Russell Shaw - Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion and the Crisis of Faith

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

FATHER C. JOHN McCLOSKEY III
AND
RUSSELL SHAW

Evangelization, Conversion,
and the Crisis of Faith

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Cover design by John Herreid

2007 Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-58617-125-4
Library of Congress Control Number 2006924090
Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my parents, my brother,
and my sisters, who formed and
accompanied me in my early growth in the faith.
It also is dedicated to my spiritual family,
Opus Dei, which continues to call
me to a deeper conversion to Christ.

CJM III

No one writes a book alone. Everyone who writes a book is obliged to share much of the praise for the results, but none of the blame, with many people who helped him on the journey.

I wish to acknowledge the kindness of Peter Brown, director of the Netherhall International Residence in Hampstead, London, who allowed me the use of the library and computer room, where I spent many hours. Thanks also to Dr. John Henry, Father Gerard Sheehan, and the residents of Rutland, who provided family life and suffered my colonial idiosyncracies with much patience.

Starting at the start, I am grateful to the Sisters of Charity who taught me at St. Jane de Chantal School in Bethesda, Maryland, and to the Christian Brothers and excellent lay faculty at St. Johns College High School in Washington, D.C. Such order and discipline as I possess have a lot to do with my participation there in Junior ROTC.

Thanks to my fellow students and my professors at Columbia College in New York, where I enjoyed what I regard as the finest liberal arts program in the United States. Thanks to my co-workers and supervisors at Citibank and Merrill Lynch in New York, where I learned to count and selland also to deal (cordially, I hope) with people of what may be a greater variety of races, colors, and creeds than can be found even in London. The experience has been immensely helpful in my pastoral work.

Thanks to the students at Princeton University, where I spent some very interesting and challenging years as a chaplain. By now they are well along in raising their families and pursuing their careers and thereby evangelizing the world. Some are priests and religious. In a special way, I want to thank Father Charles Weiser, who welcomed me to the Aquinas Institute at Princeton as a fellow priest interested only in the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Thanks to the board, staff, and congregation of the Catholic Information Center of the Archdiocese of Washington, where I spent several years as director. What a thrill it was to return to my hometownten blocks from where I was born and a three-minute walk from the White House! Twice all of us moved the Center to new locations in downtown Washington, including its present site, 1501 K Street NW, where it provides a unique service in the nations capital to many thousands who pass through its doors each year. I ask your prayers for the late James Cardinal Hickey of Washington, who first arranged for a priest of Opus Dei to be the Centers director. Special thanks also to Dennis Bolster, Helena Metzger, and Veronica Conkling, who did so much to make the CIC not only an apostolate but also a home.

I express heartfelt gratitude to Peter Kleponis, M.A., L.P.C., and Richard Fitzgibbons, M.D. By showing me the value of letting go of excessive responsibility, they helped me resolve serious health issues during a difficult period of my life; thanks to their help and Gods grace, my future looks brighter and more productive than ever. I am grateful, too, to Lewis and Thomas Lehrman, father and son, and the Lehrman Institute, good friends and sources of assistance for various projects; and to Dr. Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute and a cherished friend.

Thanks, finally, to the converts whose stories fill and enliven the pages of this book. I was overwhelmedmoved to tears, Im not ashamed to sayby the generosity of their response to my invitation to share their recollections and their insights. Not all of the stories they provided are here verbatim, but all are present in this book in one way or another. In no special order they are: Ann English, Alex and Pegie Morris, Alfred S. Regnery, John Steele, Matt Ando, Jamie James, Austin Ruse, Brian Robertson, Tim Carney, Tom Carr, Father Carter Griffin, Cindy Searcy, Darla Romfo, David Wagner, Diane Brynn, David Gersten, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Doug Branch, Ed Hadas, Chris Dixon, Lee Edwards, Lewis Lehrman, Erica Walter, Father John Saward, Bob Novak, Tom Farr, Father David L. Stokes, Garret and Robert Morris, George Khalsa, Larry Kudlow, Harry Crocker, Jeff Bell, Patricia Ireland, Jason Boffetti, Jack Bluestein, Mark Belnick, Capt. Jeffrey Townsend, Jim Morgan, Jeff Finch, Sen. Sam Brownback, Jennifer Ferrara, Kathleen Dezio, Lou Carlin, Laura McPherson, Tom Pyle, Meghan Gurdon, Michael Woodward, Deacon Michael Ross, Melissa Stass, Kyle Parker, Carlie Dixon, Dave Phelps, Paul (Chaim) Schenck, Robert Traynham, Ruth Belmonte, Susan Collins, Scott Walter, Steve Warner, Sister Mary Odo (Jenny Tilley) and her mother Kathy, Tony Snow, Brad Wilcox, Paul Corzine, Dave Branyan, Bill Saunders, Bill Park, Sandi McCloskey, Adam and Kathy Carlisle, Judge Robert Bork, Robin Harris, Robert Spencer, Sister Maris Stella of Jesus Crucified (Leila Bate), Rado Nickolov, David Leonard, Mark Polonski, Tony Aragon, and David Clark.

I wish there were many more names, and I pray God will give me many more years to bring him souls. If he doesnt, you the reader will just have to work twice as hard.

Rev. C. John McCloskey III

by Russell Shaw

Good news and bad news, said the agent at the airline check-in counter in Munich.

I cringed.

The good news, she went on, is that the flight to Dulles is on time. The bad news is that its a full flight. I put you in a middle seat.

A short time later, fearing the worsta 350-pound woman on one side of me, a man with a hacking cough on the otherI boarded the plane. Traveling by way of Munich, I was heading back to the United States after two weeks in Rome spent lecturing at a university and attending a meeting at the Vatican.

The 350-pound woman and the coughing man apparently missed the plane. What I got instead were a quiet young chap in his late twenties on my left and, on my right, a blonde young woman, twenty at most, in tee shirt and jeans. Breathing a sigh of relief, I settled in for the nine-hour flight.

Id planned on a nap after lunch, but my seatmate to the right had other ideas. Her name was Caitlin. She was friendly and wanted to talk.

She was a junior at a Lutheran college in the Midwest, returning home from a week-long spring break spent in Rome with friends and classmates. She said she was studying Far Eastern culture and foreign languages.

I asked, What do you want to be?

The answer was a surprise: A missionary.

She wasnt kidding. Blonde, chatty Caitlin looked and acted like the all-American girl, but as she talked it became clear that the great passion of her life was the good news of Christ. And some of what she said about that was more than a little disconcerting to me, a lifelong Roman Catholic.

I asked her where she had it in mind to be a missionary. Thinking of her Far Eastern studies, I supposed she would name some country like Korea or Japan. I was wrong. She thought Rome looked like a pretty good place to preach Christ.

During her spring break, it turned out, shed pretty much skipped the usual tourist sightsthe Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the restand spent her time evangelizing other students in the hostel where she and her friends were staying.