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5 ways St. John Paul II changed the Catholic Church forever #Catholic You may know that St. John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history with 27 years of pontificate, and he was the first non-Italian pontiff since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI in 1523.But did you know that he also changed the Catholic Church forever during those 27 years? Here are five ways he did that:1. He helped bring about the 1989 fall of communism in Eastern Europe.The pope’s official biographer, George Weigel, who for decades chronicled the pope’s engagement with civic leaders, noted that the way Pope John Paul II influenced the political landscape was enormous. His political influence is seen best in the way his engagement with world leaders assisted the downfall of the U.S.S.R.Just days before President Ronald Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, he met with the pope. According to historian and author Paul Kengor, Reagan went so far as to call Pope John Paul II his “best friend,” opining that no one knew his soul better than the Polish pontiff who had also suffered an assassination attempt and carried the burden of world leadership.In the course of 38 official visits and 738 audiences and meetings held with heads of state, John Paul II influenced civic leaders around the world in this epic battle with a regime that would ultimately be responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million people.“He thought of himself as the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, dealing with sovereign political actors who were as subject to the universal moral law as anybody else,” Weigel said.“He was willing to be a risk-taker, but he also appreciated that prudence is the greatest of political virtues. And I think he was quite respected by world political leaders because of his transparent integrity. His essential attitude toward these men and women was: How can I help you? What can I do to help?”More than anything, John Paul II understood his role primarily as a spiritual leader.According to Weigel, the pope’s primary impact on the world of affairs was his central role in creating the revolution of conscience that began in Poland and swept across Eastern Europe. This revolution of conscience inspired the nonviolent revolution of 1989 and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, an astounding political achievement.2. He beatified and canonized more saints than any predecessor, making holiness more accessible to ordinary people.One of John Paul II’s most enduring legacies is the huge number of saints he recognized. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies, during which he proclaimed 1,338 blesseds, and celebrated 51 canonizations for a total of 482 saints. That is more than the combined tally of his predecessors over the five centuries before.Mother Teresa of Calcutta is perhaps the best-known contemporary of John Paul II who is now officially a saint, but the first saint of the new millennium and one especially dear to John Paul II was St. Faustina Kowalska, the fellow Polish native who received the message of divine mercy.“Sister Faustina’s canonization has a particular eloquence: By this act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium,” he said in the homily of her canonization. “I pass it on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever better the true face of God and the true face of their brethren.”St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom Pope John Paul II beatified in 1990 and nicknamed the “Man of the Beatitudes,” is another popular saint elevated by the Polish pope who loved to recognize the holiness of simple persons living the call to holiness with extraordinary fidelity. At the time of his death, the 24-year-old Italian was simply a student with no extraordinary accomplishments. But his love for Christ in the Eucharist and in the poor was elevated by John Paul II as heroic and worthy of imitation. Frassati was canonized Sept. 7, 2025, by Pope Leo XIV.It bears noting that Pope Francis would later surpass John Paul II when he proclaimed 800 Italian martyrs as saints in a single day.3. He transformed the papal travel schedule.John Paul II visited some 129 countries during his pontificate — more countries than any other pope had visited up to that point.He also created World Youth Days in 1985 and presided over 19 of them as pope.Weigel said John Paul II understood that the pope must be present to the people of the Church, wherever they are.“He chose to do it by these extensive travels, which he insisted were not travels, they were pilgrimages,” Weigel said.