Chris Cuddy's Inspiring Conversion Story

I just finished reading the conversion story of Christopher Cuddy, a Catholic convert whose blog I recently linked to in the sidebar. His story bears a lot of resemblance to my own... well, it sort of does if you ignore the absence in his story of heavy drinking, late nights playing in a rock band, badly botched romances, a multitude of traffic violations and dropping out of college. What I mean is that we were both in the same geographical location when we converted, we were both Presbyterians and both were greatly influenced by Dr. Scott Hahn. Excerpt:

All of these feelings of anxiety and angst were quickly laid to rest. Scott Hahn was a tall man with warm eyes and a hearty laugh. He took the three of us out to eat at a local McDonalds, and we talked theology for about three hours.

I found Dr. Hahn to be very humble, non-threatening, and a real pleasure to talk with. And because our backgrounds were so similar, we had no problem finding common ground to build upon. The first half of our conversation was spent sharing stories about our experiences with authors and theologians who were influential in our theological formation. I was impressed with Dr. Hahn’s breadth of knowledge, and the sincere respect he had for many of his former (Protestant) mentors. Far from harboring feelings of animosity and contempt towards his Protestant professors, he regarded them with deep and sincere admiration. I was really touched by the gratitude and appreciation he had for them and their work.

I listened closely to everything that he said – carefully examining his every statement for traces of anything that could potentially be Biblically malignant and theologically dangerous. In the end, however, I was surprised to find that there was very little that I could make a legitimate fuss about. He patiently listened to my list of typical objections to the Catholic faith, and he systematically responded to my questions with clear arguments from both Scripture and Church history.

I was blown out of the water. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that it would be possible for someone to provide Biblical reasons for Catholicism – arguments from “man-made traditions,” perhaps, but never from the Scriptures.

It turns out that Mr. Cuddy and I have a lot of mutual friends so maybe I'll have the pleasure of meeting him someday. He also has a new book out of Catholic conversion stories which he co-edited.

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