“We can’t help ourselves: Why a former Jewish agnostic and current progressive Christian still like Catholicism”: I’m in this!

Part one of an exchange between me and Alicia de los Reyes at Patheos Progressive Christian. “We can’t help ourselves” is not a bad summary of one part of the gospel (the First Step part), also….

Many of you may know Eve Tushnet from her blog here on Patheos, where she writes about being gay, celibate, and Catholic (along with World Figure Skating Championship costumes and other events of note). Eve grew up “somewhere between agnostic and Jewish” and converted to Catholicism when she was a sophomore in college.

I did the inverse: I was raised firmly Catholic and started drifting away from “the Church” in college, when I just couldn’t stomach my church’s position on women priests and gay marriage, among other things, and eventually ended up at a social-justice-oriented spiritual community.

I thought it would be fun to talk about why, despite our seemingly large hurdles (background, political beliefs, sexuality), we still really like the Catholic Church. (Even though my new church is Methodist, I still say that I was “raised Catholic.”) And a bit about why, even though we like it, it occasionally drives/drove us crazy.

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