ROBERTO LOPEZ: FORMER MEXICAN-AMERICAN RADICAL -- AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Stevenson Unit Cuero TX
My Mexican immigrant father and my Texas Mexican mother had only the basics of an education. They did their best to provide for their nine children, of whom I’m the youngest, but couldn’t keep their four sons from becoming addicts and criminals. At the age of fourteen I was given my first shot of heroin and by the age of nineteen, I had picked up my first felony. I am now forty-four years old, have spent the last twenty-four years going in and out of prison, and have racked up a combined total of more than seventeen years behind bars.
On the streets of the barrio I learned how to stay alive and how to hustle to support my drug habit. I also learned to hate white people and to blame American society for everything that was wrong in my life. I was taught to believe that I was a Mexican Indian and that Spaniards were also my enemies. This led me to reject my people’s Catholic Faith as nothing more than a scam to colonize the natives, and then I lost all belief in and respect for, “the white man’s God”. Today, my criminal record includes a two year stint for burglarizing St. Xavier Church in El Paso, Texas.
I remained a petty thief and street junky throughout my criminal career, but my mind and my heart continued to sink deeper into the pit of hatred and resentment. My basic list of grievances against America became longer and more detailed when I got to prison, and where I also began to see myself as part of a larger group of “colored victims”. When word got out that I was good at expressing my hatred towards the white man and the system, I was invited by radical Muslims to join their group. They began by outlining our similarities:
I hated white people and they hated white people.
I blamed society and they blamed society.
My people’s land had been stolen by America, and their people had been enslaved by America.
And no one believed in the white man’s Christianity.
They said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and told me about their vision for creating an alternative to the white man’s society under the banner of Islam. I was impressed and began to plan how I could convince other Mexicans to join me and become part of the movement. But I never got the chance. I had been protesting the mistreatment of Mexican American prisoners and was transferred to another facility; when I got there the Black Muslims and a Mexican prison gang were at war. Apparently, the Muslims had tried to impose their will on the Mexicans, and the Mexicans weren’t about to let it happen without a fight. I soon realized I had come close to making a huge mistake that would have hurt me and my people. The Muslims didn’t care about the Mexican American community; they just wanted to be our superiors.
Out on the streets the life around me continued to deteriorate. I was on parole and drinking with my brother, Joe, when he began to spew blood that was triggered by cirrhosis of the liver; he sank into a coma and died a few days later. I went back to prison and was out on parole again, this time shooting up drugs with my brother, Francisco, when he did a shot of cocaine that triggered a brain aneurysm; he also sank into a coma and was dead within a week. On both occasions, I counted by brothers as being the lucky ones. I had overdosed on heroin at least a dozen times and had always been brought back to the miserable trap that my life had become. In my warped mentality, death was the only way out of the cycle of addiction, homelessness, and incarceration.
In the barrio we knew we were doomed. We knew there was no escape. As young people, we were told that education and the American way of life were for white people. So, the knowledge that could have saved us from poverty and ignorance –education -- was the same knowledge we were encouraged to reject. And so we dropped out of school and ran wild on the streets where we became addicts and criminals, stepping deeper into the trap. Eventually, addiction and incarceration defeated us, because we had nowhere to turn for help, since rehabilitation concepts and Christianity were also for white people. We designed our own trap. We were ensnared by our own self-defeating ideas.
El Segundo Barrio is in the south side of El Paso, Texas, and only a block away from the Rio Grande. Hart Elementary School is next to the border highway, and from the playground the students could see the undocumented immigrants run across and lose themselves in our neighborhood. This was in the early 70’s when the border patrol was still playing the old, cat and mouse game of chasing a group in the hope of catching a few; the immigrants would respond by scattering. We would see all of this played out on a daily basis and it was not uncommon to hear a kid holler to uncle “Chuy” or “Tia Maria” to be careful because the border patrol was hiding around the corner.
