography, “Masterpiece in Progress”; and in a more recent photo.

Jeff’s voice was a strong and rich baritone, with a bit of an edge, and a sound similar to that of Neil Diamond. He sang such songs as “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, “Lord, let me be the Glove you wear”, and “I will praise Him, raise Him, high within my heart…” In between songs, he performed a mini comedy routine (featuring stories about getting his fingers “bent” while trying to hold open an elevator door, facing a small child who told him “you’re not special, you’re a shrimp!”, and even telling about his travails with the U.S. Government upon being drafted in 1969). He also told of his medical difficulties and his personal conversion story (having been born to Jewish parents).

Though he was small – only 4’6” tall with his full leg brace on, he had a commanding presence on stage. His right leg was short and stiff (thanks to a botched surgery as a child) and in a prosthetic brace to make him taller, and his left leg was permanently bent. He shuffled with his left foot and stepped with his right foot, shuffle-step, shuffle-step, back and forth across that huge stage as if he owned the place. He wielded an artificial arm and a condenser microphone in his hook, as if it were a natural part of his body.

And he told of Christ’s love, and how we ought not to let our perceived handicaps get in the way of serving Christ with all our hearts.

At the end of the concert, he noted that his current sound-man, driver, and personal assistant Kevin would be leaving his ministry to get married, and so he was now in search of a replacement. Someone to travel with him for just a year. This was September, 1981, the beginning of the Ronald Reagan presidency but still in a deep Jimmy Carter funk (and economic recession). I was a fresh, unemployed graduate, with a writing degree that was taking me nowhere, and so my friends, to a man, all said, “you should travel with him. Even if you only do it for a year, it would be great for you”. Alan Wingnut made the case in a particularly persuasive way.

So that’s what I did.

As it turns out, though Jeff was an evangelical singer, he was popular among Roman Catholic Pro-life groups. His message then, as it is now, was, “if I had been born today, I could easily have been aborted”. His life and his ministry defied the thought that someone could have decided to abort him based on a perceived “quality of life” issue.

We came into contact with a number of devout Roman Catholics, who were part of the pro-life movement. To make an even longer story even shorter, these folks persuaded me not only that Roman Catholics could love Christ, but also that I should “come home” and further, that I (wanting to study the Scriptures) may have had a vocation to the priesthood.

Eventually I left Jeff’s ministry in late 1984, applied for admission to the Seminary, received the letter from Wuerl, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Soon afterward (January 1986), Wuerl was made an auxiliary bishop of Seattle before becoming Bishop of Pittsburgh in February 1988. After being accepted at the Seminary in 1984 (to begin September 1985), I got “cold feet” and backed out, escaping from the hornets’ nest that we know that Roman Catholic seminaries had become, but I continued to “discern my vocation”, seriously looking into a vocation with the Capuchin Franciscans through about the end of 1986.

But I got married in 1987, and there is another history there. And so ended my thoughts of vocation to a Roman Catholic ministry. But that’s a story for another time.