“This was the successor of Peter, on pilgrimage to various parts of the world, of the Church. And that’s why these pilgrimages were always built around liturgical events, prayer, adoration of the holy Eucharist, ecumenical and interreligious gatherings — all of this was part of a pilgrimage experience.”In the latter half of the 20th century — a time of enormous social change and upheaval — John Paul II’s extensive travels and proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth were just what the world needed, Weigel said.4. He made extraordinary contributions to Church teaching.John Paul II was a scholar who promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, reformed the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law during his pontificate, and authored 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, and 45 apostolic letters.This is why Weigel said the Church has only begun to unpack what he calls the “magisterium” of John Paul II, in the form of his writings and his intellectual influence.For example, John Paul’s theology of the body remains enormously influential in the United States and throughout the world, though Weigel said even this has yet to be unpacked.5. He gave new life to the Catholic Church in Africa.John Paul II’s legendary evangelical fervor took fire in Africa.He had a particular friendship with Beninese Cardinal Bernardin Gantin and visited Africa many times. His visits would inspire a generation of JPII Catholics in Africa as well as other parts of the globe.“John Paul II was fascinated by Africa; he saw African Christianity as living, a kind of New Testament experience of the freshness of the Gospel, and he was very eager to support that, and lift it up,” Gantin said.“It was very interesting that during the two synods on marriage and the family in 2014 and 2015, some of the strongest defenses of the Church’s classic understanding of marriage and family came from African bishops. Some of whom are first-, second-generation Christians, deeply formed in the image of John Paul II, whom they regard as a model bishop,” Gantin said.“I think wherever you look around the world Church, the living parts of the Church are those that have accepted the magisterium … as the authentic interpretation of Vatican II. And the dying parts of the Church, the moribund parts of the Church are those parts that have ignored that magisterium.”John Paul II’s influence in Africa and around the globe transformed the world. It also forever transformed the Church.This story was first published on Oct. 22, 2021, and was updated Oct. 22, 2024, and again on Oct. 22, 2026.
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5 ways St. John Paul II changed the Catholic Church forever #Catholic You may know that St. John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history with 27 years of pontificate, and he was the first non-Italian pontiff since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI in 1523.But did you know that he also changed the Catholic Church forever during those 27 years? Here are five ways he did that:1. He helped bring about the 1989 fall of communism in Eastern Europe.The pope’s official biographer, George Weigel, who for decades chronicled the pope’s engagement with civic leaders, noted that the way Pope John Paul II influenced the political landscape was enormous. His political influence is seen best in the way his engagement with world leaders assisted the downfall of the U.S.S.R.Just days before President Ronald Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, he met with the pope. According to historian and author Paul Kengor, Reagan went so far as to call Pope John Paul II his “best friend,” opining that no one knew his soul better than the Polish pontiff who had also suffered an assassination attempt and carried the burden of world leadership.In the course of 38 official visits and 738 audiences and meetings held with heads of state, John Paul II influenced civic leaders around the world in this epic battle with a regime that would ultimately be responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million people.“He thought of himself as the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, dealing with sovereign political actors who were as subject to the universal moral law as anybody else,” Weigel said.“He was willing to be a risk-taker, but he also appreciated that prudence is the greatest of political virtues. And I think he was quite respected by world political leaders because of his transparent integrity. His essential attitude toward these men and women was: How can I help you? What can I do to help?”More than anything, John Paul II understood his role primarily as a spiritual leader.According to Weigel, the pope’s primary impact on the world of affairs was his central role in creating the revolution of conscience that began in Poland and swept across Eastern Europe. This revolution of conscience inspired the nonviolent revolution of 1989 and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, an astounding political achievement.2. He beatified and canonized more saints than any predecessor, making holiness more accessible to ordinary people.One of John Paul II’s most enduring legacies is the huge number of saints he recognized. