Journey Home

Cary Klivan grew up Jewish in Brooklyn, and though he was culturally observant, he was spiritually agnostic, more along the lines of scientific materialism.

He ended up marrying his childhood sweetheart, who happened to be one of the few Catholics in his neighborhood. He agreed to raise his children Catholic, because to him faith was just a cultural marker.

The reality of becoming a father, however, got him asking deeper philosophical and spiritual questions. He began to see that the stories he learned in his Jewish background came to life anew in fulfilled form in Jesus, and suddenly, he found himself not only believing, but desiring to be baptized and serve the Church as a Permanent Deacon.

Mark DeYoung came from a Nazarene family, and was heavily involved in church. He went on to attend Trevecca Nazarene in Nashville, and then began work at a Christian music station, where he also hosted the morning show.

During this time, he experienced some major challenges to his personal faith. When he began to rediscover it, it lead him to seminary studies, and eventually on staff at a seeker-friendly church.

The toxicity he experienced there led him to leave ministry altogether, and wonder if he’d ever fit in at any church. After wrestling with alcohol, he realized he needed an anchor of stability that would align his faith and his personal life. Discovering Catholic media, he began to finally get real answers, and realized that his true spiritual home was in the Catholic Church.

David DeAtkine was born into a Baptist family, but they also explored Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches along the way.

When he went to medical school, David began attending Episcopal services, because that was his wife’s background. However, this raised even more questions for him about Church history, the sacraments, and the nature of Christian authority, and set him on a quest to find out what kind of Church Jesus had truly founded.

Fr. Samuel Keyes was raised Baptist in Mississippi, but became an Episcopalian as a young adult, going on to serve as a priest in Massachusetts, Alabama, and Maryland. His spiritual trajectory continued to lead him deeper on the questions of tradition, liturgy and authority, and he eventually became a Catholic and an ordained priest through the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

David Lach grew up in a group called the Church Universal and Triumphant, a syncretistic form of Theosophy, which taught a sort of monotheistic spin on the idea of the God within.

Among other things, he began to realize that his community’s concept of Jesus as an ascended master did not match up with the Jesus he saw in the New Testament. He visited a Catholic Mass, and immediately felt like this was the place where he could encounter the real Jesus.

It started him on the path to explore the Catholic Faith, and eventually be received into the Church.

TJ Nielsen grew up in a Christian household, and his interest in philosophy and history led him to Hillsdale College. While there, he began to reflect more deeply on what it meant to take his Christian faith seriously, and his encounter with serious Catholics impacted him in such a way that he eventually felt called home to the Catholic Church himself. He has since gone on to found the Center for Evangelical Catholicism.

Amy McEntee was raised in the Church of the Brethren, and as she grew older, began to experience Christianity in a number of different denominational contexts.

When she began attending the University of Dayton and meeting faithful and engaged Catholics, she began to discover the truth and beauty of the Church, and started taking steps to become a part of it.

Sam Nunnally grew up in Charismatic, Methodist and non-denominational Christianity in the South, and his desire to learn more about the faith took him right to the edge of believing in the Real Presence from his own personal study of Scripture, without any thought that he was drawing specifically Catholic conclusions.

After graduating college, he kept feeling the pull to ministry, serving in youth, music, and associate pastor roles. Eventually, he decided he wanted to try and prove the roots of Charismatic Christianity in Church history; but what he found instead was a deeply Catholic expression of Christianity that led him to the conviction that he had to become Catholic himself.

Erika Bachiochi was not raised in a religious household, and her reaction to divorce in her family, as well as suicides among friends, led her to a dark place spiritually.

Seeking truth and meaning, she was befriended by pro-life intellectuals, who helped her see that life was meaningful, and faith could be reasonable. She came home to the Catholic Faith in 1997, and has been active in the Catholic intellectual tradition and the promotion of Christian anthropology.

Monique Ruberu was raised Catholic, but picked and chose what aspects of Catholicism she was going to prioritize. In 2012, her marriage began to experience crisis, and she knew she needed to take her faith much more seriously if her marriage was to survive.

That search led her on a deeper journey of love for the Eucharist, but also into a renewed understanding of the sanctity of life, and she began the path toward becoming a NaPro Technology trained OB/GYN.