This innocent loyalty toward Mexican immigrants was carried over to the adolescent stage and many of us began to see ourselves as one of them. We didn’t know how to distinguish between a Mexican citizen and an American citizen of Mexican descent, and this made us vulnerable to those that argued that there was no distinction between the two groups. They told us we were all Mexicanos, and a political line on a map couldn’t separate and divide us. This Mexicano group is very loyal to Mexico and all things Mexican, and is fond of pointing out that this land once belonged to “them”.
Another group whose politics continue to be influential in the barrio is the Chicanos who began to fight for civil rights in the 60’s and 70’s. These Mexican Americans started off demanding inclusion in the American political and social system, but ended up subscribing to separatist and anti-American doctrines. Although not all Chicanos became radicals, it is true that all Chicanos continue to engage in race politics and have created an “us” vs. “them” dichotomy in the minds of their followers.
I was indoctrinated into this basic radical Chicanismo at an early age, and for most of my life subscribed to the idea that the southwest is Aztlan, the land of the Aztecs. Now I too could say that this land once belonged to “me”, for I thought of myself as an ancient Chicano returning to reclaim our homeland.
It was while participating in a nine-month prison drug program involving behavior modification therapy in 1994 that I first discovered the destructive power of these radical ideas. I wanted desperately to change and become a respectable member of my community. I was on my third trip to prison, and was disgusted with myself for all the harm I had done. But I felt something was wrong with the therapy – it was not relevant to my Mexican-American experiences. I was still a radical with fantasies about the Nation of Aztlan. I hated white people, I hated America, I hated God, and I felt like a traitor cooperating with the enemy. The therapy had no lasting effect. Within days of being released, I went back to using heroin and victimizing my community.
I realize now that I had issues that had to be identified and addressed before counseling would help. Yes, I needed rehabilitation, but first I needed to be de-radicalized. My problem -- and that of the other Mexican Americans I met in seven prisons – was that we were suffering from Mexicanismo and Chicanismo, which pitted us against anything American. We needed counseling and spiritual guidance that would transform us, but our Mexican-American radicalism resisted it.
The old adage used in counseling, “If you can name it – you can tame it”, became true in my own experience. I began to call my problem “Mexican-American Radicalism”, and defined it as a combination of Mexicano propaganda and radical Chicanism which are formed by a narrow interpretation of history. Then I proceeded to de-radicalize myself by acquiring, not only a broader interpretation of history, but also a list of arguments to challenge the radical mindset.
This process took many years to accomplish, not only because I was starting from scratch and my research came from prison libraries, but also because I was attempting to be an ex-radical in the company of radicals. I finally came to the conclusion that the politics and the identity offered by both, my Mexican immigrant brothers and my radical Chicano brothers, was not designed to help me function and prosper in American society. I was no longer under their spell and learned to identify radicalism in both. But the journey wasn’t over. I became an ex-radical but without a new identity or a new ideology. Unfortunately, I was still anti-social. After a lifetime of addiction and incarceration, I was suffering from serious character defects and badly needed a lesson in civics.
I was out of prison in 2003, when I met Maria de Lourdes, a kind and gentle Catholic woman whom I fell in love with and wanted to marry. I knew that I needed to settle down and become a productive member of society, but I didn’t know how to fight my old habits. By the time I realized that I needed help, it was too late. I started using heroin again and in January of 2004 I was arrested for robbery, classified a habitual criminal, and sentenced to 32 years in prison.
In prison again, it was now sinking in that being de-radicalized was not enough for me. I was still missing something. It wasn’t until December of 2006 that I finally broke down and asked God to take control of my life. The Lord answered, and immediately began to work on me in His own way. After a disrespectful encounter with a prison employee, I was transferred to a disciplinary wing for the next 18 months. It was there that I began calling myself a born again Christian, and immersed myself in Bible reading, prayer, and listening to Christian radio.
A little book called “Why?” by Anne G. Lotz helped me to understand about God’s plan for everyone, and I became hopeful with my heart filling up with joy. It was meant to be; God had a job for me to do. This understanding began to give me a new vision for myself and I began to study Christianity with the same dedication I used when studying Mexican-American radicalism. Thank you Jesus!