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies, during which he proclaimed 1,338 blesseds, and celebrated 51 canonizations for a total of 482 saints. That is more than the combined tally of his predecessors over the five centuries before.Mother Teresa of Calcutta is perhaps the best-known contemporary of John Paul II who is now officially a saint, but the first saint of the new millennium and one especially dear to John Paul II was St. Faustina Kowalska, the fellow Polish native who received the message of divine mercy.“Sister Faustina’s canonization has a particular eloquence: By this act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium,” he said in the homily of her canonization. “I pass it on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever better the true face of God and the true face of their brethren.”St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom Pope John Paul II beatified in 1990 and nicknamed the “Man of the Beatitudes,” is another popular saint elevated by the Polish pope who loved to recognize the holiness of simple persons living the call to holiness with extraordinary fidelity. At the time of his death, the 24-year-old Italian was simply a student with no extraordinary accomplishments. But his love for Christ in the Eucharist and in the poor was elevated by John Paul II as heroic and worthy of imitation. Frassati was canonized Sept. 7, 2025, by Pope Leo XIV.It bears noting that Pope Francis would later surpass John Paul II when he proclaimed 800 Italian martyrs as saints in a single day.3. He transformed the papal travel schedule.John Paul II visited some 129 countries during his pontificate — more countries than any other pope had visited up to that point.He also created World Youth Days in 1985 and presided over 19 of them as pope.Weigel said John Paul II understood that the pope must be present to the people of the Church, wherever they are.“He chose to do it by these extensive travels, which he insisted were not travels, they were pilgrimages,” Weigel said.“This was the successor of Peter, on pilgrimage to various parts of the world, of the Church. And that’s why these pilgrimages were always built around liturgical events, prayer, adoration of the holy Eucharist, ecumenical and interreligious gatherings — all of this was part of a pilgrimage experience.”In the latter half of the 20th century — a time of enormous social change and upheaval — John Paul II’s extensive travels and proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth were just what the world needed, Weigel said.4. He made extraordinary contributions to Church teaching.John Paul II was a scholar who promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, reformed the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law during his pontificate, and authored 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, and 45 apostolic letters.This is why Weigel said the Church has only begun to unpack what he calls the “magisterium” of John Paul II, in the form of his writings and his intellectual influence.For example, John Paul’s theology of the body remains enormously influential in the United States and throughout the world, though Weigel said even this has yet to be unpacked.5. He gave new life to the Catholic Church in Africa.John Paul II’s legendary evangelical fervor took fire in Africa.He had a particular friendship with Beninese Cardinal Bernardin Gantin and visited Africa many times. His visits would inspire a generation of JPII Catholics in Africa as well as other parts of the globe.“John Paul II was fascinated by Africa; he saw African Christianity as living, a kind of New Testament experience of the freshness of the Gospel, and he was very eager to support that, and lift it up,” Gantin said.“It was very interesting that during the two synods on marriage and the family in 2014 and 2015, some of the strongest defenses of the Church’s classic understanding of marriage and family came from African bishops. Some of whom are first-, second-generation Christians, deeply formed in the image of John Paul II, whom they regard as a model bishop,” Gantin said.“I think wherever you look around the world Church, the living parts of the Church are those that have accepted the magisterium … as the authentic interpretation of Vatican II. And the dying parts of the Church, the moribund parts of the Church are those parts that have ignored that magisterium.”John Paul II’s influence in Africa and around the globe transformed the world. It also forever transformed the Church.This story was first published on Oct. 22, 2021, and was updated Oct. 22, 2024, and again on Oct. 22, 2026.

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St. John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history with 27 years of pontificate and the first non-Italian pontiff to be elected since Pope Adrian VI in 1523.

