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Catholic converts: ‘Benedict XVI led me into the Catholic Church’

Zelda Caldwell   By Zelda Caldwell for CNA

January 2, 2023 Catholic News Agency The Dispatch 5 Print

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI. / Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk.

Washington D.C., Jan 2, 2023 / 11:00 am (CNA).

In the days after news spread that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was nearing the end of his life, a number of Catholic converts shared that they came to faith through the writing and teachings of the late pope.

Sohrab Ahmari, a founder and editor of Compact, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that his conversion from Islam to Catholicism was “in large part inspired by Benedict’s writings.”

In an interview with EWTN, Ahmari said that Benedict was the person most responsible for his conversion:

Tod Worner, managing editor of the Word on Fire Institute’s “Evangelization & Culture,” wrote in his blog that he read his way into the Catholic Church, thanks to Pope Benedict XVI.

“After years of being a Protestant who dismissed the Church and disdained the papacy, I was shocked by the beauty, clarity, and wisdom offered by this old priest from Bavaria. The moment I tried to be fair to him, I began to be fond of him. And my fondness has never ceased.

“To be sure, Pope Francis is our pope. And I love him for it. But Pope Benedict XVI? He will always be my pope — the pope who brought me into the Church,” Worner wrote.

Troy Guy, author of “Evangelical Catholic,” shared his conversion story on Twitter when news broke that Benedict was gravely ill:

Here are a few of the many testimonials posted on social media from those who said Benedict helped lead them to the Catholic Church and from those who found their way back to the faith thanks to the late pope:

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Friend of Jean Vanier ‘heartbroken’ for abuse victims, but hopeful for the future of L’Arche

February 27, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Feb 27, 2020 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- On the news that Jean Vanier, Catholic founder of L’Arche International, has been credibly accused of serially sexually abusing women, Professor Stanley Hauerwas said he is “devastated.”

“That is the way anyone must feel on hearing the news of Jean Vanier’s sexual misconduct,” Hauerwas said in comments to CNA. “Vanier was supposed to be different and in many ways he was. But the difference makes his behavior all the more devastating. He should have known better,” he added.

Hauerwas, a world renowned theologian with joint appointments at Duke Divinity School and Duke Law School, was a personal friend of Vanier, who died at the age of 90 on May 7, 2019.

Vanier was the once-revered founder of L’Arche, an international community of people with intellectual disabilities and their supporters, and of Faith and Light, an ecumenical Christian association of prayer and friendship for those with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Last April, L’Arche commissioned GCPS, an independent U.K. consultancy specializing in the reporting of exploitation and abuse to investigate allegations related to Fr. Thomas Philippe, an abusive Dominican priest sanctioned by Church authorities in 1956, whom Vanier described as his “spiritual mentor.”

On Feb. 22, 2020, L’Arche International published the results of the investigation, detailing “credible and consistent” accounts of sexual misconduct by Vanier against six adult women without disabilities in the context of spiritual direction.

Hauerwas said he considered Vanier a friend and mentor, and is “heartbroken by this revelation of his terrible misconduct and utterly condemn it as an abuse of power.”

Hauerwas noted that Vanier seems to have convinced himself the abuse was consensual, which he said was “some desperate attempt to justify his actions. Which is but a reminder that self-deception often is the result of trying to make sense of our lives and why we all need accountability, especially those held in high esteem.” 

“One suspects his gentleness allowed him to get away with anything but his actions involving the women were anything but gentle,” he said.

Still, Hauerwas said he is “indebted” to Vanier for what he taught him about how to love and care for disabled people, and he hopes that the good of L’Arche’s work will not be lost along with the revelations of abuse.

“So much of (Vanier’s) life was morally exemplary. That is one of the problems. How can we continue to learn from his witness with his intellectually disabled friends without excusing his predatory sexual behavior? At this time when we are trying to receive this devastating news the only advice I have is not to be in a hurry to answer that question,” he said.

Rather than rush to decisions, Hauerwas urged those effected by the report to pray.

“We must pray first for the women he betrayed,” he said. “We must pray for the members of the L’Arche movement. We must pray for ourselves that God will help us to carry on the work of L’Arche because that work is, in and of itself, independent of the actions of its founder.”

He added that the international L’Arche community “are proving to be quite extraordinary in terms of how they’re responding and how they have responded.”

L’Arche International has set up an additional centralized reporting procedure for any further information that people may wish to report. Any such information will be received by a task force composed of people outside of L’Arche.

“I continue to believe that in those homes the glory of God is manifest for all to see.”

[…]

3 Comments

  1. Wow. I’m not a convert, except in the sense that I had to shed the totally erroneous impression of BXVI that I had absorbed from the MSM before I could appreciate him. RIP.

    Reply

  2. So many great tributes to the man I knew I would never meet in person, but I prayed I could meet after this life. Like so many others, I owe my faith to God’s graces thru this man’s writings. My wife,being raised a Baptist, so dearly loved his Jesus of Nazareth books, that she has grown in the faith far beyond me. I pray now that he will intercede for us in our hopes for the Church. He can now finally be free of the struggles of our Church, and really help it thru our prayers.

    Reply

  3. Thank you Lord for changing this heart of stone 30 year Catholic and giving me a heart of flesh for your purposes and glory. I never would have left it it wasn’t for your predestined grace and mercy. I thank you for the painful circumstances at the time, but I see your plan very clearly. To God be the glory forever!!

    Reply

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  1. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Requiescat In Pace – Big Pulpit
  2. Catholic converts: ‘Benedict XVI led me into the Catholic Church’ – Catholic World Report – The Old Roman

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