I couldnt even get a good rant going on this ... but I'll give you a blurb anyway
I find it interesting, and disturbing, that I have happened upon TWO articles in the span of a couple hours on keeping our children entertained with media during various times of the day when they are currently NOT being entertained. First off, we have the addition of a telivised babysitter in shopping carts. Second, the burden of keeping teenagers in check on the bus may soon be replaced by an ad-driven subscription radio alternative. (I know there are already radios on busses and have been for years)
Now, back to the shopping carts. I can tell you now that the technology to gear the ads kids watch to coincide with what aisle mommy is on exists. When kids whine, mommy buys. Whether they go that far initially remains to be seen. Still, apart from filling our kids brains with advertising we have the extra "TV time" added to their day. As it is now kids spend about 4 hours a day in front of the TV **1. (that stat is mind boggling to me) ... Considering school, I am not sure how kids fit all that time in. I wish I had 4 hours a day to do anything much less to spend in front of a television. Consider further that video game time is NOT counted in that number. I know that many parents do not expect their TV's to be babysitters but I am certain everyone reading this blog has met at least one set of parents they suspect use it for that reason FREQUENTLY. It's as if some children are parented by television executives. TV's in kids rooms are common and studies SUGGEST (Disclaimer) that children with TV's in their rooms have lower academic performance and **2 are at greater risk of being overweight. **3
Here is some simple advice: "[The AAP] does not recommend television for children age 2 or younger. For older children, the Academy recommends no more than 1 to 2 hours per day of educational, nonviolent programs."
Everyone knows this. It is common sense. All I am saying is that you spend more time with your kids and NOT in front of the TV. After all, the TV time outside of your control is increasing. Your time with them is not.
DISCLAIMER: note SUGGEST is carefully chosen word here ... Statistics are not science. Statistics when viewed without a proper understanding of statistical methods can be very misleading. Media is the WORST about citing statistics to support a point. The articles I cite here do not give numbers so an accurate judgment is difficult to make. The conclusions, however, fit very well within a reaonsable theory about how TV affects childhood.
See also Why is getting rid of your TV SO rAdiKal? -- we now have a TV that is placed such that it is difficult to access for long periods of time. I want the primary bulk of my kids day spent being active and learning new things.
Do you like old churches or contemporary churches?
Monday, August 7, 2006
My favorite churches are the old ones (see Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica for example) however, I like contemporary design. IMHO there will be a handful of flying saucer style churches that will survive the ages as good examples of design from our current time frame. The ones that will survive are the ones that took their cues from older churches and helped to make obvious the teachings of the Church. Too many of them are all about the people (its all about me syndrome) and less about worship.
In fact, MUCH discussion goes on in our town over St. John Vianney. People either love it or hate it. I personally love it save one thing. I wish the altar were on one end and the congregation was reorganized accordingly. I have heard that "in the round" is a really old school way of doing mass. I just personally do not like looking at half the congregation during mass.
I personally think the crucifix is awesome as are the statues of Mary and the stations of the Cross. The pictures I provide do not do it justice. Also note, there ARE kneelers ... The visibility of the natural setting makes attending mass there a wholy unique and reverant experience, especially the early morning mass right around sunrise. It is what I think modern architecture in churches should strive for .... provided you go that route.
It was also a cheap (relatively) church to build which is unfortunately very much the high priority with our modern day cost conscious building committees.
Around St. Blogs: Beauty, Birthing, Breastfeeding, Babies
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Its Beauty ... and we like it
I heard a guy on the radio make the following statement.
"You know, we should have Hot Air balloon competitions every Friday. It makes my day to drive around town with hundreds of balloons in the air"
In the world of rising big box retailers and cheap functional buildings things like this give me hope.
Heart Mind and Strength Weblog (HMS) is one of my favorite blogs. I was originally going to link to Kevin Miller's post on The Transfiguration of Our Hearts because the art he included is really awesome. Since it is HMS though and it happens to be about the mass readings for today I suggest you take the time to read it ...