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Study: FDA allowed mail-order abortion pills without ‘sufficient evidence’ of safety #Catholic A study by scholars at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “lacked sufficient evidence” to remove the in-person abortion pill dispensing rule.Published in Issues in Law and Medicine, a journal of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, on Oct. 6, the report found that the FDA’s studies on the abortion pill didn’t reflect real-world conditions of abortion pill use.According to the article, the FDA relied on analysis from groups with political incentives. Additionally, the FDA used “inadequate” adverse event reporting, authors Zachery Sluzala and Ingrid Skop found. “When federal agencies remove regulations designed to safeguard patient health, those decisions should be grounded in evidence that reflects real-world practice,” Skop, an OB-GYN who works for the Lozier Institute, said in a statement. “Our analysis found that the FDA’s review fell well short of that standard. Safety decisions should reflect the conditions in which women are using the drugs, not tightly controlled study conditions that fail to mimic real-world use.”Pro-life groups criticize FDA abortion pill updateIn a court-ordered update of the agency’s highly anticipated report on the safety of the abortion pill, the FDA said that it will complete the safety review in March 2027, an announcement that led to backlash from pro-life groups.A federal judge in Louisiana ordered the status report on the safety review. According to its update, the FDA expects to have results by mid-December, with a final report in March 2027 — more than a year and a half after the group first promised the review.Pro-life leader Marjorie Dannenfelser, who heads Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the FDA’s update “alarming.”“The administration must correct course — and, more importantly, it must not wait for the study to conclude before acting,” said Dannenfelser. “Peer-reviewed evidence shows that the Biden administration relied on insufficient evidence and flawed assumptions when it removed the in-person dispensing requirement.“Action is long overdue,” Dannenfelser said.Students for Life of America leader Kristan Hawkins also criticized the timeline.“It shouldn’t take a judge to pry some answers from the FDA on the dangers of chemical abortion pills, nor should it take this long to get them,” said Hawkins. “While we are glad to see the FDA giving attention to deadly drugs, this is not enough to address the harms that recklessly approving mifepristone in 2000 did to public health and fertility.”Alliance Defending Freedom spokeswoman Erin Hawley observed that “every month of additional delay puts nearly 15,000 additional babies at risk in states where mail-order abortion drugs are unlawful.”Mail-order abortions “don’t empower women — they facilitate the abuse, coercion, and poisoning of women by making high-risk drugs accessible to bad actors at the click of a button,” said Hawley.Study: Colleges ‘fail’ pregnant and parenting studentsA recent study found that hundreds of state colleges and universities are failing to provide resources to help pregnant and parenting students stay in school.The study by Students for Life of America’s Demetree Institute found that the average state college campus in the survey offered “barely half the recommended support” for student parents.The study looked at more than 500 state colleges and universities, examining the housing policies, on-campus resources, financial assistance, medical attention, and accommodations and policy transparency they offer to student-parents.The three lowest-ranked schools were Dalton State College in Georgia, Dakota State University in South Dakota, and Concord University in West Virginia.About 98% of schools in the study were missing at least two recommended accommodations for pregnant and parenting students. On-campus housing for families was unavailable at more than 70% of schools. About 85% of schools did not offer scholarships targeted for pregnant or parenting students.Men’s march for life to be held in BostonMen will gather in Boston on Nov. 1 for a national men’s march for life.The National Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally for Personhood first began in 2021. In the event, men march about three miles to a rally point where they meet up with their families, pray, and listen to speakers.In an interview on EWTN’s “At Home With Jim and Joy,” the march’s president, Jim Havens, said the march is focused on “getting men off the sidelines in the fight for equal protection of the preborn — of all human life.”“We’re going to do it in authentic love; we’re going to do it in a peaceful manner, the right way, standing up in public,” he continued. “It really is powerful when we gather together and do this with Christ at the center.”Scottish bishops warn against proposal to expand abortionThe Scottish bishops are warning against a proposal that they say would allow abortion up to birth for any reason.The proposal would decriminalize abortion in Scotland and remove existing legal safeguards protecting unborn children. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland expressed opposition to the proposal in a statement by Bishop John Keenan, who heads the bishops’ Marriage, Family and Life Commission.“There is a better way than abortion,” Keenan said in the statement.“Every human life possesses inherent dignity and worth; a dignity that does not depend upon age, size, ability, dependency or stage of development,” Keenan said. “It begins at conception and continues until natural death. A just and compassionate society should recognize and protect the lives of both mother and child, especially when either is vulnerable.”Las Vegas archbishop urges vote against abortion measureLas Vegas Archbishop George Leo Thomas called on Catholics in Nevada to vote “no” on a ballot measure that would roll back protections for unborn children, minors, and women and expand abortion up to birth.The Nevada measure would expand the right to abortion, which is already legal in the state up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The letter opposing the Nevada abortion ballot measure was read at Masses across the archdiocese Oct. 3-4.