The Search for Truth: a desire for authenticity leads to the Catholic Church

Sam Finley and Father Eric Schneider stand at the entrance of St. Ann's Parish in Plattsburg.

By Ashlie Hand | Photos by Megan Marley

Father Eric Schneider’s connection to his Catholic Faith is steeped in a rich fabric of memories visiting his Italian-American grandmother in Chicago and the neighborhood where his father grew up.

“When I was a child, my Nanna Galluzzi had a whole shrine in her room to all of her saints and she had all of these flickering candles and I loved going in that room. I was very influenced from a cultural perspective and always wanted to know more about it,” he says.

These treasured experiences are contrasted with the reality of his early faith formation. Father Schneider grew up in the Methodist church outside of Chicago where his mother belonged until he was 11 years old. When his parents divorced, he left Chicago and moved to a city just outside of St. Louis with his mother and stepfather.

The move left him feeling disconnected from the cultural traditions of his youth and sparked a nearly decade-long search for that same authenticity.

A gift from his father, an old St. Joseph Missal from the 1950s, helped to bridge the gap. Father Schneider read it from cover to cover, fascinated by the vestments, the parts of the Mass and the Latin text. He kept it on his nightstand as a source of comfort and familiarity.

Father Schneider’s stepfather was a devout Catholic who mentored him in his Catholic Faith. They would attend Mass at the local diocesan church, St. Joseph Catholic Parish in Cottleville, Missouri, outside of St. Louis. This is where Father Schneider eventually received his First Communion and Confirmation.

Father Schneider held on to the missal, and would take it with him to Mass at St. Joseph. His experience of the Mass there, however, was not what he read about in the missal. This was deeply disappointing to the young teenager. “I was always the kid asking the inconvenient questions to the priest.”

He gradually drifted away from his diocesan parish, but Father Schneider’s attraction to the Catholic Mass would stick with him, leading to a poignant moment in his life right after high school.

“As I was preparing to go off to college, I felt a need to get my life right and followed a nagging that I should return to Mass,” he recalls.

Father Schneider went to Confession and attended the celebration of high Mass at St. Francis DeSales Oratory in St. Louis. The realization of what he had been missing struck him, and he found himself in tears.

“That was the beginning of a real conversion in my heart to the Lord, to stop living the normal secular life of questioning everything, believing that all religions are the same. There was a palpable truth, and I was really struck by what was taking place on the altar,” he recalls.

Father Schneider went off to college, but the priesthood kept nagging at him.

That was the beginning of a real conversion in my heart to the Lord, to stop living the normal secular life of questioning everything, believing that all religions are the same. There was a palpable truth, and I was really struck by what was taking place on the altar.

“It was a really rough time and I had to choose against [the wishes of] a lot of people,” he says, recalling the many obstacles he faced during his discernment. “If I was going to [join the priesthood], I wanted to give up my life for something authentic. I chose to be a diocesan priest after visiting the seminary in St. Louis, where I felt a great sense of connection and peace.”

Father Schneider’s journey solidified his strong devotion to the Catholic Faith. He has witnessed the way that experiencing Christ in the Mass has changed a lot of people’s lives and brought people into relationship with Our Lord. This includes several people in his current parishes of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Plattsburg and St. Joseph Parish in Easton.

“If we’re really trying to seek the truth of the matter, we’ll find it in the Eucharist and our experience with Christ in the Mass,” he says.

The search for truth is precisely what led Sam Finley to St. Ann’s Catholic Church in the fall of 2021.

Sam Finley’s story reads like a spy novel, or a true crime podcast. An innate curiosity about religion and an almost insatiable desire for truth drove her to seek out all the information she could gather, plotting it out in one room of her house like a seasoned detective. Sam has lived all over the world, but her search for the truest religion has led her to a small Catholic church in Plattsburg where she will be baptized into the Catholic Faith this Easter.

Her journey began in a divided home where her mother was Catholic, and her father was Muslim. Sam explains that when a father is Muslim it is the tradition that the children are raised Muslim. There was a Catholic church where they lived, but her mother was not allowed to bring her children to Mass. At the mosque, men and women are separated for worship, so Sam would often be alone. This left her without a strong foundation in either faith.

“I did want to have something in my life, so I was always reading. I tried to read more about Islam, but no matter what I did, there wasn’t any peace for me. I had beliefs, but I wasn’t fully Muslim or Catholic.”

The tension this created eventually caused Sam to pull away from both religions. In an effort to get on with her life, she got married at a very young age.

Sam spent much of her teens and early adulthood reading about many religions around the world. With the precision of an investigative journalist, she would look for inconsistencies and omissions in other sources of scripture. She searched for the earliest sources of Christianity, from both Scripture and historical perspectives. She researched and questioned everything in her attempts to figure out where the original beliefs came from.

“I’m always looking for the truth; the most original truth before it got corrupted,” Sam explains.

“After we moved to Plattsburg, I fell in love with the town and its history. I realized if I’m going to stay here, I want to build a base and find my community.”

On a whim, Sam chose to give Mass a try at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Plattsburg.

“Right before coming to St. Ann’s, I was in the process of reading St. Mark’s Gospel and realized I definitely did not want to be Muslim anymore. So, I decided to go to the Catholic church with fresh eyes, without bias, let go of what was going on before in my life and just listen.”

The very first Mass she attended, she listened to the pastor, Father Eric Schneider, and immediately signed up for RCIA.

Sam Finley bows her head in prayer at St. Ann Parish in Plattsburg.

“I had my daughter with me, so she and I both signed up. She initially grumbled about it, but I encouraged her to just try it out. She really loved it and wanted to continue, and so did I,” Sam recalls.

As Sam and her daughter continued their catechesis, Sam’s husband often questioned her intentions. As their daughter grew to love the classes, even attending happily without complaint, Sam saw her opening to invite her husband to Mass as well.

“[At first he was sure] he wasn’t going to like it, but after a few weeks he changed his mind and decided to sign up for class,” Sam says proudly. Now he goes to Mass every week, even when Sam is out of town.

Sam, her husband and her daughter will all be baptized at the Easter Vigil Mass at St. Ann Parish. All three of them will also be Confirmed and receive their First Communion.

“I think it’s great ... but I would have done it anyway,” Sam says in a tone that is both decisive and intentional. “I came to St. Ann’s at the perfect time. The things going on in my family sent me down the path of questioning and research which led me here.”

Father Schneider will baptize Sam Finley, her husband and daughter at St. Ann's Parish in Plattsburg during the parish Easter Vigil Mass.

Read more about Sam’s journey and Father Schneider's advice for those discerning the priesthood on CatholicKey.org