The Catholic University of America announces research grant from NASA

Washington D.C., Nov 23, 2019 / 06:50 am (CNA).- Ashley Stricklin says she had a typical Texan upbringing. She was raised a Southern Baptist in a town outside of Dallas, with a family who was active in her church. Her father was a deacon in their Baptist church, and she accepted Jesus into her heart when she was nine.

Although Stricklin lived near a Catholic church, she had never been inside it, nor did she really know any Catholics–that is, until she went off to Baylor University, one of the largest Baptist-affiliated universities in the world. There, she met faithful Catholics, and embarked on a long, and at times even secretive, journey into the Catholic Church.

The Catholics Stricklin met at Baylor were “always so joyful,” which prompted her to begin to wonder what exactly was so different between the Catholic faith and the faith she was raised in. Despite her faithful Baptist upbringing, Stricklin said that she always felt as though “something was missing,” in her life, but could not quite put her finger on it.

Her new Catholic friends invited her to Eucharistic adoration, which was the first time Stricklin had ever seen the Blessed Sacrament–and she began to see exactly what she had been missing.

After that, everything changed, and she says she “started her journey” toward Catholicism. Three years later, that journey would reach a milestone, when she was received into the Church on April 28, 2019–Divine Mercy Sunday.

Stricklin received her first communion and confirmation at St. Peter’s Student Center, which is a campus ministry of the Diocese of Austin for students of Baylor University and nearby colleges.

Like many new Catholics, there were significant hurdles that Stricklin had to overcome before being received into the Church–both in the doctrinal sense and in the personal. For Stricklin, it was easy for her to come to accept teachings she had previously believed were wrong, such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary and Mary’s role as mediatrix of grace.

“I actually did a Marian consecration before I was confirmed,” said Stricklin. “And so it just went full circle for me.”

It was the reaction of her Baptist parents, however, that proved to be one of Stricklin’s biggest anxieties before entering the Church. Although Stricklin knew from early on in college that she wanted to become Catholic, she delayed entering the Church until her senior year, because she was afraid of how they would react.

“I definitely thought my parents were going to disown me,” Stricklin said. “That’s why I waited until I was a senior, because I didn’t think my parents would continue to pay for college.”

In the meantime, Stricklin read book after book about Catholicism, nearly exhausting the Baylor library’s section on Catholicism. She read everything from “Rome Sweet Home” to the “Summa Theologica,” eventually concentrating on conversion stories and books about the Eucharist.

Still, she kept all of her religious curiosity and plans a secret from her parents–for three years.

“I would hide my books,” she said. “I cleaned my (web) browsers, which was really not a good idea looking back now.”

Fearful still of her parents’ rejection, Stricklin waited until just two months before her First Communion and Confirmation to tell them what she was planning on doing. To her astonishment, while they were certainly taken aback, they neither abandoned her nor cut her off.

“I told my mom in February and she thought I was joking, like she just thought it was a joke,” she said, laughing. “I was like, ‘Oh no, mom, it’s not a joke.’”

Despite her fears, Stricklin’s mother attended her First Communion, and her father is supportive of her religious journey, both of which were pleasant surprises. Her grandparents, however, still do not know she has converted.

Stricklin chose St. John Paul II as her confirmation saint, something that she was hesitant to do as she thought it would reveal that she was a convert. Eventually, she realized this was silly, and went with him anyways. She said she chose St. John Paul II due to both her interest in Eastern Europe, and because she found his papacy and writings to be “truly inspiring.”

Stricklin is now a student at Creighton University School of Law, where will graduate in 2022. About seven months into her new journey as a fully-initiated Catholic, Stricklin remains intrigued and fulfilled by the Eucharist, and she continues to delve more into her faith.

After initially being intrigued by the Eucharist at her first-ever adoration, Stricklin says now that she considers the sacrament to be “such a joy” and that she eagerly looks forward to receiving it. And despite her initial troubles, fears, and everything else associated with the process of converting to Catholicism, she says things have been smooth sailing.

“It’s been an interesting journey, and each day I just continue to strive for sainthood and just keep trying to increase and my relationships with God, so, yeah, it’s been good,” she said. “It’s been a cool journey so far.”

This story is part of a CNA series profiling new converts to the Catholic faith.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released a pair of emergency rules that it said are aimed at combating “misinformation” and … […]

Washington D.C., Nov 3, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This Halloween marks the seventh anniversary of when my parents’ church in Baghdad was held hostage by the Islamic State in Iraq, a little known group at the time.

After a few tense hours, the Iraqi army moved in to try and save the hostages held up in the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Deliverance Cathedral located in the heart of Baghdad. The standoff led to the death of 58 worshipers, including three priests, children, and a baby who was beheaded on the altar. 78 worshipers were severely wounded or maimed, losing legs, arms and requiring months of operations to remove shrapnel or heal other injuries. For many Iraqi Christians, this massacre answered the question that many had asked themselves throughout the almost 10 years of bloody sectarian civil war that engulfed Iraq: “Are we still welcome in this country anymore?” Sadly, many could no longer look at their children and promise them a good future while they remained in Iraq. In the ensuing few months, a mass exodus of Christians from Baghdad started which brought down the population of Christians from 20 percent to only several thousand.

