This is the first page of Cathy's conversion story

Viviano Codazzi painting of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome dated 1630

I Believe in God—So What?

by Cathy Duffy

copyright 2005 Cathy Duffy—This file is for use only by the purchaser. Creating copies or sharing it electronically is a violation of copyright.

(excerpted from Catholic Mystique, published by Our Sunday Visitor, copyright 2003)

Since I am a “revert” to Catholicism rather than a “convert,” many people who hear about my return to the Catholic Church dismiss it as an emotional decision, a return to my roots. The truth is that it was just the opposite. My decision was based on hardheaded logic rather than a desire to return to a childhood “comfort zone.” In fact, if I had chosen to return for emotional reasons, I would have been sorely disappointed because my life was seriously disrupted and I lost many friends in the process.

I often blame my reversion on the saintly Protestant Reformed theologian, Francis Schaeffer. In 1976, when my eldest son was about two years old, I read Schaeffer’s book, How Should We Then Live? That book opened the door for me to a serious form of Christianity that was satisfying to both my soul and my mind--at least for a time it was. Schaeffer asked the important questions: Does God exist? If He does, has He communicated anything to man? What does God demand of us? What is the purpose of life? I call these the “so what” questions because the answers we give to them shape all areas of our lives, from how we raise our children to how we believe government should operate, from what we believe about evolution to how we choose what movies we watch.

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