April 22, 2003 You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling: Lukewarm Catholics

by Dave Karam
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Editor's Note: Dave Karam was so kind as to give us the exact text of his talk so this is word-for-word what he said up to the Question/Answer session.

Several months ago, I received a phone call from a man named Michael Blackmer asking if I would speak to a group of young adults at a local bar about my faith. Having never met Michael, I wondered if perhaps I had misunderstood the request. He assured me I had not and went on to explain the idea behind "Theology and a Pub." Michael reviewed a few topics they were looking for speakers to address and "Lukewarm Catholics" grabbed my attention immediately. This has been my story and over the past ten years I've found it's also an appropriate descriptor for many other members of our faith.

I will attempt to share with you this evening, some insights in my own faith journey and to use this example to explore not only the larger problem it reflects within the Catholic Church, but some of the solutions proposed by the Holy Father and other Church leaders.

I was born and raised here in Columbus and our family grew up in Saint Andrew parish. In fact, the home that my parents have lived for the past forty-four years was purchased directly from the parish and served as the nun's convent. We attended church every Sunday and my two sisters completed their entire education in the Catholic school system. I am immensely grateful for this grounding in our faith but there was not much more to it for me than Sunday Mass. After college, I pursued a public accounting career, married a beautiful lady and together we've been blessed with three wonderful sons. In 1986, I went to work with my father and together, through the grace of God, we've built Cedar Enterprises into one of the largest privately held restaurant companies in the United States.

Though we were married at Saint Joseph Cathedral, my wife Lisa chose not to become a Catholic. Her many questions during years before and after marriage about the teachings of the Catholic Church were typically met by an annoyed: "I don't know" or "That's just the way it's done" response from me. That's all I could offer. I had no knowledge of "Why" and worse yet, I'd never had the interest to pose the questions which would have led to answers. Our children were baptized in the Church and "educated" in their faith through PSR. God bless all those who volunteer for PSR but they cannot educate in the faith without the involvement, support and witness of the parents. I would pray that Lisa would come into the Church and occasionally ask her to consider this but she remained firm, perhaps even hostile to the idea.

In 1992, I received a telephone call at work from a young man who was studying to be a priest. He had been asked to look me up as he passed through Columbus by a first cousin of mine who lived in Dallas. I hadn't had much contact from this cousin in the past ten years. He was a very successful jewelry salesman who was "of the world" to an even greater degree than I. Our primary link in life had been through our mutual grandmother, a simple immigrant woman from Lebanon forced to leave her two year old child behind as she departed for a land she wasn't capable of knowing much about. After eight more children and much abuse, her husband left her to raise a family without a job or knowledge of the native tongue. She had the deepest devotion to God, the Blessed Virgin and to the Catholic Church of anyone I've known before or since her death. Many years later I realized that she was my catechist. Experience has taught me the power of true witness to faith.

I met this seminarian and a priest he was traveling with for lunch in the Fall of 1992. They were members of a relatively new order in the Church called the Legionaries of Christ and my cousin had joined the lay movement started by their founder and called Regnum Christi. After that, I would receive a call every three or four months from this young man and then others. Lunches began to turn into dinners. Instead of restaurants, I brought them to my home where Lisa would prepare a feast. After the first or second dinner, she asked me: "What do they want?" I didn't know. They never asked for anything but we would talk and eventually discuss issues of faith. Slowly they answered Lisa's questions about the teachings of the Church. On several occasions I was invited to weekend retreats but was always too busy to attend. In the Fall of 1997, I finally made the commitment to create the time and I traveled to Thornwood, New York not knowing what to expect. This event was the first time in my adult life that I remained silent for any length of time. The opportunity to be alone with Christ in the community of holy men and so many religious was profound. Many thoughts came to me during the hours of prayer and meditation.