Also, I sent HMS an email about a birthing center that we are hoping to use. Here is the text of the email
Talk about weird timing :)
My wife's friend is going to have her baby there. There is also another one that is planning to open at the first of 2007 in Covington Louisiana that has a specifically Catholic mission. My wife is due in February and if everything works out we will be one of their first patients at the new birthing center.
Here is a link to ...the web site of the doctor/midwife who is starting it.
I must say this is all welcome, especially given that the epidural rate at our local hospital is something unreal like 97% (I am pretty sure that is what they said at our classes we took with our first child ... one of the highest in the nation I think). The section rate is also very high.
Many have a fit over exposed breast on the cover of Baby Talk
i think it's ironic that the answer to the question posed on the cover (why don't women nurse longer?) of the august edition of babytalk is being shouted from the mouths of all the "shocked and horrified" -- not to mention crude and callow -- female readers who are in some sort of victorian tizzy at seeing a sliver of a breast in action. less breast can be seen on babytalk than is shown by pam anderson's bikini top on the cover of the magazine across the grocery isle, but i don't hear of many women taking to the streets over that one.
I am not sure if I would have gone so far as to recommend therapy, but the rest is pretty close to how I feel. Part of me sympathizes just a bit .. it seems that in the 70's, breastfeeding was WAY countercultural. Our whole society has a wrong way of thinking, although it is not because they are jerks ... its because they are ignorant about breastfeeding. For some though, its similar to the reason some people are so "indignant" when they see a family with 5 or more children. After all, how outrageous and irresponsible are those parents really when the rest of the country is making sure we are barely hitting our replacement rate? Trust me, THAT it isn't irresponsibility upsetting people ...
I have not had time to watch the whole video but if anyone wants to know why traditionalists prefer the Tridentine mass, there are few better reasons than this. Its simply gorgeous and everything points to the reality of what happens in the Mass. Commentary in the video is by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, whose case for canonization by the way has been assisted by two apparent miracles (as I mentioned in my last reading roundup ...)
Ummm yep .. 50 years from now I hope we can look back and say that our society as a whole was crazy to even consider this ...
We have witnessed over 40 years of federally approved contraception, 30+ years federally approved murders of the innocent unborn. Years of "Not yet federally approved" euthanasia, or what is called "death with dignity"....And now we await approval by various states and governmental bodies to sanction that which we thought would never return - the wanton and destructive experimentation of human beings, humans in their most vulnerable and primitive state.
There is nothing like adoration at midnight to remind you that all of the good intentions you have of praying for everyone under the sun can fall totally flat when the reality of your humanity insists that you cannot keep watch for even one hour. Tonight was one of those nights for me. Fortunately I was able to read a few intriguing chapters of The Sinners Guide to give me ample ammunition in dealing with my apparently large number of shortcomings.
Nothing like a dose of reality from a loving God to remind you that He wants you in Heaven and will make every effort to get you to realize what is necessary to get there.
Confession, here I come ... (and no, its not for falling asleep at adoration .. it was due to an unexpected examination of conscience)
I am not at all opposed to the idea of making things in order to help increase the opportuinty for dialogue with the world when it comes to your faith. In small doses and in certain circumstances I generally find it to be a good thing. However, I have two general problems with some of this type of stuff.
1) Questionable Legality. This is obviously depending on whether or not the item derives itself from, for example, a popular brand. My wife made a t-shirt once, interestingly enough for a Christian group. My wife pointed out a scene in a Disney movie that birthed the idea for the t-shirt to a lawyer who was to review the design for any legal issues. Trust me, the design was a vague resemblance. The lawyer was concerned that a jury might label it as a derivative work and shot down the design. Now there are other factors to be considered, like legitimate fair use and threat to the brand itself. Its murky waters with copyright law. I am pretty sure Disney would have not come after an obscure t-shirt to be worn by about 50 persons. Still, the fact that we see BLATANT examples of derivative works in Christian t-shirts adds to an overall impression that Christians are not themselves creative or, even worse, that Christianity itself stifles creativity. Furthermore, to defy copyright law, even if not blatantly, lends itself to a certain amount of deserved criticism for hypocrisy.