My parents, having witnessed on TV the horror that befell Iraq with the onset of the civil war, lost hope for any future for Christians in Iraq, because while the Shia had Iran and the Sunnis had the Gulf and Turkey, nobody was willing to stick up for the Christians. They watched as their ancestral city of Mosul saw a growth in Salafi activity and mourned as Christians, Yezidis, Shabaks and Mandeans were ethnically cleansed from the city. With the onset of the war in Syria, more reports of Christians being killed, tortured and taken as slaves on account of their faith came to the forefront and painted a dark picture for the future of Christianity in the region.

Exploding out of the Syrian crisis, ISIS burst onto the stage in Iraq and put one-third of the country under its control. During their blitzkrieg in the northern part of the country, ISIS attempted to wipe out all followers of the ancient Yezidi faith historically concentrated in the Sinjar region of the Nineveh Province. However, they did not stop there, and moved to destroy the ancient Christian heartland of Iraq found in the Nineveh Plains region northeast of the city of Mosul. Over 100,000 Christians fled overnight as ISIS swarmed in and killed dozens of people and took many others as sex slaves. The dead included my mother’s elderly nanny, Naeema, who had raised her and her brothers since they were children. Naeema taught my mom how to pray, tucked her in to bed every night and greeted her with coffee and freshly ironed cloths every day. Her death made them feel powerless and numb with pain as she was thrown into an unmarked grave and forgotten.

My parents’ Muslim neighbors mourned the destruction brought upon their Christian brothers and sisters, but despite their goodwill, they were powerless to do anything. The ISIS invasion of Mosul brought more pain to my family, as my grandfather’s grave was likely destroyed along with hundreds of others as ISIS tried to destroy as much of Mosul’s Christian history as they could. The monastery of Saint Behnam and his sister Sarah that my grandfather was named after was blown up and recorded in a spectacular video. My family mourned the destruction of so much of what was near and dear to them and became distressed as depressing updates continued to come out of Iraq. Hundreds of Christian properties in Mosul were ruined or given to ISIS fighters. These homes had belonged to these families for generations, and losing them was tantamount to losing their entire history and several lifetimes of work.

In my current capacity as a Special Assistant for the non-profit In Defense of Christians, I was lucky to be given the opportunity to help an organization prepare for their annual summit. IDC’s summit focuses on a cause I care about deeply: the plight of Christian minorities in the Middle East. This year, IDC decided to focus on a five-point policy agenda which works to stabilize Lebanon and Syria, deliver desperately needed aid to victims of genocide in Iraq and Syria, correct a historic injustice by recognizing the Armenian genocide, hold American allies who persecute Christians and other minorities accountable and identify individuals or groups who supported ISIS’ campaign of terror and genocide against Christians. As the fate of the Christian communities in the Middle East hangs in the balance, this sort of work is imperative to preserve the existence of an ancient community from going extinct.

One of the most exciting aspects of the summit was having the Vice President of the United States Mike Pence come and deliver the keynote address at our annual Solidarity Dinner. In the lead up to the dinner, the air was crackling with excitement as we were all waiting for the Vice President to take to stage and deliver remarks. When he arrived, the dinner attendees clapped then quickly turned quiet as they waited to hear what he would say. It was almost inconceivable that somebody of this stature would be addressing a crowd of people passionate about the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

During his keynote address, the Vice President noted that “In Iraq, the followers of Christ have fallen by 80 percent in the past decade and a half…but tonight, I came to tell you: Help is on the way.” I had to wipe away the tears that last phrase brought to my eyes. It seemed too good to be true that after all of these years of hardship Iraqi Christians have suffered that the Vice President of the United States would stand there and announce that help was coming for a people the international community had done nothing for in the past 14 years. The Vice President held no punches in his speech and cut through over careful dancing around of words to state that “Christianity is under unprecedented assault in those ancient lands where it first grew.”

In a moving moment for many in the room, Vice President Pence noted that “In the mountains of Syria, the valleys of Lebanon, on the plains of Nineveh, the plateaus of Armenia, on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the delta of the Nile, the fathers and mothers of our faith planted seeds of belief. They’ve blossomed and borne fruit ever since.” Acknowledging the ancient roots of Christianity in the region and invoking the names of the areas where they still exist today moved not just me, as almost all Middle Eastern attendees I spoke with afterwards mentioned the use of this imagery.

As somebody who has been tracking and writing about the reconstruction efforts of Christian villages on the Nineveh Plains, my anxiety over the massive reconstruction challenges were eased over almost instantaneously by the Vice President’s announcement that the US would work with faith-based groups and private organizations through USAID to help genocide victims. This one action has the ability to remove the most pressing issue facing Christians who want to return to their homes and not immigrate to Europe: rebuilding their homes targeted for destruction by ISIS.  

Returning home much later that night, I called my mother and woke her up to tell her the news. She could not believe me when I told her that Mike Pence had spoken about our community’s issues and worked to ensure they would be able to rebuild their homes. When I told her that he remarked that “In Iraq, we see monasteries demolished, priests and monks beheaded, the two-millennia-old Christian tradition in Mosul clinging for survival,” neither could she nor my father restrain their tears of joy. The fact that he mentioned the plight of oft-forgotten Mosulawi Christians and alluded to the destruction of the Mar Behnam monastery brought out a happiness in them that they had long contained. That happiness came from regaining a sense of hope again. For the first time, it seemed like somebody had finally responded to our pleas of help at the 11th hour and acknowledged our pain.

For the first time in seven years, my family and I slept peacefully on Halloween.

Yousif Kalian is an analyst who focuses on Iraq, Syria, Kurdish issues and religious minorities. He currently works for In Defense of Christians, and was previously a Research Assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has been published in the American Interest, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism and elsewhere.

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