Up to this point in my adult life, my greatest focus had been on my career. I was quite driven both in the public accounting experience and especially during the eleven years that I had been running our family business. Though I loved my wife and children dearly, my time was consumed primarily by business. One insight that occurred to me on this retreat was how little time I had ever devoted to God. Here I was at age thirty-nine and I knew nothing about the Bible or the Church's teachings. Nothing! I knew plenty about the state of the economy or the financial condition of dozens of companies but nothing about my faith. This revelation shook me to the core. I have been a church going Catholic all of my life but missed this critical education. It was as though I had walked through life and missed the whole objective. Sobering when I consider just how enlightened I thought I was. When I returned home from this retreat, I began rising earlier every morning to spend one or two hours reading and praying. My reading list included the Bible, the Catechism, many of the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II and numerous other materials. But it was in prayer that God has given me comfort and hope. This practice remains an important part of my life and I would strongly encourage each of you, if you don't do so already, to give God the best hour of your day.

About one month after I returned home from this retreat, my wife approached me in the kitchen as she was rising one morning and I was pouring a cup of coffee. After a brief exchange, Lisa informed me in her simple and beautiful way that she wanted to become a Catholic. What is so remarkable to me is how little discussion there had been--just prayer and perhaps a more truthful witness. It remains one of the greatest blessings. Today, she is a powerful witness and evangelist for the Catholic Church and the uniting of husband and wife within the faith has had a profound effect on our family.

So what are the lessons of this story, one that has probably been repeated in so many lives? To me there are two that speak so clearly. The first can best be summed up in the following passage from Mark's gospel:

"When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it became known that he was at home. Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even around the door and he preached the word to them. They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Child, your sins are forgiven.'" Later Mark continued, "...he said to the paralytic, 'I say to you, rise, pick up your mat and go home.' He rose, picked up his mat at once and went away in the sight of everyone." ~Mark 2:1-12

Who were these four men carrying the paralytic? They must have been friends of the young man. How many other attempts to help him preceded this one? Surely there were many as they were not deterred by the crowd at the door. These men persevered, climbing onto the roof of the house and opening a hole in the thatch to lower their friend to the feet of a busy Jesus Christ. Look at what they risked to help this man--time, perhaps ridicule and scorn, their own safety and even damage to the property of the homeowner. Yet they persisted because they were determined to help their friend. How many other efforts? Now they hear of a miracle worker and think, "let's try this." What friendship and concern! In looking at my own story, I see my life in the paralytic--both before and after the encounter with Jesus. When I think of the young priests and seminarians that kept coming to invite me to know Jesus more intimately, I think of the irony. Here I sat so smug and self-assured, overseeing thousands of employees and making decisions that would affect their lives in such impactful ways and yet here were these young men with no possessions, no titles. They had offered their lives to serve and save people like me. Think of the heroic sacrifice throughout the ages but especially today that our priests willingly make. They turn back to God the greatest gift He gives us, the gift that separates us from every other form of life on earth, the gift of free will. They turn this gift back to God and say: "Here you take this back. Use my life to serve you Lord. Use my life so that I can bring even one more soul to Heaven." And I, like so many others was really much worse than the paralytic. At least he knew he was paralyzed! I was marching down the field toward the wrong end zone. Blissful ignorance. These young men didn't know me when they said "Yes" to Christ but here they were offering to carry me. This gospel story is a story of friendship. It's a story repeated daily by every priest, by every religious as they bring us sacraments, knowledge and prayer. This is the friendship embedded in the priesthood. But it's not friendship limited to the priesthood. My lesson has been simple. I realize that just as friends unknown carried me to the feet of Christ, so too am I called to carry others. I must tell you that I struggle. Every day I am guided by a conscious which speaks to me with much more clarity than earlier in my life and yet old tendencies are hard to break. The grooves in my character are cut so deep and I struggle every day to follow Christ. I fall so often and the knowledge of Christ's way combined with the falls brings me great shame. Yet this is a burden we all share, to bring others to the feast. This is the first lesson of my journey of faith.

