Tuesday, March 25, 2008

New convert has questions

Some dude named John C. Wright joined the Catholic Church this last weekend and posted about it. Among his questions:
I have heard my whole life how corrupt and superstitious the Catholic Church is, so, now that I am in, where do I sign up? I'd like to start with Simony. Can I buy Church offices wholesale, and then sell them through retail outlets? What are the tax implications?
Now why didn't I think to ask stuff like that? He also wants to know where to put his confirmation name. Apparently it goes right after your baptismal name, which would make me Rachel Francis Florence Gray. Not bad.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Yours is definitely a cool name and that is not an adjective I often use.

R.A. said...

What's a confirmation name?

Unknown said...

Rachel Ann, We have a custom of taking a saint's name at Confirmation, because we admire the way that person imitated Christ. I imagine our dear Rachel Francis has such admiration for St. Francis, and his way of imitating Christ that she has chosen him for her patron. I chose Patrick when I was 15, because I wanted to be a foreign missionary and was so proud of my Irish-Catholic ancestry. (St. Patrick was not Irish but he straightened us up,some what, thanks be to God!) I also love my baptismal patron saints; James and Bernard, an Apostle and a monk.

Rachel said...

Wow Father, I didn't know you already knew you wanted to be a missionary at 15! And you did it, too. People are always asking me if I'm Irish; I don't know that I have even a drop of Irish blood but I tell them I like to fake it.

My St. Francis is de Sales, and I liked him because he worked hard for humility and had a lot of apostolic zeal. But I admit the initial attraction was that he laid the smackdown on all those heretics in Geneva. :)

R.A. said...

Some things are so much more interesting in Catholicism than in Protestantism... I guess I'll just have to wait for my new name until Jesus hands it to me on a white stone.