Catholic Revert

Kathleen Laplante

Kathleen is a baker, writer and editor who reverted to Catholicism on the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in October 1997. She is an Oblate at St. Benedict Abbey in Still River, MA. She lives near Boston and her two sons are grown and living on their own.

I remember it clearly. My husband and I decided to leave the Church, and we invited his Catholic parents over to justify ourselves. It was 1990 and we recently had our first son. With him on my hip, I stood in front of my mother-in-law and addressed the topic of abortion. Acerbic and ignorant, I asked, "Who does the Catholic Church think they are, telling me I can't have an abortion if I want one?" "Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me."

Atheist Convert

R.J. Stove

R. J. Stove lives in Melbourne, Australia. The son of the late prominent atheist, David Stove, R.J. converted to Catholicism as an adult in 2002.

The upbringing I underwent in New South Wales, Australia —partly in Sydney, but mainly in the village of Mulgoa— was one of complete, although predominantly quiet and civil, atheism. Both my parents (who are now dead) spent their childhood as Presbyterians, but shed religious belief soon after attaining adulthood.

My father was the philosopher and political polemicist David Stove. During his undergraduate years, he fell under the spell of the militantly atheistic guru John Anderson of the University of Sydney's philosophy department. Except that "fell under" seems a much too gentle phrase to describe what my father and thousands like him experienced at Anderson's none-too-scrupulous—and, where females were concerned, lecherous—hands.

Atheist Convert

Devin Rose

Devin Rose is a software engineer and former Atheist. This is his story from Atheist to Baptist to Catholic.

I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.

But it was not always so. I grew up secularly. My mother was brought up in a particularly legalistic branch of the churches of Christ denomination, and my father, in the Episcopal Church. But the only church I remember going to as a child was a Unitarian Universalist one, and we went there for just a short time. The sole Unitarian sermon I recall having to sit through included a joke about (then Vice President) Dan Quayle that got big laughs from the congregation. I was taught at home and at school that humans evolved without purpose from primordial ooze, so unsurprisingly, when I became old enough to reason about such things, I proudly declared that I did not believe in God.