This leads into the second lesson my faith journey has taught me: the importance of knowing Christ through prayer and catechesis. On October 16, 1979 one year to the day when on the eight ballot at the end of the second day of Conclave II he was elected Pope, John Paul II issued Catechesi Tradendae. In this apostolic exhortation, John Paul lays out the challenge of the Church in the area of catechesis. Again, I reflect on my own experience. With no knowledge of Christ's life, no understanding of the Church's teachings, I was unable to integrate faith into my life. How could I share what I didn't know? Indeed, how could I love what I didn't know? The Holy Father describes catechesis as "... an education of children, young people and adults in the faith which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted in an organic and systematic way with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life."

Before leaving the apostles, Jesus told them: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." With a systematic approach to catechesis, we not only grow in our knowledge of Christ and the Church's teachings but we also grow in holiness. Along with the sacramental life, catechesis enables this life changing process to take root in our lives. Thus we are not only strengthened in our ability to lead others to Christ but we too grow closer. Listen to the words of Pope John Paul II from Catechesi Tradendae: "Catechesis aims therefore at developing understanding of the mystery of Christ in light of God's word, so that the whole of a person's humanity is impregnated by that word. Changed by the working of grace into a new creature, the Christian thus sets himself to follow Christ and learns more and more within the Church to think like him, to judge like him, to act in conformity with his commandments and to hope as he invites us to." I have come to believe, again through my own experience, that the lack of catechesis poses the greatest threat to the Catholic Church. Not a lack of vocations because vocations grow where holiness is found. My own experience is far too common, both here in the United States as well as in other countries that I have traveled to. There are many causes for this lack of catechesis, we rely too heavily on laity to teach the faith and most are poorly trained for this role. In the past, so many of our catechists were nuns. The lack of vocations has stretched the priests too thin and their ability to lead the catechetical effort is diluted with numerous other duties. Though making a comeback of late, Catholic education has declined in numbers and the religious education that occurs is constrained by points made earlier. In business, we are constantly challenged to differentiate between causes and symptoms of problems. Many look at the issues noted above as sources of the problems--lack of religious, declining vocations, poorly trained laity. I see these as mere symptoms. To know Christ is to love him. To know the Church's teachings is to love the Church. This love will solve the "problems" noted above. I speak often to various groups or even to individuals about my faith, about the Church and about Jesus Christ. My most distilled message is this: "The Catholic Church has something very relevant to say about the problems of our society." And guess what? During our lifetime, we've seen the church led by one of its greatest catechists since Saint Paul. What a shame, what a tragedy it is that so little of his writings have been digested by Catholics during his lifetime. Pope John Paul II has been one of the most prolific writers the papacy has ever known.

In his book "Love and Responsibility" Karol Wojtyla describes love from a strictly Catholic perspective. This book, published in 1960 contributed to the thinking behind Humanae Vitae. I've read this book. The experience was intellectually stimulating but it also left me saddened at what I didn't know when I was younger and just entering my relationship with Lisa. The book will teach you so much about relationships and true love. As young adults, I encourage you to read this book. It will have a profound impact on your lives, particularly if you choose marriage.

Three of John Paul's encyclicals that clarify moral issues in our modern world are seminal works. In 1991 he wrote Centesimus Annus in which he discusses the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. He uses this encyclical almost as a call to those who live in countries affected to urge them that they cannot have a value-neutral democracy. Veritatis Splendor was published in 1993 and contains a moral analysis of our world. This is considered his most complex and probably the most discussed document he has produced. Always rooted in Christ and scripture, John Paul looks at all aspects of the Church's moral teaching in light of the challenges of our culture. The use of our freedom, or what society sells as personal freedom is a recurrent theme. Let me give you an example: "Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values. This is the direction taken by doctrines which have lost the sense of the transcendent or which are explicitly atheistic. The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment, which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and 'being at peace with oneself,' so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment." And later: "Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly."