“This question is not whether abortion is legal in Nevada; it already is under a law approved by Nevada voters in 1990,” said Thomas. “The Legislature cannot amend or repeal that law; only a direct vote of the people can do so. This question is whether Nevada voters should expand the right to abortion in ways that can harm the health, safety, and welfare of women and minors. Moreover, this measure will have grave and lasting consequences for vulnerable unborn lives.”“Unborn children have no voice and cannot defend themselves,” Thomas said. “As Catholics, our faith requires us to protect the inherent dignity of every human life and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
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Study: FDA allowed mail-order abortion pills without ‘sufficient evidence’ of safety #Catholic A study by scholars at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “lacked sufficient evidence” to remove the in-person abortion pill dispensing rule.Published in Issues in Law and Medicine, a journal of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, on Oct. 6, the report found that the FDA’s studies on the abortion pill didn’t reflect real-world conditions of abortion pill use.According to the article, the FDA relied on analysis from groups with political incentives. Additionally, the FDA used “inadequate” adverse event reporting, authors Zachery Sluzala and Ingrid Skop found. “When federal agencies remove regulations designed to safeguard patient health, those decisions should be grounded in evidence that reflects real-world practice,” Skop, an OB-GYN who works for the Lozier Institute, said in a statement. “Our analysis found that the FDA’s review fell well short of that standard. Safety decisions should reflect the conditions in which women are using the drugs, not tightly controlled study conditions that fail to mimic real-world use.”Pro-life groups criticize FDA abortion pill updateIn a court-ordered update of the agency’s highly anticipated report on the safety of the abortion pill, the FDA said that it will complete the safety review in March 2027, an announcement that led to backlash from pro-life groups.A federal judge in Louisiana ordered the status report on the safety review. According to its update, the FDA expects to have results by mid-December, with a final report in March 2027 — more than a year and a half after the group first promised the review.Pro-life leader Marjorie Dannenfelser, who heads Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the FDA’s update “alarming.”“The administration must correct course — and, more importantly, it must not wait for the study to conclude before acting,” said Dannenfelser. “Peer-reviewed evidence shows that the Biden administration relied on insufficient evidence and flawed assumptions when it removed the in-person dispensing requirement.“Action is long overdue,” Dannenfelser said.Students for Life of America leader Kristan Hawkins also criticized the timeline.“It shouldn’t take a judge to pry some answers from the FDA on the dangers of chemical abortion pills, nor should it take this long to get them,” said Hawkins. “While we are glad to see the FDA giving attention to deadly drugs, this is not enough to address the harms that recklessly approving mifepristone in 2000 did to public health and fertility.”Alliance Defending Freedom spokeswoman Erin Hawley observed that “every month of additional delay puts nearly 15,000 additional babies at risk in states where mail-order abortion drugs are unlawful.”Mail-order abortions “don’t empower women — they facilitate the abuse, coercion, and poisoning of women by making high-risk drugs accessible to bad actors at the click of a button,” said Hawley.Study: Colleges ‘fail’ pregnant and parenting studentsA recent study found that hundreds of state colleges and universities are failing to provide resources to help pregnant and parenting students stay in school.The study by Students for Life of America’s Demetree Institute found that the average state college campus in the survey offered “barely half the recommended support” for student parents.The study looked at more than 500 state colleges and universities, examining the housing policies, on-campus resources, financial assistance, medical attention, and accommodations and policy transparency they offer to student-parents.The three lowest-ranked schools were Dalton State College in Georgia, Dakota State University in South Dakota, and Concord University in West Virginia.About 98% of schools in the study were missing at least two recommended accommodations for pregnant and parenting students. On-campus housing for families was unavailable at more than 70% of schools. About 85% of schools did not offer scholarships targeted for pregnant or parenting students.Men’s march for life to be held in BostonMen will gather in Boston on Nov. 1 for a national men’s march for life.The National Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally for Personhood first began in 2021. In the event, men march about three miles to a rally point where they meet up with their families, pray, and listen to speakers.In an interview on EWTN’s “At Home With Jim and Joy,” the march’s president, Jim Havens, said the march is focused on “getting men off the sidelines in the fight for equal protection of the preborn — of all human life.”