Catholics should by all means read this interview with art historian Elizabeth Lev. Many fascinating observations, including the following tidbit:St. Peter's is the site of my reversion I'd have to say. I grew up Catholic but I left the church with such a door-slamming, bridge-burning attitude that if you'd have told me that when I was 25 that one day all I would ever want to do is go into St. Peter's and talk about God, I would have slapped you silly probably. So I think that the moment for me, like many, many other people, was when I went to St. Peter's during the year 2000, except during the year 2000 I was going for work.Hat tip to Amy Welborn.
That's how it is for a lot of reverts: they encounter in their real lives an almost overwhelming reason to reconsider their adolescent rejection of their cradle Catholicism. That's how it was for me as a Columbia undergraduate. I was most disenchanted with Catholicism until I was exposed, willy-nilly, to all the major alternatives. Then it didn't seem bad at all. I became an orthodox Catholic for want of a plausible and attractive alternative.
That was when I became almost anathema to the so-called Catholics who dominated the Catholic campus ministry. Not that I got "slapped" by any of them; no, that would have made my decision even firmer. It would have been interesting, though, to have "slapped silly" by Elizabeth Lev! Apparently she's one feisty gal. Just the sort we need more of in Catholic academia.