2) Pop-Culture driving Christian art. Our Christian faith should drive art -- not the other way around. To better make my point here let me point out that until the most recent centuries, Christian art had a long history of driving the art world. Sit through any art history class and count the centuries of Madonna and Child paintings. It is hard to deny that the resources Christians poured into works of art from painting, to sculpture and even the architecture of the great cathedrals themselves was a great boon to art and culture. The great works of Christian art have and will continue to be taught about in art schools. Art schools, no matter how secular, cannot get out of it. Christ WILL BE PREACHED with every slide, Powerpoint presentation and print bearing a photograph of, for example, Michaelangelos Pieta. Today art seems to be dominated by the world. For Christians, it is an afterthought requiring little more than a shifting around and a stamping of Jesus onto it to make Christ palatable to the masses. After all, we didn't have to develop the artform, only the Christianizing of it. I certainly feel that avenue affects some people but I am not sure that the legacy of Christian trinkets we are building in the current time frame is one that will remain a lasting one. A fad is a fad. It has a comeback in 20 years and generally is lost forever. It sure would be nice if Christianity were to regain an appreciation for the fine arts and develop artists for the glory of God, rather than relying on the "more cost effective" option of allowing the starving, secular artists of the world to drive new ideas and promote their values in culture and just retooling it a little to pretend it is a most effective means to bring people to Christ. If the Church focuses more energy on the arts, and Christianizing art again, then we might have less starving artists and more art that Christians would be proud of -- and that the rest of the world would sit up and notice.
and now we have this unexpected twist regarding Tropical Storm Chris. The storm looks mighty impressive for being one that wasn't supposed to do much (as everyone was saying this morning) ...
Anyway ... looks like it is headed for Florida and the Gulf. Are you ready? .. and that includes people outside the south. I have a feeling some gas price panics might occur after last season ... or so everyone around here (at work) seems to think.
Ummm yeah. Lots of press on this item. I wonder if I could get some air time if I tried to get my pet fish ordained? As I have posted in the past
"... I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." - -Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, May 22, 1994
And all it does right now is point back to here ... Don't worry. I am not leaving this blog behind for my space. I have MUCH more control here (namely I use JavaScript for my blogrolls and music lists) and the URL is WAAAYYYY cooler.
Just finished first 8 chapters of Introduction to the Devout Life
Friday, July 28, 2006
If anyone is interested, catch up with me ... its a good stopping point to discuss the first 8 chapters ... here is your link ... no excuses ... click it. Go ahead. The chapters are well written and short.
A question to throw out for the idea of hating sin ... How to go about it? Should we focus on its negative effects to develop such hatred? Should we bother with sins that do not affect us (like, I am not personally every going to have an abortion) ... Should we focus on the ones that tend to affect us and especially those to which we are most prone to?
I personally have come to loathe the idea of using contraception (you might note that I rail on it occasionally) thus it isn't a tremendous temptation any more. In fact, I bore of railing against it. Would slacking on hating sin cause a love of it to return?
I can think of a few I need to loathe more ..
Just some thoughts after having read Chapter 8 ...
I think this is awesome and more consideration should be given to such things. I am personally tired of hearing ads for 70-billion square-foot metal buildings for every manner of use. I hear the ads because the demand for bland buildings serving their "function" is quite high. Functionality is great for, say, a warehouse.
I am pleased that most of the new establishments where people actually congregate are starting to look nicer.
So ... now I want to see the massive Gothic retail outlet.
Among the four primary sources of human stem cells (human embryos, fetal tissues and organs from aborted or miscarried babies, pregnancy matter (umbilical cord, placenta, amniotic fluid), and adult tissues and organs), the extraction of stem cells from human embryos is always morally evil on account of the method necessarily destroying the life of the embryo. Fr. Pacholczyk explained that the Catholic Church only applauds that research which uses stem-cells procured from methods that do not violate human life.