“We’re going to do it in authentic love; we’re going to do it in a peaceful manner, the right way, standing up in public,” he continued. “It really is powerful when we gather together and do this with Christ at the center.”Scottish bishops warn against proposal to expand abortionThe Scottish bishops are warning against a proposal that they say would allow abortion up to birth for any reason.The proposal would decriminalize abortion in Scotland and remove existing legal safeguards protecting unborn children. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland expressed opposition to the proposal in a statement by Bishop John Keenan, who heads the bishops’ Marriage, Family and Life Commission.“There is a better way than abortion,” Keenan said in the statement.“Every human life possesses inherent dignity and worth; a dignity that does not depend upon age, size, ability, dependency or stage of development,” Keenan said. “It begins at conception and continues until natural death. A just and compassionate society should recognize and protect the lives of both mother and child, especially when either is vulnerable.”Las Vegas archbishop urges vote against abortion measureLas Vegas Archbishop George Leo Thomas called on Catholics in Nevada to vote “no” on a ballot measure that would roll back protections for unborn children, minors, and women and expand abortion up to birth.The Nevada measure would expand the right to abortion, which is already legal in the state up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The letter opposing the Nevada abortion ballot measure was read at Masses across the archdiocese Oct. 3-4.“This question is not whether abortion is legal in Nevada; it already is under a law approved by Nevada voters in 1990,” said Thomas. “The Legislature cannot amend or repeal that law; only a direct vote of the people can do so. This question is whether Nevada voters should expand the right to abortion in ways that can harm the health, safety, and welfare of women and minors. Moreover, this measure will have grave and lasting consequences for vulnerable unborn lives.”“Unborn children have no voice and cannot defend themselves,” Thomas said. “As Catholics, our faith requires us to protect the inherent dignity of every human life and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

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Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news.

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‘Those who seek Christ will find him’: Another philosopher at Princeton converts to Catholicism #Catholic Noah McKay was always “at least slightly” more confident than not that God existed.The philosophy doctoral student at Princeton University recently announced his conversion to Catholicism, but he told EWTN News that he struggled for years with what he saw as uncertainties related to faith, including the problem of evil and the “problem of divine hiddenness.”McKay is the second Princeton philosophy scholar this year to convert to the Catholic faith; earlier in the summer Joe Schmid announced his own return to the faith after years of having run an agnostic-themed philosophy channel on YouTube. “I was never an atheist, and I don’t think I was ever agnostic,” McKay told EWTN News. But he experienced profound uncertainties in high school and graduate school, some of which were also related to what he described as “difficulties with the reliability and interpretation of the Bible.”While he never fully abandoned belief in God, “what firmly convinced me of theism were, first, design arguments based on the fine-tuning of physics for the emergence of life, and, second, the empirical evidence for contemporary Christian miracles,” he said. “Arguments from consciousness, moral knowledge, and natural beauty also played a role,” he added. It is perhaps unsurprising that a philosophy scholar would be drawn into the Church in part by scholarly inquiry. Schmid told EWTN News shortly after his conversion, for instance, that “contingency arguments” helped convince him of God’s existence.McKay, meanwhile, cited “evidence for vindicatory Catholic miracles” as helping lead him to the Catholic Church specifically. Those miracles “presuppose distinctive teachings of the Catholic Church,” he pointed out, and the evidence for them, he argued, is “as good or better than the evidence for the more generically Christian miracles” in which McKay himself already believed. He told EWTN News that out of the necessity of consistency he felt he needed to either accept all of those Catholic miracles or reject all of them. “And the evidence was too strong for rejecting all of them to be reasonable!” he said. The evidence for those miracles wasn’t the only thing that convinced him of the truth of the Catholic faith, he said, but “it did motivate me to look into the history and theology of the Church more carefully,” and the evidence he found for Catholicism was “very strong.” He urged those considering Catholicism for the first time, or those who are considering returning to it, to start with researching those miracles.Speaking to Catholic YouTube apologist Cameron Bertuzzi in a recent interview, McKay argued that “if you already accept that Christianity is true, the inference to Catholicism is irresistible.” He admitted that his decision to join the Church caused his close friends and family “distress” given his Protestant background. But “I think Catholicism — if you’re fully informed, if you’re really considering all of the evidence — I think Catholicism is basically going to be irresistible,” he said. Speaking to EWTN News, he also urged potential converts and reverts: “Pray!” “I found praying the rosary especially helpful when I was discerning Catholicism,” he said. “Just ask God to help you earnestly seek the truth and make the means of discovering it available. Those who seek Christ, earnestly and prayerfully, will find him.” “I’m going to ask God to make himself known to everyone who reads this article!” he added.
