Posted on 04/10/2005 7:31:03 AM PDT by Liz
Washington, D.C. and New York City have shaped the man who became Fr. C. John McCloskey III when he was ordained in Rome in 1982. "I'm not an angry man," he assures, but neither is he cowed by the media or academe. He's armed and dangerous. Armed with the Catholic faith, and dangerous to the enemies of that faith., and a way to salvation for men and women who are seeking Christ. "Priests are warriors for Jesus Christ," he says. "They are the Navy Seals, the Army Rangers, and the Green Berets of the Catholic Church, and I'm proud to serve among her ranks."
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Indeed, such an approach has made Fr. McCloskey a name as a "specialist" in the business of transforming souls. "Often times," he explains, "those in Washington who are interested in the Catholic faith don't know where their local parish church is or who their pastor is. So they come to me at a highly visible place in downtown Washington." These men and women are often Evangelicals and Jews. "They want a specialist," he says, "not a general practitioner. I'm a specialist in conversions, not by choice, but by reality."
As a specialist, he eschews the more institutional approach to conversion that has unfortunately become the order of the day. "Many people are turned off by the bureaucratic approach that says, 'Hey, if you want to be Catholic then you have to come here every Tuesday night for a year,' or even worse, 'Sorry, our convert program started in late August, so you'll have to wait for next year.'" The Catholic Information Center was set up, in part, to give the kind of individual attention that Fr. McCloskey believes each personal conversion often requires. "I tailor-make my approach to each individual considering his circumstances and try to find out what's best for him," he says.
His record speaks for itself: Fr. McCloskey has aided in the conversions of some noteworthy personalities including Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, Wall Street economist Lawrence Kudlow, political commentator Robert Novak, and conservative publisher Alfred S. Regnery. During his whole life he's been in contact with high-profile people on the East Coast. "That's been my line of fire, so to speak," he admits.
One of his most noteworthy conversions is that of former Jewish abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson. As chronicled in Nathanson's 1996 book The Hand of God, he was involved in abortion for nearly three decades, beginning in 1945, when he persuaded a pregnant girlfriend to abort their child. He would eventually become the director of New York's largest abortion clinic and a co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League. His venture into what he calls "the Satanic world of abortion" included aborting his own child. "What is it like to terminate the life of your own child?" he wrote in his book. "I have aborted the unborn children of my friends, my colleagues, casual acquaintances, even my teachers. There was never a shred of self-doubt, never a wavering of the supreme self-confidence that I was doing a major service to those who sought me out." By the time he was convinced to leave the abortion industry -- moved by the images afforded by ultrasound technology -- he had presided over 75,000 abortions.
Functioning as an agnostic, he first converted to the pro-life cause. But for more than a decade he walked on the brink of despair, contemplating whether or not to commit suicide. After witnessing an Operation Rescue demonstration at a Manhattan abortion clinic, he started to ask questions about God, and his reading interests eventually turned toward Catholic authors. "[Fr. McCloskey]'d heard I was prowling around the edges of Catholicism," wrote Nathanson. "He contacted me and we began to have weekly talks. He'd come to my house and give me reading materials."
One of the most important aspects about the priest's approach to Dr. Nathanson was that he spoke what the doctor calls "the language of reason and erudition." He was able to unite faith and reason for Nathanson, who said he needed the safety net of reason for his leap of faith. "He guided me down the path to where I am now," he said of Fr. McCloskey, when he was received into the Church by Cardinal John O'Connor in 1989. "I owe him more than anyone else."
Now operating just blocks from the White House, Fr. McCloskey has been disparagingly called "the Catholic Church's K Street Lobbyist." But the priest takes no offense, and accepts the cynical label. Why not? He is, after all, lobbying for souls. And not just the souls of the rich and influential, he says, because for every high-profile conversion like a Nathanson or a Novak there are dozens of everyday people who convert to the Catholic faith under his guidance.
Perhaps because of the prominence of his present assignment, Fr. McCloskey has also become one of the nation's leading priestly pundits, and probably the lone self-described "conservative" Catholic priest among those who are regularly consulted by the national mainstream media on issues pertaining to the Catholic Church. He has appeared on an impressive number of television and radio programs explaining Church teaching and defending the Catholic faith. He has even locked horns on national television with the likes of Gary Wills and Fr. Richard McBrien. He's also often quoted in highly visible newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
One of the main messages he likes getting through in the press is that the Catholic Church will be revitalized in this country by a return to the traditional teachings of the Church. This stands in marked contrast to the relentless push for liberalization in doctrine and discipline as a means of solving problems in the Catholic Church. Such a message brings with it not a little ridicule and mockery, and some particularly harsh criticism from Catholic liberals, but nothing Fr. McCloskey hasn't been able to take in stride.
--SNIP-- Excerpted from Priest: Profiles of Ten Good Men Serving the Church Today. Rest at source link.
Michael S. Rose is author of four books including the NY Times bestseller Goodbye, Good Men. He is a contributing editor to New Oxford Review. His articles and essays have appeared in venues such as The American Conservative, Wall Street Journal, Newsday, Catholic World Report and The Wanderer. His latest book, from which this article is excerpted, is Priest: Profiles of Ten Good Men Serving the Church Today. He can be reached by email at: msrose@alumni.brown.edu.
Dr Nathanson's awe-inspiring odyssey, from the depths of being pro-abortion, himself performing 75,000 abortions, to the light of becoming pro-life, then converting to Catholicism.
Norma McCorvey, alias "Jane Roe" of the notorious Roe v.
Wade case, is also a convert to Catholicism.
Even conservative babes convert. Laura Ingraham being the most prominent example.
Great to hear that.
Yep. Converts are good because they bring new enthusiasm to a parish that many lifers let slide a bit.
Is he a National Review guy??
I am not sure that Novak's conversion is anything to brag about, he has become a self hating Jew. What faith did Kudlow not practice before his conversion? If he was Jewish it is a shame that guys like he and Nathanson did not find answers in their own religion. They are certainly there.
OK. thanks
Was Ingraham raised in a liberal household?
I don't think she was, but not 100% sure.
Interesting read.
According to the segment about Novak's conversion on "Capital Gang" yesterday, his bar mitzvah was the last contact he had with Judaism. He and his wife eventually started attending Episcopalian services, but were dissatisfied until they found a Catholic parish which they attended for quite a while before he decided to become a Catholic. The show didn't explain why he didn't return to Judaism instead of starting to attend Christian services.
Boy! I sure would have liked to have seen those!!
His hostility to Israel and Jews shows some real issues.
Bob Novak has an impish sense of humor about his conversion----in a recent CNN segment about it, Novak talked about his dark nickname and that while he accepts being known as the "Prince of Darkness" he says nobody knows that he was even badder Before he converted.
By the way, the latest Weekly Standard has an item near the end about the New York Times and its virtual suppression of coverage of the Holocaust while it was occurring, in spite of the fact that Sulzberger was Jewish, and it tries to account for that.
In his biography, the British actor Alec Guiness touchingly tells that his conversion to Catholicism was motivated by a realtime scene in which he saw a small boy trustingly place his hand in the hand of a priest, and how that expression of trust moved him to convert.
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