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‘I Know This Is Where I Should Be’ (Former VMI Superintendent conversion story)
National Catholic Register ^ | 4/23/2011 | Josiah Bunting III

Posted on 04/28/2011 9:14:23 AM PDT by markomalley

I write in the full consciousness that each person’s route to reception into the Catholic Church is singular, a pathway he must follow alone, however conscious (and grateful) he may be for the solicitude and friendship of those who lead and guide him.

I was raised in a conventional Protestant household; “went to church” with my parents in a small New England village — a Congregational church, one of whose ministers was Richard Niebuhr (whose piety and earnestness I well remember, and with gratitude). My boarding school obliged us to “attend chapel” daily, the rituals and hymns being more or less standard Episcopalian observances; the music of some of the great old hymns made a far more powerful impression on me than the sermons we heard and “responsive readings” we recited.

In college in the United States, and at the University of Oxford, and in significant ways through my reading of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and his early spiritual mentor, Cardinal John Henry Newman, I began to recognize what I might call a spiritual hunger for something which the church of which I remained a nominal member was unable to assuage. I began also, through Newman, but also through much reading (not very purposive or well-organized), to be drawn to the very early Church (Paul in particular), to the Church Fathers, to the sacrifices of its first Christians, and to what I was coming to believe was the Christian communion that had sustained their creeds, their faith, their consciousness of Christ’s glory.

This must be the holy Catholic Church. Its creeds were dogma — immanent, unchanging, beyond cavil — and I embraced them with an overwhelming consciousness that I was called to embrace them. I had to.

(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...


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To: Campion
"Jesus came through Mary. Jesus is all salvation. Ergo, all salvation came through Mary."

The folks who still spout all the old anti-Catholic lies are usually too simple minded to follow something through a therefore.

21 posted on 04/28/2011 10:33:46 AM PDT by Rashputin (Barry is insane., so handlers keep him medicated and on the golf course.)
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To: sr4402

I love it when anti-Catholics take things out of context.

Explain this to me. Here’s a prayer from Pope Pius XI:

O God, everlasting Creator of all things, remember that the souls of unbelievers were made by Thee and formed in Thine Own image and likeness. Remember that Thy Son Jesus endured a most bitter death for their salvation. Permit not, O Lord, that Thy Son should any longer be despised by unbelievers . . . Forget their idolatry and unbelief, and grant that they too may some day know Him Whom Thou hast sent, the very Lord Jesus Christ, Who is our Salvation, our Life and Resurrection, by Whom we have been saved and delivered, to Whom be glory for endless ages. Amen.

Prayer written and authorized by Pope Pius IX and placed in the The Raccolta By Joseph P. Christopher, Charles E. Spence, D. D. The Rt Rowan (pages 486-487).


22 posted on 04/28/2011 10:34:35 AM PDT by vladimir998 (Copts, Nazis, Franks and Beans - what a public school education puts in your head.)
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To: Tax-chick
You could find the entire text of Pope Pius IX’s document at NewAdvent.org, and then, assuming good reading comprehension, you could understand the exact meaning he intended to convey. Having achieved this, you could either agree or disagree with the belief presented.

I suspect that you are assuming the impossible. Bear in mind that anything not presented in comic book form eclipses the abilities of the majority of anti-Catholic.

Don’t you think Gen. Bunting would be able to do something like that, if this particularly phrasing were of deep concern to him? Do you imagine he reached the age of 70, and his high military and academic positions, without ever encountering the Basic Anti-Catholic Talking Points?

Yeah, let's see: he has been the president/superintendent of THREE colleges (and was also among the finalists to president of the College of William and Mary back in the mid-1980s), headmaster at one of the nation's most prestigious prep schools, a professor at West Point, a Rhodes Scholar and the author of numerous books. I suppose, in the minds of some, that this is somehow evidence that the lacks the intelligence necessary to avoid being duped by the Catholic Church. Judge Robert Bork is another such intellectual lightweight who was duped.

23 posted on 04/28/2011 10:36:47 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: sr4402

I wonder if he knows how much ignorance there is amongst anti Catholics out there.


24 posted on 04/28/2011 10:59:44 AM PDT by lastchance ("Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis" St. Augustine)
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To: ArrogantBustard; wagglebee

We’re trying to get Young Beau to apply to Washington and Lee, just for the historicable cachet, but he’s resistant. Eagle Scout, marathon runner, 1500+ SAT ... and bone-lazy.