I found this nifty tool that I am using to display my 10 most recently listened to songs from Last.fm. I tried using the images. This, however, is much cooler. You can take any RSS feed and publish it in a block on your blog (or website).
I am working on some changes to the blog. I like some of the new themes they have available but I need to work on fitting what I already use with it. If it looks goofy for a few days, forgive me.
"Police have made no linkage between his disappearance and Opus Dei."
So why include the organization in the lead of the article? I happen to know that lots of people have been abducted in Wal-Mart parking lots and then found brutally murdered. That doesn't mean that the "secretive" retail giant had them knocked off.
I don't get this. I have had no problem finding anything out about Opus Dei. Of couse, the reason I have never joined is the temptation to use my membership to freak out Da Vinci Code believers. *smile*
Asians make up just 1 percent of the Catholic Church within the United States but account for 12 percent of all Catholic seminary students nationwide
I have seen this first hand. We have a beautiful parish in our diocese that is heavily Vietnamese. In fact, they even have one of the masses entirely in Vietnamese. You could hardly identify a Vietnamese population in Baton Rouge 20 years ago. Today they have taken one of the dying inner city parishes in an unsafe part of town and turned it into a vibrant Church filled with tremendous works of mercy. It is also one of the most beautiful churches in town. The glory of Christ shines brightly with the Vietnamese Catholics in our diocese. I am glad to hear that the same holds true elsewhere.
Apparently the world has learned to use RSS readers and whatnot so more people are visiting even though my posting has been somewhat spotty. That and Google is picking me up so I am still getting about 4 times as many visitors as I got at this point last year from Google searches alone.
Powerful Stuff - "Rosalind Moss's talk, "Mary, Our Jewish Mother" which can be found on iTunes under Ave Maria University Presents" - Rosalind Moss is one of the many puzzle pieces in my return to the faith. You have to love the sincere zeal displayed from a woman who clearly loves the Church as much as she does. An example from her conversion (and on Houshold of Faith, the video series she did with Kristine Franklin)
"If Christ's sacrifice was sufficient, then how was it that we added to it? Because to offer ourselves with Christ is to say that His sacrifice is not sufficient. And everyone I had asked said we didn't add to it because they wanted me to understand that the Catholic Church believed that Christ's sacrifice was sufficient. But Msgr. O'Connor said to me, 'Yes, we add to the sacrifice of Christ; and yes, His sacrifice was sufficient. No, He doesn't need us; but He receives us. We legitimately add.'
"I thought, 'Aha! The truth is out at last. This is heresy. You believe that we add to the sacrifice of Christ and now it's out in the open. I <knew> I couldn't trust the Catholic Church.'
"And in the next moment what he had said penetrated my mind, or my heart, and became the most beautiful thought I'd ever heard. I thought immediately of a mother baking a cake, and her little child in the kitchen with her. The mother has everything there sufficient for the cake; but here comes the daughter and says, 'Mommy, I want to help.' So the mother receives the daughter because that love receives. She lets the daughter put the eggs in. Is the mother sufficient? Yes. Does she need the daughter? No. Does she allow the daughter to add? Yes. The daughter's addition is not needed, but it's received and it's a true addition. And I thought, 'That's love.'
"The human mind, and certainly the Protestant mind, could never conceive of it. Two weeks later, driving home from Mass, I realized for the first time, 'I don't think I want to be outside of this too much longer.'"
* I am averaging about 208 in the few games (10, was injured after game 1 last week) I have bowled in league this season. I am not sure I will make 21 games though so my highest official average will likely remain 202.
* I was putting my oldest son to sleep last night after watching the Dreamworks film "Prince of Egypt" which is about Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Anyway, afterwards he was interested in hearing more of the story so I started to read Exodus to him. I figure any opportunity to read large blocks of the Bible to your kids is a good one to take. As he started to fall asleep I started to summarize the plagues and ask him questions.
A little background is necessary here. We have lots of frogs around the home and we even have a few regulars that clean our windows of flying insects at night.