The third of these three encyclicals on morality was the beautiful work entitled "Evangelium Vitae." The Gospel of Life, which to this day I truly believe, helped elect George W. Bush. In this work, John Paul argued that democracies risked self-destruction if moral wrongs were legally defended as rights. From the story of Cain and Able, John Paul contemplates the question posed by Cain in answer to God: "Am I my brother's keeper?" "Yes" is the answer, every man is his brother's keeper because God entrusts us to one another is the Holy Father's answer. Listen again to his analysis of the problem from a purely Christian perspective:

"Freedom negates and destroys itself and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth. When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim. This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of the absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. ... any reference to common values and to a truth absolutely binding on everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism. At that point, everything is negotiable, everything is open to bargaining: even the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life.

This is what is happening also at the level of politics and government: the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people--even if it is the majority. This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the 'right' ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves toward a form of totalitarianism. The State is no longer the 'common home' where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenseless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part. The appearance of the strictest respect for legality is maintained, at least when the laws permitting abortion and euthanasia are the result of a ballot in accordance with what are generally seen as the rules of democracy. Really, what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations: 'How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practiced: some individuals are held to be deserving of defense and others are denied that dignity?' When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human coexistence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun. ...This is the death of true freedom: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin' (Jn 8:34)" And finally, the Holy father warns: "when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God's living and saving presence."

Now I ask you to consider my question, does the Church have something relevant to say about the problems we face in our society? The answer is an emphatic "Yes" but the Church, indeed Christ depends on us to spread that message. Armed with knowledge and imbued with faith, we can engage our culture. Christ warned the apostles that he was sending them off like lambs among wolves. You too are called to be disciples of Christ. He wants to accompany you on your journey but you must be prepared. This Holy Catholic Church offers us so much but we must exercise our free will to partake in this offering. Catechesis is fundamental to building that close relationship with Christ and to preparing you to engage society and remake it in the Christian way. Why did I choose to come and speak to you tonight? It was my hope that my own story might help you in some way. It was also to urge you to help lift this burden. The Church needs us urgently. Let me leave you with the words of Saint Paul from his first letter to the Corinthians:

"If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me and woe to me if I do not preach it! Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew to win over the Jews; to those under the law I became like one under the law--though I myself am not under the law--to win over those under the law...To the weak, I became weak to win over the weak. I have become all things to all to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.

Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win! Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified."

May God bless you.

Questions
Q: Could you elaborate on your awakening and your wife's conversion and the affect is has had on your children?

Sure, we have three sons, 18, 17, and 12. Lisa converted in 1997 and as I said, she had been raised a Methodist and she was maybe even a little hostile towoards the Catholic Faith largly because of the perceived teachings and I was unable to explain anything to her and even to witness True Catholic life. When she converted she did it with a lot of prayer and insight and when she fell like so many others--St. Paul among those, and me as well--she fell deep and hard.

Today it is the center of our lives and the affect it has had on our children has been profound. It's been 6 years so our oldest was 12 at the time, my middle son leads Gospel on Rye which is a similar group to this one and my older son is a bit cynical towards the faith. He's away a school and he just came back and I saw him wearing a scapular. I engaged him in this and his comment was "I've always believed in God just didn't like doing what you were doing." So here he is showing signs that he's embracing Christ. The other two there was no real fight.

We're now engaging in a lot of different social ways and helping them think through these issues from the contruct of the Faith. "Love and Responsibility" is an incredible piece on human sexuality and I feel more equipped to help my young sons to see what self-giving love is. So many people mistake love for self-love.

We are very grateful to be able to form them in the faith.

Q: Can you identify the biggest problems with you being lukewarm?

The biggest problem was the lack of knowledge. I sit and I think it's the greatest threat to the Catholic Church. I think the Catholic Faith has some incredible truths and some great insights into human nature and I think sadly that the Church, generally speaking, does a poor job of disseminating that information. It's a very old institution and it relies on methods that may have worked 100's of years ago but not today.

