semantics and thats all it is. lets have all the christians fighting each other so we can pave the way for islam to take over, that will solve the born again question once and for all.
Being born again occurs when the Holy Spirit indwells the believer. I don't know if that occurs suddenly or gradually, but I do know that a person becomes a "new" and different person when it occurs.
Everyone I know, Catholics and otherwise, who have given themselves over to Jesus emerged from the process quite changed, quite reborn. So I think this author is confused. I was baptised as a child and that might have changed me in the eyes of God, but until I made the decision to ask the Holy Spirit to come into my life (which meant that I had to die so He could live through me), I was very human. Now I still make millions of human mistakes, but He pulls my fat out of the fire by my contrition and with His continual forgiveness.
We ought all to agree that being "Born Again" is not just about "feelings". I recall the movie "Tender Mercies," in which the character played by Robert Duval surprises his Christian wife by being baptised in the local Baptist church at the same time as his young step-son. I was delighted by their conversion on the way home. "The boy says, "Do you feel any different?: Duval turnes to the boys,smiles and says, Nope, and says something like, I guess that comes later. Ironically, we know that he HAS been transformed by the love of a good woman, by adversity (his daughter has been killed in a car wreck) and by faith. THIS Catholic cannot think of a more "catholic" movie.