At one point, I queried "Hey, did you realize there was a plague of frogs?" He peeked up at me and went "Yeah Dad .. remember *I* saw the movie and YOU didn't"
So I finally found Last.fm (My User Page) - This is a list of the last 10 songs that I have listened to (with 1 being the most recent)
My favorite view so far is this 90's synth/DJ looking screen. I need to find a good one that fits in the right column OR I need to use the RSS feed to populate something similar to the way the Blogroll is done in Bloglines.
I just thought I would warn people of something you might not consider when you are posting something to your blog.
Do not post in anger or haste on your blog and then reconsider and delete the post. By the time you reconsider an aggregator like Bloglines has likely alredy picked up the post. I have noticed a few blogs that I read where the posters do this and then go back and delete the post. I have even done it once (although I plan to eventually post that tirade when I clean it up) ... Bloglines stored my post.
Be careful. Once you hit submit, it might be a matter of seconds before you will never be able to purge that information from cyberspace.
This should be a good enough warning to do what you should already be doing. Pause ... think ... say a prayer ... listen ... If you are angry, wait for half an hour and repeat the process. After much care, post.
At adoration the other night I feel God really wanted me to take stock of where I have been in the past few years and where he has me now. My focus has been mostly on the intellectual side of the faith -- proofs of doctrinal points and just simply learning more about the faith. As a result of that course, my blog has tended to contain some apologetics material and general linking with mild commentary on regular Catholic news. Recently, however, I am starting to gather that my role as a husband and father (especially with a fourth child on the way) cannot be adequately staffed, so to speak, without either multiple me's or a tremendous increase in the grace of God. Keeping this blog up seems almost useless at times like this ... However, I feel God wants me to keep blogging. After all, I am going to mess up and blog about it. It might as well be a "public trainwreck of benefit" for another dad with three young ones and a fourth on the way.
I still plan to continue with the same material that I have blogged on in the past. I am forever interested in conversion, patristics, apologetics and family issues. Don't be shocked if marriage and family issues rise to the forefront as my role continues to change. Be even less shocked if I start posting "Ah HA" posts about prayer. It may be super easy stuff for most of St. Blogs. I am the remedial version of St. Blogs so you get the Catholic 101 stuff and for now, prayer is taking a front seat in my spiritual walk.
So what is it with me and prayer?
Its hard to admit this even to myself, but quite simply my prayer life needs work. God is asking me to get serious and organize a little bit better in this area of my life. Adding weekly adoration has worked wonders for me and it is the reason I feel prayer is at the forefront of where God wants me to start going. I cannot continue to slack on such an important avenue of grace in my life. Its kind of cheap to expect a relationship with God to occur without taking advantage of the "ask" feature. The fact is, I need the grace. We all do. I can see a great need coming. I would be a fool to ignore it. The answer, as always, has been turn to Him. I know that in my brain and I know that from experience.
Here I am Lord.
Since I also read a lot, my current reading will be long term and will cover the following material:
Apologies for those who try to read this blog on occasion. Life hit hard in the last two weeks.
I have decided to post a fun personal post here from a forum that I vist. It is weather related.
The question was What are the 10 worst natural disasters you have been in?
I have lived in Baton Rouge almost all of my life ... so some of this was just feeder bands and whatnot .. I will rank them in terms of effect to my family and/or property
1. Hurricane Andrew ... eye went pretty much over the city. Power out 3 days. I worked at McDonalds during that time frame and ours was the first in the city to get power. Worst working conditions I can ever remember. 2. Hurricane Katrina ... I actually left town since it was the weekend and went to visit relatives in Beaumont. We are still feeling the aftermath of that storm in terms of infrastructure limitations due to unexpected growing pains. 3. Tropical Storm Allison - Not just a Houston event. My parents had 2 feet of water in their home in Baton Rouge. 4. Hurricane Rita ... relatives drove in from Beaumont at the last minute. Baton Rouge got some TS gusts but not much more. 5. Jun 8, 1989 Southeast Louisiana tornado outbreak. "8 tornadoes struck southeastern Louisiana during the early morning hours" (from Intellicast.com) .. I will never forget being in the bathtub at 6am before we realized that the tornado had already lifted prior to reaching our part of town 6. 1983. 4 feet of water in my parents home from local flooding
And yall might laugh at this but when it snows in Baton Rouge it is a disaster
7. Late winter/early spring 4-6 inch snowfall in 1987. We had 6" in our front yard. A day later it was in the 70's. 8. The LSU wins the Sugar bowl over Illinois snowfall. I am not even a huge LSU fan (which is unusual for around here) but it is hard not to tie the two events together.
