Scottish Catholic Observer

The Catholic Church is the ‘fulfillment and continuation of Judaism,’ participants at Craig Lodge House of Prayer’s Preparing for Holy Week retreat were told at the weekend.

Roy Schoeman, a professor of theology in the US at Ave Maria Catholic University, Florida, and Holy Apostles College and Seminary, Connecticut, delivered this message at Dalmally, and at a lecture at Glasgow University Catholic Chaplaincy’s Turnbull Hall last Wednesday evening.

Professor Schoeman —a respected Church commentator in the US, who regularly contributes to the Catholic television channel EWTN, was born and raised into the Jewish faith before undergoing a conversion to Catholicism as an adult.

Having drifted from his Jewish faith, the professor described himself as an atheist during his university days. He then went on to become a business professor at Harvard University from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.

Despite his job at the prestigious education establishment, this was a time Mr Schoeman described himself as being far from happy and lacking fulfillment in his life.

“I was in despair,” he recalled. “There was no meaning or purpose to my life.”

This lack of purpose, however, changed forever when an incident occurred one morning as the professor was out walking.

“I received a very spectacular grace: the separation between earth and heaven disappeared and I found myself in the presence of God,” he said

At this moment in time, Professor Schoeman described himself as having a ‘tremendous antipathy and defensiveness towards Christianity’ from being Jewish.

“I prayed to know who this God was and what religion to follow,” he recalled. “I didn’t think of him as the God of Judaism. I prayed to know his name and I prayed, literally: ‘let me know your name, so that I know what religion to follow. I don’t mind if you are Buddha and I have to become Buddhist. I don’t mind if you are Vishnu and I have to become Hindu. I don’t mind if you are Apollo and I have to become Roman Pagan, as long as you are not Christ and I have to become Christian.’”

A year later, and following a dream—in which the Virgin Mary answered some of his questions— Professor Schoeman recalled that his ‘heart softened to Christianity.’

There still, however, remained a number of years before he converted to the Catholic Church. He devoted himself to visiting Marian shrines and discovering, through the guidance of the Carthusian order, that the Catholic Church ‘is the embodiment of the Virgin Mary.’

“At a Carthusian monastery, before I was Baptised, I said to one of the monks: ‘What about all of the adulterous Popes and what about all of the evil people who have been cardinals and Popes and so forth?’” he said. “He smiled at me and responded: ‘Is it not wonderful? Does it not show that the Church is God’s institution? How could it ever have survived such terrible people if God wasn’t behind it?’ This completely let all of their air out of my balloon.”

He highlighted that he was reluctant, prior to being Baptised, to enter into parish life, instead, preferring to spend more time with the Carthusians in a monastic setting.

Following his completion of the RCIA programme, he was, ultimately Baptised Catholic in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he spoke of a deep love and reverence for the Sacraments.

“I really wanted to be Baptised as I really wanted to receive Communion,” he said. “Nothing else mattered to me at this point. If Catholics understood what they have in the Sacraments and what they have in the Catholic Church then I don’t think they would take anything else seriously either.”

Professor Schoeman believes that ‘most Catholics need a conversion experience to begin to understand’ and deepen their knowledge of the Faith.

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—This story was published in full in the March 29 print edition of the SCO.