Scott Hahn [Hahn Scott - Rome Sweet Home

ROME SWEET HOME

Scott and Kimberly Hahn. July, 1993.

OUR JOURNEY TO CATHOLICISM

Scott and Kimberly Hahn

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Cover art: The Vatican, Rome
Vladimir Pcholkin / FPG International
Cover design by Riz Boncan Marsella

1993 Ignatius Press
All rights reserved
ISBN 0-89870-478-2 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-68149-409-8 (EB)
Library of Congress control number 93-79336
Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

With gratitude to God for our parents
Jerry and Patricia Kirk
Molly Lou Hahn
and in loving memory of Fred Hahn

Thanks for the gifts of life and love,
a privilege to honor you as son and daughter.

With gratitude to God for our children
Michael Scott
Gabriel Kirk
Hannah Lorraine
Jeremiah Thomas Walker

You are Gods gifts of life and love,
making us a family.
Its a joy to be your mom and dad.

One of the beautiful and bright-shining stars in the firmament of hope for our desperate days is this couple, Scott and Kimberly Hahn, and this story of their life and their conversion. It is one of increasingly many such stories that seem to be springing up today throughout the Church in America like crocuses poking up through the spring snows.

All conversion stories are differentlike snowflakes, like fingerprints. But all are dramatic. The only story even more dramatic than conversion to Christs Church is the initial conversion to Christ himself. But these two dramasbecoming a Christian and becoming a Catholicare two steps in the same process and in the same direction, like being born and growing up. This book is an excellent illustration of that truth.

Because of the intrinsic drama of its subjectmans quest for his Creator and his for him all conversion stories are worth listening to. But not all arrest you and sweep you along like a powerful river as this one does. I can think of four reasons for the un-put-down-able-ness of this book.

First, the authors are simply very bright, clear-thinking and irrefutably reasonable. I would hate to be an anti-Catholic in debate against these two!

Second, they are passionately in love with Truth and with honesty. They are incapable of fudging anything except fudge.

Third, they write with clarity and simplicity and charity and grace and wit and enthusiasm and joy.

Fourth, they are winsome and wonderful people who share themselves as well as the treasure they have found. When you meet them in the pages of this book, you will meet that indefinable but clearly identifiable quality of trustability . The Hebrews called it emeth . When you touch them, you know you touch truth.

There are also religious reasons for this books power.

One is its evident love of Christ. Its as simple as that.

Another is its love and knowledge of Scripture. I know no Catholics in the world who know and use their Bible better.

A third is their Christlike combination of traditional biblical and Catholic orthodoxy with modern personalism and sensitivityin other words, love of truth and of people, both the subject and the student. This double love is the primary secret of great teachers.

Finally, there is their theological focus on the family, both biological and spiritual (the Church as family). This doctrine, like each item of the Churchs wisdom, gets defined and appreciated most clearly when threatened by heresies that deny it. Today this fundamental foundation of all human and divine society is under attack and seems to be dying before our eyes. Here are two warriors in the army of Saint Michael the Archangel as he counterattacks old Screwtapes latest invasion. The tide of battle is turning, and the Churchs sea of wisdom is readying itself to flood and wash our land of its defilement. Scott and Kimberly are two early waves of that cleansing tide.

There are no tapes more in demand and more extensively and enthusiastically shared among American Catholics today than the Hahn tapes. Now we have the full version of their story. It will be met with spiritual mouths as open as those of young robins.

PETER KREEFT

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen once wrote: There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Roman Catholic Church; there are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church.

Both of us once thought that we belonged in the former group, only to discover that we were really in the latter. But once we saw the distinction, and where we really were, it slowly became apparent that we did not belong in either group. By then we were well on our way home. This book describes that journey. It is a narrative of how we discovered the Catholic Church to be Gods covenant family.

Our focus in this book is on how the Holy Spirit used Scripture to clear up our misconceptions; we have not attempted to deal with all the misconceptions that others may have. By Gods grace maybe someday we can write a book with that in mind.

This story could not have been written except for Terry Barber of Saint Joseph Communications, West Covina, California, who generously provided a notebook computer along with many different tapes of our talks for Kimberly to transcribe and edit into a readable form. Incidentally, she did all of her work upstairs, where three children and a toddler were roaming about, while Scott was tucked away in a quiet corner of the basement working to complete his doctoral dissertation, Kinship by Covenant. By his own admission, Scotts authorial absenteeism accounts for whatever obtuseness remains.

G. K. Chesterton once said, If something is really worth doing... its worth doing badly! That explains our reason forand consolation intaking the risk to share our journey in print at this very busy time of our lives.

Scott and Kimberly Hahn
Feast of Saints Peter and Paul
June 29, 1993

We thank God for the grace of our conversion to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church which he founded; for it is only by the most amazing grace of God that we could ever have found our way home.

I, Scott, thank God for Kimberly, the second most amazing grace in my life. She is the one whom God used to reveal to me the reality of his covenant family; and while I am enthralled with the theory, Kimberly puts it into practice, joyfully serving as the channel for Gods third most amazing graces: Michael, Gabriel, Hannah and Jeremiah, The Lord has used these forenamed graces to help this bumbling biblical detective (the Columbo of Theology) crack the case of Catholicismby coming home.

In truth, the journey began as a detective story, but soon it became more like a horror story, until it finally ended up as a great romance storywhen Christ unveiled his Bride, the Church. (By the way, it would help to keep these three story types in mind as you read.)

I, Kimberly, thank God for my beloved husband, Scott. He has taken seriously Gods call to nourish me with the Word of God and to cherish me by the grace of God (Eph 5:29). He has paved the way for our family to be received into the Church by laying down his lifeeducation, dreams, careerfor us, because he followed Christ no matter what the cost.

As with Scotts pilgrimage, mine altered in tone and color as it progressed, like the change of seasons. Little did I know how long it would be from summer to spring.

The Hahn family, 1975. Scott is in top right corner.