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‘Those who seek Christ will find him’: Another philosopher at Princeton converts to Catholicism #Catholic Noah McKay was always “at least slightly” more confident than not that God existed.The philosophy doctoral student at Princeton University recently announced his conversion to Catholicism, but he told EWTN News that he struggled for years with what he saw as uncertainties related to faith, including the problem of evil and the “problem of divine hiddenness.”McKay is the second Princeton philosophy scholar this year to convert to the Catholic faith; earlier in the summer Joe Schmid announced his own return to the faith after years of having run an agnostic-themed philosophy channel on YouTube. “I was never an atheist, and I don’t think I was ever agnostic,” McKay told EWTN News. But he experienced profound uncertainties in high school and graduate school, some of which were also related to what he described as “difficulties with the reliability and interpretation of the Bible.”While he never fully abandoned belief in God, “what firmly convinced me of theism were, first, design arguments based on the fine-tuning of physics for the emergence of life, and, second, the empirical evidence for contemporary Christian miracles,” he said. “Arguments from consciousness, moral knowledge, and natural beauty also played a role,” he added. It is perhaps unsurprising that a philosophy scholar would be drawn into the Church in part by scholarly inquiry. Schmid told EWTN News shortly after his conversion, for instance, that “contingency arguments” helped convince him of God’s existence.McKay, meanwhile, cited “evidence for vindicatory Catholic miracles” as helping lead him to the Catholic Church specifically. Those miracles “presuppose distinctive teachings of the Catholic Church,” he pointed out, and the evidence for them, he argued, is “as good or better than the evidence for the more generically Christian miracles” in which McKay himself already believed. He told EWTN News that out of the necessity of consistency he felt he needed to either accept all of those Catholic miracles or reject all of them. “And the evidence was too strong for rejecting all of them to be reasonable!” he said. The evidence for those miracles wasn’t the only thing that convinced him of the truth of the Catholic faith, he said, but “it did motivate me to look into the history and theology of the Church more carefully,” and the evidence he found for Catholicism was “very strong.” He urged those considering Catholicism for the first time, or those who are considering returning to it, to start with researching those miracles.Speaking to Catholic YouTube apologist Cameron Bertuzzi in a recent interview, McKay argued that “if you already accept that Christianity is true, the inference to Catholicism is irresistible.” He admitted that his decision to join the Church caused his close friends and family “distress” given his Protestant background. But “I think Catholicism — if you’re fully informed, if you’re really considering all of the evidence — I think Catholicism is basically going to be irresistible,” he said. Speaking to EWTN News, he also urged potential converts and reverts: “Pray!” “I found praying the rosary especially helpful when I was discerning Catholicism,” he said. “Just ask God to help you earnestly seek the truth and make the means of discovering it available. Those who seek Christ, earnestly and prayerfully, will find him.” “I’m going to ask God to make himself known to everyone who reads this article!” he added.

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Noah McKay said the Catholic Church’s evidence in favor of vindicatory miracles helped lead him to the Church.

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