But once again, just like in the rehabilitation program from more than a decade before, something was wrong. It was triggered by a realization, an awareness, that my reality was absent from the books and the sermons of my Christian brothers. I was accepted and encouraged as a Christian, a child of God, but no one acknowledged my identity as a Mexican American. I prayed to understand; shouldn’t the Word of God apply to me too? My born again brothers didn’t seem to know anything, or even care, about my Mexican American experience.
I prayed and prayed, but then a little voice inside began to accuse me of being a traitor for believing in the white man’s God. Why was I apologizing for hating white people? Why were they not apologizing for hating me and my fellow Mexicans? “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” It was an ugly feeling.
My disappointment in Christianity caused a dangerous despondency, for I had already experienced the inability of counseling to help me become a useful member of society. The hopelessness was overwhelming. At this point I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be Christian. How could I be part of any society that didn’t acknowledge my own people? I couldn’t turn my back on them, even with their narrow view of history.
But I couldn’t stay away from God. I had felt His presence and had experienced His love and his discipline after asking him to make me His own. So I got on my knees again and asked God the Father for guidance, in the name of Jesus Christ my Redeemer, while invoking the illumination and counsel of the Holy Spirit.
It was during this crisis that Brother Will Luce from Insight For Living Ministries helped me get over my hatred for the Catholic Church. He is a Protestant brother that provided me with Scripture to back up my own conclusion that racism is wrong. Then he told me that all types of hatred were contrary to Christianity, and recommended that I familiarize myself with the writings of Peter Kreeft. He wrote that there are good and bad Catholics, just like there are good and bad Protestants. I believed him, and began to make amends by attending both the Catholic and Protestant services.
Since I was also taking the Body of Christ at both services, it wasn’t long before fellow Christians brought it to my attention that taking the holy bread was a serious matter, and should only be taken with those with whom I am in communion. They suggested I speak to the chaplain for clarification. Chaplain Solomon enrolled me in both Catholic and Protestant classes so I could understand their different belief systems. This experience was extremely challenging, and required a lot of research to verify the claims and counter-claims of each group. In the end I discovered that, just like my old radicalism could only be sustained by a narrow version of history, my new Protestantism also used a narrow version of Christian history.
I came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church has the authority invested by Jesus to teach and make disciples of all nations, and also came to the understanding that the Catholic Church has been teaching and making disciples of “my people” for the last 500 years!
In August of 2008 I was restored to the Holy Faith by Father David at the prison. He and three other priests from the Victoria Diocese of Texas immediately began to work on my transformation. I contacted the Coming Home Network International, and a few weeks later received a warm embrace through the mail from their prison apostolate. I had asked and I had received. I had knocked and the door had been opened. I was finally home.
That “traitor” voice was at it again! The enemy was on the verge of defeat, but he was intent on distracting me by becoming increasingly insistent that I was believing in the white man’s God. But it was too late for him, because the Coming HomeNetwork kept sending me material that I just couldn’t stop reading. All of my life I had been provided with scraps of history from sources that have their own reasons for not wanting the Mexican American people to know their true identity. Now I had discovered who I was from the source that was with my people from the very beginning -- the Catholic Church.
I am not a Mexican Indian nor a Spaniard. I am a Mestizo, a mixture of Spanish and Indian that is not acknowledged as an identity in the United States. Five hundred years ago the Spaniards conquered the Mexican Indians and brought about our first generation by copulating with Indian women and moving on without taking responsibility for the children they fathered. It was not acceptable for these Indian women to remain in the villages with half-breed children, so they would conceal their pregnancy and then abandon or kill the Mestizos when they were born. Such is my origin.
But doesn’t God tell Christians to take care of the orphans? Catholic Viceroy Mendoza and the Franciscans were the ones listening to the word of God when they took in gangs of unwanted Mestizo “orphans” roaming on the streets of Mexico City, fed them, clothed and educated them. The Catholic Church was there not only fighting the Spaniards that were mistreating the Indians, but also taking care of their abandoned offspring. When our Spanish fathers abandoned us it was God Himself Who became our Father, and when our Indian mothers forsook us, it was God’s Church that adopted us and became our Mother. The Mestizo people were raised from the very beginning by God and his Church. That’s why “coming home” means so much to this Mexican American prodigal: Because he realizes that, as one of the abandoned Mestizo children, the Holy Catholic Church was our first home.