My point in the second part of the talk was that the issues I face as a business man were so much clearer once I grew in the knowledge of the Faith. Once I could see the moraliy of issues I could see more clearly and that's the peace that's desperately needed in our society. The Church would be more vibrant and grow more rapidly if we had laity that was more fully formed.

The Holy Father has a beautiful saying, now these are my words not his... Catechesis and the Sacramental Life are the two sides of the same coin. The pracice of the sacraments without the knowledge can deteriorate into what he calls ritualism. But the growth in knowledge without the Sacramental Life can be reduced into intellectualism. we need both. That life is so much more potent within the light of the Church teaching. There is a beautiful apostolic letter on the "Dignity and Vocation of Woman" it's a beautiful piece and in it he starts that the woman is always taken advantage of but he looks at who was left at the foot of the cross, it was the women. The ones who had humility. He takes off from there and looks at woman's voation in every walk of life. Wouldn't that be potent information if you're a mother or in the workplace and engaging with other people to beable to evangelize in a great way.

God made woman and man for a reason, we're different and compliment each other. Children nead a mother and father around because they bring different things to the relationship. This is part of the treasure trove that's there, there's 2000 years of writings and what I'm saying is we have had one of the greatest of all time living in our midst. I'm a lot older than most of you but the only Pope I remember is Pope JP II and he's been a giant. I have to tell you something, in 2,000 years of Christianity, most people didn't live in the presence of a great saint, and we have. We should take advantage of that.

Q: Do you have a vision as far as how we can change things and get this message out to people? Catechesis better?

I think it starts with self-formation, at least in my own life. I think God will lead us in whichever way He wants us. We have to be perceptive enough to see His hand in our life. That comes largely through a path to holiness. Catechesis will help us grow in our relationship with Christ, it's not just an exercise. I would say that St. Patrick's has some great apostolates, this being one of them. I'm in Regnum Christi, I am interested in education. I am very busy but God lead me there.

Father Maciel is the founder o the legion and I asked them what they were about. They are focused on ignighting the laity which was the charge by Pope Pius XII when he became the Pope. Finding and forming Catholic leaders. They found me and formed me, I will be candid about that. Through that process I have been able to find an apostolate that made sense for me. Paul VI talks about the parable of the talents, he had a beautiful insight, he said the first talent given from God is your children, that's the first thing God's going to hold you accountable for. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I love my childrne s much as anyone, but as I said in my talk, I have spent some much of my life on my career and on business instead of my kids. I was blessed with a beautiful and virtuous wife that made up for a lot of it but I have to answer to what I did.

Q: You may have said this but how did you get to the place where you were like "Gee, I don't like where I'm at."

For me it was that retreat that I was on, it took five years from the time when I first met with the legionary priest. I'd go to Church on Sunday and had priest friends but these guys were the ones that engaged me and it still took 5 years to break away and go to a retreat. It was on that retreat that God took a bucket of water or more closely a pool of water and threw it on my head. It shook me to the core, I was thinking how close did I come to going through life without ever getting it? It was a humbling experience. I still feel a great deal of humility when I think of my Faith because I know I have so far to go.

When I came home I felt like I couldn't pick up my head, like I missed it. Like "what have I been doing all my life!" It wasn't "Catholic guilt". It was a hunger for something that was given freely that I never chose to take. And that was where I felt the great sadness. I praise God that I finally opened up and it was through the graces of other men who helped me. Our priests are our the great treasures among us. We have to help them and pray for them.

Q: It seems that when you have a professional life and spiritual life, those things can be contradictory. Was that difficult?

Do you meaning in terms of bringing my faith into my job or being a Catholic business man? (the latter). Well, I am grateful for the grounding in the Faith that I have due to my parents so I always kinda chose the right way and when you walk into my office the first thing you see is John Paul II and a crucifix and if you talk to others that I interact with they know what I stand for, I'm not shy about that.

