Almost Catholic Answers

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As I recently posted, Rich Mullins, one of my heroes, was contemplating entering the Catholic church when our Lord took him home. God's timing on this, as most of His plans do, confused and bewildered me.

Why would you take him now?

Is this a sign you didn't want him to become Catholic?

Wouldn't his conversion helped the Church's message?

I got the best answer to this through Catholic Answers , and a show they did with another hero of mine (and fellow convert), Dr. Peter Kreeft. During the talk (What's Philosophy got to do with it?), Prof. Kreeft is asked a similar question, but on why he thought God took C.S. Lewis home before he could enter the Church (Lewis had been drawing closer to Rome, and much of his writing is quite Catholic, or at least lil "c" catholic). The good Professor's answer to the question was

"Because if he had been Catholic, Protestant's would never read him (Lewis), and Catholics already did"

Perfect!, and an answer easily adopted to my own questions about Rich Mullins. I myself only skimmed the Catholic authors until after my conversion began. Further, I went through my mental data base of famous Catholic converts (from G.K. Chesterton to Peter Kreeft to Scott Hahn ), and realized that all these folks did their major writings AFTER they converted, or like more recent converts like Newt Gingrich and Tony Blair, never wrote addressed theology much.

For example: I know that while I enjoyed reading earlier Thomas Merton, I rarely reccomend anything by him lest the other person pick up some of his later works.

listen to Dr. Kreeft's lecture and Q&A here
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