I understand now that I was never meant to be a Mexican American radical. I was never supposed to believe that I was an Aztec who doesn’t value life – a hate-filled puppet of some Mexicano propaganda. I was meant to be so much more. I was meant to be like God, and God is love.
Today, I frequent the Sacraments of Confession and Communion to maintain my relationship with the most Holy Trinity, and have been studying to illumine my mind and fortify my will so I can combat my own concupiscence. By the grace of God, I am becoming a strong man of Christian character with plans of returning to my community to help lead others out of their errors and self-defeating ideas. I am working on developing a Catholic program to help de-radicalize Mexican American prisoners, that I hope to implement some day.
I recently received a letter from my daughter who was born a few months before I came to prison in 1986. I’ve only seen her a couple of times and the last time was about 14 years ago. She is now 24 and is the proud mother of two little boys. I am a grandfather and my daughter wants her children to be part of my life! All of this is happening just in time, because I now have the beauty and the power of the Faith that I can pass on to my two grandsons. I am in possession of “their” Faith heritage; and now, I am also in possession of the means to help them protect and defend their Mexican American inheritance.
My name id John Mark Harvey, but it wasn’t always that. I was born in Galveston, Texas on October 19, 1977, and given the name Marcus Ebert. Due to circumstances I still don’t understand, I was given up for adoption at the tender age of two.
While I refuse to allow my early childhood to be an excuse for my current incarceration, I feel that three years of living in various foster homes didn’t help much. I think that the instability and insecurity bred in those years formed a shell around me that has only begun to be broken.
Looking back to those troubled years I can see now that even then God had a special plan for me down the road. In September 1983, my new parents, Ray and Sandra Harvey came all the way to Wisconsin to bring me, my brother Jason and my sister Megan to their home in Texas City, Texas.
My new parents were, and still are devout Christians, but it took me about six years to tell them that I loved them. But, it didn’t affect their love for me or my siblings. I was raised a Baptist, and they took me to Church on a regular basis, regardless of whether I wanted to go or not. What I knew about the Word of God, I learned from them, and will always be grateful for that.
I didn’t become a Christian until the summer of 1993 after coming home from a youth trip. Even after my baptism though, I tended to do things my way. All I was interested in was school and baseball. I felt I had a call then to minister to children, but nothing came of it. I was too much into myself and what I wanted to get out of life.
Unfortunately, some of the events in my life got out of hand, and I was arrested on a “conspiracy” charge I was convicted, and got a 10 year sentence in 1995. This was a “wake up” call from God, but I didn’t heed it. Then in 1996 I took another person’s life, and received a 50-year sentence. I am now paying that debt to society.
By then I had hit rock bottom, and was giving the Texas Department of Corrections a lot of difficulty. I was put in medium custody then, which limited any contact visits. It was then that my 8-year-old niece, Alexandria at a visit asked “Uncle Mark, am I ever going to get a hug from you?” I cried for the first time since being in prison. I trace my change of attitude to begin behaving and staying out of trouble to that one instance. Was it the wrong reason? Perhaps, but now, looking back, I feel that it was God working through her to get me stared back on the path.
It was 2009, and up until that time, I hadn’t set foot inside any chapel, or attended any church service the entire time of my incarceration. I thought that God wouldn’t want any one as bad as me in his family. Oh, how wrong I was! A friend of mine, who is Catholic, asked me to attend his Confirmation ceremony which would be in a Mass in the prison’s Rockwell Chapel. I told him that I would come, and was glad that I did, for it changed my life.