No stay at home moms to develop neighborly relationships Did I mention that nobody spends time outside of their homes meeting their neighbors because of
TV, ummm TV ... Video games Internet
Its interesting that they mention bowling leagues ... I am all for them for the very reason that it is one of the few places I meet new people.
Postings will be sparse for the next few weeks because my personal life has become somewhat demanding.
BTW, Happy Birthday to me (33) and happy feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria -- one of my favorite saints.
A split in the Anglican Communion is inevitable the Bishop of Rochester has said, as issues such as gay and women bishops continue to divide the global Church.
The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali's comments came as the US Episcopal Church - which ordained the first openly gay bishop in 2003 - chose Katherine Jefferts Schori as its first female head.
I so pray that many conservative Episcopalians would come home and be a blessing to the Catholic Church. They have GOT to be asking why this isn't happening in the Catholic Church (at least doctrinally).
In an episode of Detroit Cardinal Adam J. Maida's talk show, "Dialogue," that aired on the Catholic Television Network of Detroit, the cardinal urged Catholics to adhere to the truth of Christ, despite popular media's tendency to mix it with fiction for entertainment purposes.
"In many ways, this is a good opportunity for us to catechize, to evangelize, to explain," the cardinal said. "These questions brought up in the novel have been with us for 2,000 years. What we need to understand is that ... in the end ... these are matters of faith, not fiction ... and faith is a gift given to those who can see Jesus as the Son of God. That's our reality."
Democrats lead passage of pro-life bill in Louisiana This is the enigma of the Southern Democrat and why so many Catholics in Louisiana remain Democrats. The fact is Republicans ought to be scared out of their wits by Democrats taking the "legal but rare" line and actually moving to do something about abortion in this country. I am hopefully optimistic here. A step away from the killing of millions to the killing of thousands is progress in the right direction. Democrats for Life has a proposal that, while it would not make abortion illegal, would reduce the number of abortions in this country by 90%. If that plan were successful, then I promise you Republican voters who have justified their votes almost solely on the pro-life issue are going to feel alienated.
But some worry about changing a fundamental rite of worship that is so much a part of Catholic identity, especially now.
It is amazing how progressives mysteriously turn into traditionalists when their novelties are at stake, but when the traditions of the Church are at stake, jettisoning them is the first order of business.
You want something SO much a part of Catholic identity? How about some music that is older than the 60's? ... Chant would be nice ... Toss in a little Latin as well to tie us to the past. If you were REALLY concerned about identity you wouldn't have led the charge to throw every aspect of a mass that Catholics had grown accustomed to over centuries ... you know ... the ones that made OBVIOUS the doctrines of the faith? In 1962 it was fine ... today it is not ...
Question: What big idea of 2006 will be extinct in 2036? Answer: We will be happier and richer if we reduce our birth rate.
I cannot think of a better investment in our future than our own children ... and its not about having so few that I can afford to send them all to college.
As fertility rates decline, populations, then economies, then military power, then world influence, diminish.
I think this trend is going to change in short order and let me point out why. I took the 1800 fertility rate of 7 and used it as the basis of a series of assumptions. I also took a rate of 5% for percentage of people that believe currently that contraception is immoral. In Canada, based on a recent poll (source), that number is actually 8%.
If those who do not contracept have a fertility rate of 7 and those who do contracept have a fertility rate of 2 and we start with 1 person in 20 who does not contracept AND we make the assumption that 5% of contracepting parents kids "convert" to the non-contracepting position, while non-contracepting parents pass this teaching on to 60% of their kids, watch what happens.