I was with the CEO of Huntington and they queued him in on me and he later asked me to say grace before the meal. People say don't be afraid to talk about your faith and that's never been my problem for me, I think it's important, we need to be witnesses in the public domain, we need to be courageous. However, we don't need to slam it down to their throats but we don't have to stick with just Cathoics groups either. The Catholic Church has a message of hope and charity and it should be shared.

So it's not because I was an executive that I was previously inclined ot make immoral decisions, I can't say I always made the right one, but my Faith helps me make some tough calls. You know where it comes in for me is when I feel so alone, when I know the decisions I'm making could bring harm to my business but I need to make it anyway. We all have felt like that, For me it can be consequential like do we defend ourselves against a lawsuit or settle. I made a choice one time to not settle and stand on moral ground. I could have settled and saved 100,000's of dollars and time, but I fought becuase it was the right thing to do.

In those moments of courage, I look at President Bush. There was a great article about how critical members of the media and other governments are of him because of his faith. Look at his example, though, what a seminal case study in leadership, you talk about pressure to compomise and do something that you didn't think was right, he had the weight of the world opinion against him and there was times I thought he couldn't take the strain any longer, and I'm sure I was one of millions that were praying for him. I don't know if his decision was right or wrong but I put my faith in him thinking that he knew more than I. And God was good to us, and it turned out he knew a lot more than we did. I tell you what he didn't get that courage from anyone but Christ.

Months before the war I was talking with Oliver North once and he told me that he was with President Bush and he was in the room behind the oval office. In that room he had pictures of every one of his special forces teams with a prayer under each one which he or someone else had written. This is a man that is publically displaying that. He has a deep faith. I will tell you something, Democrat or Republican, I wanna man with principal and conviction and that's the kind of leadership we'll get the best decision out of.

I'm surprised no one asked me why is it Evangeliam Vitae was the document that won the election. I served with Dave Martin who's on the national catholic task force which is a division of the RNC it was headed up by Deal Hutson who writes for "Catholic Answers". Deal was approached by Carl Rove and he asked what they could do to get the Catholic vote. Republicans agree with most of what the Catholic Church stands for, yet we get 1/3 of the Catholic vote. Deal said he'd help but he wanted two things, he said, pro-life ambassader to the UN, and the other one was a partial birth abortion ban. (At the talk Dave could not remember the second one but remembered later when sending his talk.) God's honest truth. Carl rove said "you got it".

What President Bush said everytime time a Democrat or the media asked about his abortion issue stance Bush never said we'll outlaw abortion and stack but supreme court. Instead he turned it on them and quoted from Evangelium Vitae saying, "I'm for a culture of life, before we can change the laws we need to change hearts." He responded always with Deal Hudson's training. I'm a student of Pope John Paul II as I am of politics and I believe that Bush has probably read more of the Holy Father's writings than probely 98% of the Catholics in this country. If you don't believe me, just listen to his comments at the opening of the John Paul II cultural center in washington DC. I saw his political positions and I know they have been shaped very heavily on John Paul's teachings.

About 7 months ago when they were in the Italy, only one called ahead to see the Pope, that was Bush. His brother is a convert and I have a hope that he would to convert to the Catholic faith after he gets out of office.

Q: Would you recommend "Gospel of life" to start with?

I would say that's a great one, at least for me. Some others are so technical. Hhe started with three in the beginning. Ones for Father Son and Holy Spriit and then Mary. Those codify his Theology and he reduced it to be written so quickly, he said, because they've been in his heart for so long he trusted the Holy Spirit made him Pope to get them out. Beyond all that, if you want to read about him, pick up George Weibel's book, "Witness to Hope" It's wonderful, it's a Tome but it's good. And Pope John Paul II just published another one about the Eucharist.

Thank you very much for having me. God bless you and keep me in your prayers and I'll keep all of you in mine.