As soon as I entered the chapel, I began to experience a peace that overcame all the inner noise and machinations that were going on inside me. At the Rite of Peace during the Mass, I experience great joy, and tears filled my eyes. At the Consecration, where the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, I felt God telling me that this sacrifice was made for me. After witnessing my first Mass, I wasn’t the same person anymore.
I quickly enrolled in the Catholic RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation) program which instructs inquirers about the teachings of the Church. I wanted to know why this “service” of the Mass was so different from all the others that I attended when a young, free man. I then decided to become Catholic, and completed the program of instruction, made my First Holy Communion, and was confirmed in Faith in 2011.
Unfortunately, during the program, I had a behavioral relapse, and was sent back to medium security for six months, but I have stayed out of trouble since.
While my official conversion to Catholicism happened then, my personal conversion to living that Faith fully is still an on-going process. I’m sure it will continue as long as my soul is in this mortal shell. Each day I seek to know more what the will of God is for me in my present life, and ask the Holy Spirit for the strength to do that will.
I have come full-circle, from Galveston to Wisconsin to Texas City – actually only ten minutes away from Galveston where I was born. Unknown to me at the time, God was with me the entire way. He saw that I had a new set of good parents, and that my siblings were kept together. Finally, He brought me home to His Church.
He loved me enough to send His Son to pay the ransom for my soul. Am I worthy of this? No, but I am glad that He loved me enough to do it !
My dad, a Home Missionary with the Southern BaptistConvention, taught my five siblings and me to believe in God and trust theBible. He taught us many things, some ofwhich I later found out were either totally untrue or half-truths. My father honestly believed them though, andthat is why he so diligently taught them to us. I will focus on these teachings and what I discovered about them in whatfollows.
First of all, Dad taught that Catholics were in errorbecause they added seven books to the Old Testament and therefore were underthe curse of in Revelation 22:18-19. However, I had a few problems with that. First, the curse seems to apply only to the Book of Revelation, so theCatholics can’t be under that curse because they didn’t add or take awayanything from that book.
Secondly,the canon of scripture used by Catholics is older than that used byProtestants. I believe it waswell-established in the very early centuries of the Christian era, it wouldmake it at least thirteen or fourteen hundred years older than the ProtestantKing James Bible which was authorized in 1611. So then Catholics didn’t add books to theBible, the Protestants took them out.
Next, my father taught us that Catholics can’t be Christianssince they teach Salvation by Works, and because they had idols of the VirginMary and the saints to which they pay. Half truths! While Catholics dohave statues of the Blessed Mother and saints, the Catechism of the CatholicChurch (CCC) clearly states that salvation is from God alone. Also the Old Testament mentions praying tothe saints ( Job 5:1). But Catholicshold and teach that if we can ask our families and friends here on Earth tointercede for us, we certainly can ask those who have gone before us (CCC2682-84).
Then there is the practice of confession. My father taught that when the veil of thetemple tore at the crucifixion of Christ, it showed that it was no longernecessary for us to confess our sins to a priest. I wonder why he never commented on James 5:16where he writes after the crucifixion and resurrection to “confess your sins toone another”.
Probable the biggest thing that bothered me was his teachingof the doctrine “Once Saved Always Saved”. This is in fact a major point of contention between many Protestantreligions. The Baptist Faith and Messagegoes to great lengths to argue the point. The main basis for this belief is the promise in John 10:29 “MyFather is greater than all in what he has given me, there is no snatching outof his hand.” I believed that also. That is, until I read St. Paul’sletter to Timothy. In the first chapter there is a warning to guard his faithlest it become shipwrecked. This was thebeginning of my search for the truth. Sometime later, after making a serious mistake that landed me in prison,I met a man who would become my sponsor. We were discussing these passages when he said ”True, no one can us takeout of God’s hand, but who says that we can’t leave of our own free will.”
After that the pieces just started falling into place. Ibelieve God put me into prison so that I could meet C. Matthew Camp. Throughdiligent study, I was forced to come to the clear scripture-based conclusions thatCatholicism is indeed Christian, and that it was founded by Christ Himself whogave the apostles the keys to heaven. I also came to believe that the saints are our spiritualfamily, and that we can ask them to intercede to God on our behalf. And in addition,I have come to believe that confession is necessary for forgiveness of ourserous sins.
