I didn’t grow up in a religious family by any stretch of the imagination. Being Italian, however, I was baptized a Catholic as an infant. My point of entry in this world was Memphis, TN – the birthplace of rock and roll. For reasons I don’t think I’ll ever know, my non-religious family sent me to Catholic school for grades 1-6, and that is where I fell in love with the faith. I knew God was real. I loved the beautiful imagery of the Church. I felt reverence toward God from the faithful whenever I attended weekday mass during school (my family did not attend weekly services). I can honestly say that I felt very close to God – even at such a young age.
But as I grew, I grew apart. By junior high, I put anything and everything else in front of and in place of God. I enjoyed life. I was never a “bad seed” as some may call troubled youth. I was fairly constructive as a teenager. Sometimes, people’s stories of straying from God don’t always involve years of drug abuse or living as a prostitute… sometimes, it is the seemingly innocuous things of life that just simply take first place and therefore push God further away. I was (and still am now) a rock musician and a writer. Performing music became the central focus of my life. And as any child of the 70s and 80s will tell you, playing in a rock band got the attention of girls in those days. So I was enjoying life, having fun, spending time with friends, playing in a band… so one thing led to another and, as I said, before long I put anything and everything in front of and in place of God. To use a dating expression, “it’s not you, it’s me,” I suppose I said to God. “We’re just drifting apart.”
But in my later teenage years, something happened. I’d always enjoyed horror movies ever since my youth. And as a teenager, I began reading horror fiction. I have no problem with any of this if it is your thing… and I still enjoy some of it to this day. But for me, at that time, it led me down a dark spiral. I began obsessing with “the dark side.” Before long, innocent “creature features” and Twilight Zone episodes weren’t enough to satisfy me. Instead, I obtained a copy of Anton Lavey’s The Satanic Bible and researched occult practices. Not that I ever participated in any of them… but I was fascinated by them and drawn to them. “Enchanting” would be a good description of how I felt about the dark side. I eventually wrote, produced, and directed a motion picture that in many ways was an ode to evil. I was 18-20 years of age producing this film. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed music more than film and since filmmaking takes an incredible amount of time out of one’s life, I went back to music as my main focus. I fear that had I not, the dark side would have drawn me in further.
It was during this time in my life that I felt something missing. I always believed in God, but I knew I had replaced him with everything else to attempt to satisfy me and bring me peace, joy, and fulfillment. Not far from my house at that time, a rock n roll style church had opened with modern “fun” worship. I knew what was missing in my life: God. I went to this church, began playing in the church band, and became a Protestant.
For thirty years, I dug deep into faith and have always been someone intrigued by apologetics. I had sincere and thought-provoking theological questions. I always asked the “difficult questions” and I always felt I needed to find the answers for them. I never doubted God… but I knew there were “challenging” questions about the Christian faith and I dug in to these matters with a feverish zeal. I read books by Christian apologists such as Hank Hanegraaff and theologians such as RC Sproul.
Over my 30 years as a Protestant, my life was presented with several exceedingly difficult challenges. We won’t dive into them here – maybe some other time. But let’s just say they were so extreme you could make a movie about it. A horror movie. Or at least an intense and sad drama. Throughout this time, it was my relationship with God that pulled me through. And the closer I got to God, the more intense was my zeal for having answers to the tough questions about theology.
But I have to admit two things.
1) I always – especially during those times of trouble and turmoil in my life – missed the reverence I saw in the Catholic faith. I missed how seriously people took their God. He wasn’t their “co-pilot” – he was their King. Their Lord. Their Master. Their God. In my hardest times during those 30 years, I’d find myself driving to the Catholic Church where I attended elementary school. It would be empty, not during mass time. I’d open the doors, dip my finger into the Holy Water basin and make the Sign of the Cross. I’d walk the Stations of the Cross along the side walls of the church then I’d kneel in front of the alter, cry my eyes out, and pray. The Catholic Church experience felt simply closer to being in God’s presence. I’d leave these moments and continue to attend weekend services at the Rock n Roll modern mega-church. But I’d always find myself returning to that Catholic church, alone, when the walls were caving in around me…
2) As I said, I had deep questions regarding the faith. And to be honest, I was never fully satisfied with the answers given to me from Protestant theologians, apologists, and pastors. It didn’t matter whether they were liberal theologians or conservative ones, they never fully answered my questions to my satisfaction. They seemed to always be “cherry picking” verses to fit their theology. Often times over my 30 years as a Protestant, I’d go to someone I truly respected – someone I felt would “have all the answers” – and they’d leave me with more questions than answers, more confused than before. Again, I never doubted God – but I had theological questions that needed an explanations. And I never got explanations to these questions that weren’t full of holes.
My wife and I had an opportunity to relocate to Florida in 2021 and our life was in a very peaceful, beautiful place – things were really “going smooth,” as they say. Translation: time for a shake up. But this shake up would be good! Very good!
In such a peaceful place and time, and now that the kids were all raised, I had time to return to my thoughts. Life had slowed down enough to listen, to think, to ponder, to meditate… I began studying the Bible again and reading through some of those difficult passages that led to so many questions. I decided to look for answers from “different sources.” Catholic sources.
And the answers came.
Fast and furious, one by one, all of my questions were answered with clarity. No holes left in the theological arguments anymore. And, in spite of this, there were still some questions – few but still some – for which the Catholic answer was simply this: “it is a mystery of God.” Think of the beauty of that, for a moment.
Faith doesn’t have to exclude mystery.
As I devoured Catholic book after Catholic book to better understand the faith I had left behind so many years before back in junior high, I realized I wasn’t just “learning about Christianity” – I was returning to Catholicism. I was returning home.
In 2024, I reaffirmed my faith as a Catholic.
And now the Journey continues…