Gen 0: 1/19 or 5% believe contraception is immoral Gen 1: 6/39 or 13.3% believe contraception is immoral Gen 2: 29/91 or 24.1% believe contraception is immoral Gen 3: 131/254 or 34.0% believe contraception is immoral Gen 4: 575/850 or 40.3% believe contraception is immoral
From that point it grows slowly to 46% by the 10th generation, at which point we are dealing with millions of people from the original 20. The most significant amount of swing in belief would occur in the first 4 generations.
If I cut the 7 fertility rate down to 5 the percentages are as follows
Gen 0: 5%% believe contraception is immoral Gen 1: 11.6% believe contraception is immoral Gen 2: 18.8% believe contraception is immoral Gen 3: 25.1% believe contraception is immoral Gen 4: 30.0% believe contraception is immoral
My point is that IF non-contracepting couples have children AND IF they pass their values on this trend will change and the society will begin to adopt values shared by non-contracepting couples over those of contracepting couples.
Essentially, contracepting couples are killing their culture and heritage. I take obvious note of the major assumptions here, however, I think they are not at all unreasonable because the majority of parents not contracepting today are intent on passing their values, particularly this one, on to their children.
First I make a ridiculously false statement, like the one about Constantine striking three days out of February. Then, under a different name, I make the same statement in another book, citing the first book as my source in a footnote.
Been short on time. I had an opportunity to answer a question about what got me interested in the Catholic Church which caused me to write a VERY concise conversion summary.
Here is what got me interested ... the whirlwind short version.
I attended a Billy Graham evangelical church. I got irritated that they wanted to "save Catholics" because "Catholics teach that their sins can be forgiven through indulgences". I knew this was wrong. That was seed #1. I left and I became Episcopalian after getting married. My wife and I discovered that all Christian churches agreed with the Catholic Church in 1930 on contraception. That was seed #2. I read the 39 Articles in the Book of Common prayer and got bent out of shape, mostly about not seeing marriage as a sacrament amongst other beliefs that seemed more akin to the church I used to attend. Seed #3. Then, upon prodding, I discovered that everyone I went to church with differed WILDLY on beliefs and the Episcopal church had few stances on doctrine. Seed #4. Then the reading started. I figured that I had to let Catholics defend their faith rather than taking someone elses word for it. I read "Rome Sweet Home" I read "Fundamentalism vs. Catholicism" I read "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic" I watched two tapes of a show that aired on EWTN called "Household of Faith" that detailed common objections to the Church. I realized I agreed with most of it already. I got really excited at the possiblity that the Church founded by Christ on Peter really existed. I defended infant baptism against the Funadmentalist position using Martin Luther as a source. Seed #5 was found in my reading. I started reading Dave Armstrong's website. I found his essay on the ECF's and Catholic Distinctive doctrines. Seed #6. At this point I picked up Jurgens' "Faith of the Early Fathers" from my parents. I was stunned. This was the sinker. The early church was Catholic. I read the intro to Newmans Essay on the Development of Doctrine. Everything else I struggled with was elementary in the sense that I felt at that point to be honest in my relationship with Christ required assent to the Catholic Church.
So
Seed #1: Protestants very frequently misrepresent the Church Seed #2: History of Christian teaching on contraception Seed #3: Downplaying of sacramentality of marriage Seed #4: Diversity of belief on "essentials" within Protestantism was disturbing. Seed #5: The Catholic Biblical case is solid. Seed #6: The Catholic historical case is undeniable.
This is a "fresh" blogroll. It tends to list blogs most frequently updated at the top. It will also drop blogs not updated for a few days. Never fear though, if you post, it will show back up. If you are interested in how I did it see this post.
Its Beauty ... and we like it
;)
This is a "fresh" blogroll. It tends to list blogs most frequently updated at the top. It will also drop blogs not updated for a few days. Never fear though, if you post, it will show back up. If you are interested in how I did it see 
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