Ukraine is a vital link for Europe: our energy transportation networks; our location between the European Union and Eurasia. We’re the melting pot of Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. The democracy we founded with the Orange Revolution has to be an example for other post-Soviet states.
I converted to Catholicism at age 35, after being raised as a Congregationalist in a New England Yankee family.
I think it is quite remarkable actually that Pope Benedict has a sense of the variety of ways in which it is possible to be a Catholic. I think he is more comfortable with a plurality of expressions of Catholicism in different rites, traditions than many of us are.
Both Mum and Dad were converts to Catholicism, and normally if you convert to Catholicism you have thought about it more than someone who just grew up with it, taking it for granted.
In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.
Most people spend their life trying to get away from Catholicism. Amazingly, I chose it.
Like the graduates of some notorious boot camp, my brothers and sisters and I look back with a sort of perverse glee at the rigors of our Catholicism. My oldest sister, Mary, was so convinced of the church’s omnipotence that when she walked into a Protestant church with some high-school friends, she was sure its walls would crash down on her head.
We took our Catholicism very seriously. We never missed Mass; our father was a lector, and both our parents taught catechism. At 3 in the afternoon on Good Friday, we gathered in the living room for 10 minutes of silence in front of a painting of the Crucifixion.
I grew up around a lot of various religions, so it’s a part of my consciousness in a way. Everything from heavy Catholicism to followers of Indian spiritual masters to Unitarian universalists – all in one family. Though the family aspect was stronger than any particular dogma.
Catholicism is so steeped in imagery. It’s one of the many reasons Catholicism has given birth to so many great filmmakers compared to the Protestant tradition – even in America, where we’re primarily Protestant.
Catholicism played such a huge part in my life, I would not have survived without my faith.
I had just been sort of raised and formed in a general Christian context, and it seemed to my teenage self that I found the argument for Catholicism very compelling. To the extent that there was a personal driving force, it was more on the intellectual side of things than the mystical or deeply personal. When I converted, I thought it was true.
I suppose you could sum up the religious aspects of my boyhood by saying it was a time of life when I was taught the difference between right and wrong as it specifically applied to Catholicism.
I begin every novel with the vow that I will not write about technology, Catholicism, or Hell. As you know, I end up writing about all three. They just happen to be personal obsessions of mine.
I think I would like to be a monk. I really considered Catholicism a few years ago, but there were some things that I just couldn’t reconcile.
I had just been sort of raised and formed in a general Christian context, and it seemed to my teenage self that I found the argument for Catholicism very compelling. To the extent that there was a personal driving force, it was more on the intellectual side of things than the mystical or deeply personal. When I converted, I thought it was true.
I suppose you could sum up the religious aspects of my boyhood by saying it was a time of life when I was taught the difference between right and wrong as it specifically applied to Catholicism.
I begin every novel with the vow that I will not write about technology, Catholicism, or Hell. As you know, I end up writing about all three. They just happen to be personal obsessions of mine.
I think I would like to be a monk. I really considered Catholicism a few years ago, but there were some things that I just couldn’t reconcile.
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