25 posted on 04/28/2011 11:00:14 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tornado relief: http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/North-Carolina/Tornado)
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To: Tax-chick

Sarcasm and simple minds like guns and simple minds just do not mix well.


26 posted on 04/28/2011 11:00:43 AM PDT by lastchance ("Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis" St. Augustine)
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To: sr4402

“Pope Pius IX said that ‘all Salvation’ is obtained in Mary. Ubi Primam 1849. Thus he said ‘all salvation’ for the catholic is obtained in Mary.”

If that is indeed what the man said, then he was a world class moron.


27 posted on 04/28/2011 11:01:48 AM PDT by Grunthor (The man or woman who doesn't forgive has forgotten the price that Christ paid for them on the Cross.)
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To: ArrogantBustard

I think it is kind of cute the first time a puppy piddle on the rug but a few piles of newspaper later it sort of loses its charm.


28 posted on 04/28/2011 11:02:04 AM PDT by lastchance ("Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis" St. Augustine)
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To: ColoCdn

It keeps out the riff raff.


29 posted on 04/28/2011 11:02:56 AM PDT by lastchance ("Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis" St. Augustine)
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To: lastchance

That’s why Anoreth invented the Flashing Holographic Sarcasm Emblem, but Pat hasn’t built it yet.


30 posted on 04/28/2011 11:02:56 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tornado relief: http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/North-Carolina/Tornado)
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To: Tax-chick

We must see about that funding request.


31 posted on 04/28/2011 11:04:29 AM PDT by lastchance ("Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis" St. Augustine)
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To: Tax-chick
I went to Hampden-Sydney. I thought about going to W&L but didn't want to be there when it was in the midst of going coed, plus I liked H-S a lot better. Bunting was president of Hampden-Sydney the first two years I was there.
32 posted on 04/28/2011 11:06:06 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
I suppose, in the minds of some, that this is somehow evidence that the lacks the intelligence necessary to avoid being duped by the Catholic Church. Judge Robert Bork is another such intellectual lightweight who was duped.

Yes, it's amazing that so many people, having achieved such academic, political, and military positions ... so many successful writers ... so many theologians ... and even I, your Humble Suburban Breeder, and Der Prinz auf Nerdz, that networking wizard ... cannot understand what the Catholic Church really believes, even when Lorraine Boettner explains it to us in nice simple English just like Jesus talked.

33 posted on 04/28/2011 11:07:02 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tornado relief: http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/North-Carolina/Tornado)
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To: wagglebee

Shortage of girls would be an issue at W&L and VMI, and I don’t think Beau would accept the historic atmosphere as a substitute. Western Carolina has a majority of girls ;-).

I know I’ve been reading Gen. Bunting’s work for years, here and there: WSJ, American Spectator, Human Events, Forbes, National Review. As I said above, I’d love to meet him.


34 posted on 04/28/2011 11:09:31 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tornado relief: http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/North-Carolina/Tornado)
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To: Tax-chick
I reread Cardinal Newman's "Apologia Pro Vita Sua" last summer and clearly remember thinking that it was written by a dunce.
35 posted on 04/28/2011 11:10:58 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Tax-chick

VMI would be better.


36 posted on 04/28/2011 11:11:17 AM PDT by Ratman83
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To: Tax-chick
Hampden-Sydney is all-male and there were girls from Sweet Briar, Hollins and other schools there every night (and mornings too if the truth be told).

Bunting's politics are probably to the right of the average FReeper and he probably would have gone a lot farther if he hadn't been so outspoken.

37 posted on 04/28/2011 11:14:14 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Cardinal Newman makes me beat my head against the wall, but I’m making it through Ronald Knox with breaks for Evelyn Waugh. I’ll give Anoreth all my latest Waugh aquisitions (from the used book store ;-) when she gets back from South America.

I was going to order something from the latest Ignatius Press catalog, but it disappeared, so now I’m scouring the shelves for bargains-I-didn’t-finish-reading.


38 posted on 04/28/2011 11:15:31 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tornado relief: http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/North-Carolina/Tornado)
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To: Ratman83
Everyone I know who went to VMI either loved it or transferred by the end of their second year at the latest.
39 posted on 04/28/2011 11:15:50 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Ratman83

They’d make him cut his hair. His hair is Perfect, you see ... that’s why we call him Beau.


40 posted on 04/28/2011 11:16:44 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tornado relief: http://www.baptistsonmission.org/Projects/North-Carolina/Tornado)
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