I am sure that not all Catholics are true Christians anymore than all Baptists or other Protestants are. I know all the various Protestantreligions derive from their one original Christian home: the CatholicChurch. I felt that it was my true home,and I decided to return.
I had to improvise an RCIA course, as there was noofficial one her in prison. TheKnights of Columbus and the CatholicHome Study Service provided me with adequate preparation courses. And on February 7, 2014 I was receivedofficially into the Faith by Father JohnFalon, while my sponsor and Catholic friends around me simply said “Welcomehome!” And now I indeed was home at last
MICHAEL ( surname withheld) : MEMORIES OF HIGHSCHOOL
Farmington Correctional Centerin Farmington, MO JANUARY 2015 (Revised)
I was raised in a loving Christian home. Growing up, we attended a Charismatic Methodist Church where I was confirmed at the age of twelve. My parents were pretty open minded about my church attendance, and encouraged me to attend church services of other denominations with my friends – all Protestant, by chance. My parents only knew two couples that were Catholic. When we visited their homes, I was fascinated by the crucifixes and images of Mary there.
Circumstances were such in 1981 that I wound up attending St. Albert the Great Central Catholic High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was there that I first experienced the real spirit of Catholicism with their welcoming attitude. When my grandmother died later that year, the staff, especially Fr. Phil Kruse, comforted me, and by his actions showed me what Catholicism was all about.
In 1982, one of my parent’s Catholic friends died, We attended the rosary/wake for him the night before, and the funeral the next day. My folks didn’t know what was going on and I was able to explain it to my family. The mass and committal service at the cemetery were very comforting. It made me wish that our Protestant committal services had the same feel.
I used to visit some of the Catholic churches in town at times.. Just being in them, especially the older ones, seemed to lift my spirit and draw me closer to God.
What I learned in high school about the Catholic Faith began to ring true to me. When I started applying that knowledge to our Methodist services, they became more meaningful. I believed that Christ’s words at the Last Supper should be taken literally, and that there was indeed something special about Mary beyond the Incarnation. Looking back, I don’t think I would trade those four years for anything.
After I graduated high school in 1985, I worked for a local funeral home. It was during this time that I was able to delve deeper into the Catholic funeral rite, which I truly appreciated. At this time I also left the United Methodist Church. I bounced around several local churches, and finally ended up in a modern Open Bible Church. I still can’t explain why I didn’t look deeper into becoming Catholic at that time, I was still drawn to her, as occasionally I would visit the beautiful St. Peter or St. Paul Catholic Churches.
In 1991 I moved to South West Indiana. Even though I attended a few masses, I wound up joining a United Church of Christ church. In 2001 I moved to Missouri, and for a while my life went downhill. It was there that things really got bad. I was arrested in 2002, convicted, and was sent to prison -- where I am this day. My dad was diagnosed with cancer I would and die within a year of my arrest.
In 2004, I contacted the local Methodist who wrote me back, and visited me in prison. With his assistance United Church I transferred my membership from the church in Indiana to his local church. After several years, I got transferred to my present location , and continued my JOURNEY HOME.
I attended non-denominational religious services here, but nothing “felt right”. Then, I finally attended a Catholic Mass, and know I was coming HOME.
Over the years imprison, I had reconnected with Fr. Kruse, and we are still in contact today, as I am with a few other priests from high school. Fr. Kruse sent me a rosary, and urged me to pray it daily. I really appreciate his encouragement. I attribute this desire to reach him as the promptings of the Holy Spirit calling me home, and am forever grateful for it.
I began attending Mass weekly, and studying all the sources available to me at the chapel to relearn the Faith I was exposed to in high school. For my R.C.I.A. I enrolled in a correspondence course on the Faith by Fr. Lukfar, which I have now ed.
As I began my formal preparation for entry into the Catholic Church in May 2011, I attended a Resident’s Encounter Christ (REC) weekend her. It is based on the noted Cursillo movement, but tailored for inmates. (Strangely enough, as I was attending my first REC, my mother was giving a talk at a what turned out to be her last “Road to Emmaus” weekend which is sort of like the Protestant version of a Cursillo.)
My Mom died from cancer not three months later. Again at this difficult time, Fr. Kruse was available to me to provide comfort and solace. Even though I was not yet Catholic, he offered a Mass for her which brought me much needed peace.
It’s taken years, and I’ve had more than a few detours and bumps along the way when it came to appreciating the teachings of the Faith, which I have now overcome. I can now pray to, and for, my departed love ones with confidence. I am so thankful for my full entry into the arms of Mother Church which took place on August 13, 2014. And I am enjoying the next phase of my JOURNEY HOME into the history of our beloved church.
I was born in 1968 to a Catholic father and a Presbyterian mother. My mother once told me that. She had asked a priest what was required to be "Catholic" and he listed three things. Since these were believed by Presbyterians she had no objection to raising her children Catholic. My father was an international banker and so I started my life in Tanzania, Africa. We then moved to England, and later Canada. It is in Montreal that I have my first memories of attending Mass. However, the full awareness of my faith formation comes after the divorce of my parents when I was eight years old. My mother moved my two sisters and myself to Iowa. Here I remember going to Mass regularly and to catechism classes when I didn't sneak away to meet friends. It was there that I was confirmed and received my first communion. After three years we moved to Texas. Mom took us to Mass regularly for some time but at some point we were left to decide whether or not we wanted to attend. My faith and Church would not be a conscious part of my life again until my marriage in 1991.
I had discharged my active commitment Lo the U.S. Army in 1990 and it wasn't long before I had taken up residence with a girl I had known in High School-. She was Catholic also, but neither of us had any problem with our cohabitation outside of marriage. When I was called back to active duty in response to Desert Storm in January 1991, we decided to get married. We convinced the priest at our parish to marry us with a promise that. upon my return we would complete the required marriage prep course. The war didn't Last long and I was home by mid March. My wife and I became regular attendees at our parish. We started praying the Rosary together and when my son was born in December 1992 we had him christened in the Catholic Church. Within two years my son's mother would be filing for divorce, and with that. my involvement with the Church, minor as it was, would also end. In the years to come I would meet a woman on-line; a mother of three in the process of divorce. I moved in with her and we eventually bought. a house together. We eventually married in June 2000 mainly for the purpose of health insurance. In July 2001 I was convicted of a crime, and sent to prison. In the county jail I would discover my desire for the peace of those men that. stood together and prayed each night. I began to read the Bible and I took my faith seriously. I was determined to know the Truth and I was baptized at, the transfer facility. When I reached my regular prison I enrolled in bible studies, and went to the recreation yard to preach. I preached against the Catholic Church; after all I was raised Catholic and I knew that what they taught was wrong.
Then a friend of mine enrolled in the RCIA class to learn the Catholic doctrine himself so we might together expose the lies of the Catholic Church. As he returned each week we sat, down with our concordance and interlinear Greek-English bible to dissect the RCIA material. . The more we studied the more I realized I did not remember correctly the catechism of my father's faith. I enrolled in RCIA myself to learn the Catholic Catechism firsthand. I started attending the weekly Catholic worship services, and I took pleasure in reciting the Liturgy of the Hours. In 2008 I would go to confession for the first. time in thirty years; I don't ever remember going to confession after my first time for first communion.
I may be in prison but I've never been happier. I continue to study constantly and I am still attending RCIA. I have tried giving up my place for others to attend but the instructor says I am needed. I'm not so sure about that, but I learn something new every week. I have been truly blessed. God has placed in my path exactly what and whom I need to find the Truth, His Church, the Church of our fathers the Apostles. I have not.used any names here because it is only I that am responsible for my turning away from God, and it is only He that is responsible for my return. It took forty years but I am home now and as blessed as Peter; for it is not flesh and blood that has revealed it to me, but my Father in heaven (Matt. 16,17 ) .
