THE ROAD HOME TO ROME

by Joseph Sutton

“I will NEVER become Catholic!” Such was my strident protestation to my wife during a discussion we had several years ago regarding Judaism and Catholicism. It was a “friendly” conversation, laced with the merits and drawbacks each of us offered the other regarding these iconic religions and their pillars of belief. Afterwards, we retreated to our respective “corners,” steadfast in our unwavering faith-based convictions and opinions. But, we are jumping ahead in the story. Let’s start over from the beginning.

Born in Chicago, IL, I was placed for adoption three days after my birth and raised by a middle-aged, Orthodox Jewish couple from New York who were unable to have children. My childhood in Brooklyn, and later Manhattan, was happy and extremely fulfilling. I studied music (piano and flute), gained a deep appreciation for classical music and art from my adopted parents, was dressed in the finest of children’s clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord and Taylor and B. Altman & Co., attended public school,

including the High School of Music & Art, and graduated with degrees from New York University. A lustrous and wonderful existence, to say the least.

My adopted father hailed from a supra-Orthodox, highly-respected sephardic Jewish family that emigrated from Syria. All of his family and relatives have remained extremely observant Jews, many of whom are rabbinic-level scholars of Jewish liturgy and precepts. My adopted mother’s small Jewish family from Russia was marginally religious but generally knowledgeable regarding Jewish customs. Our household kept kosher, my father and I attended Sabbath and holiday services regularly, and observed all of the Jewish holidays. Growing up, I attended Hebrew School several times a week, learned to read Hebrew, studied Israeli history, and was Bar-Mitzvah at the required age of 13. Later, in my late-teens and early 20s (my adopted father passed away when I was 17 not long after we relocated to lower Manhattan), I routinely attended prayer

services at a synagogue within walking distance of our apartment (driving on the Sabbath and holidays is impermissible in Judaism), served from timeto-time as “hazan” (“cantor”--leader of prayers) and served two terms as Vice-President of the synagogue.

After moving to Virginia in 1978 to work for the government, I began drifting away from my formerly rigorous adherence to the Jewish faith and adopted a more secular lifestyle. Nevertheless, to conform with the strict mandate of Jewish law to always marry within the faith, I married a lovely, kind and devout fellow Jew. We attended Sabbath services infrequently at a local synagogue, yet observed all of the major Jewish holidays. Nancy and I were married 19 years, and though we had hoped to have children, Nancy suffered multiple miscarriages that remained medically inexplicable. We were deeply saddened by not having a household filled with children, but our love, devotion and enjoyment of each other’s company partially filled this void in our lives. In 1997, Nancy was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a severe form of brain cancer. Despite her

bravery and perseverance while undergoing many and frequent specialized treatments and chemotherapies, Nancy passed away two years later.

As part of the bereavement healing process after Nancy’s death, I continued to almost daily interact through emails with members of an online brain tumor (“BT”) support group I had joined while Nancy was receiving treatments. It is then that I met my current better-half, Lisa, a beautiful, caring and talented Catholic lady who also was a member of the group and whose late husband (Jewish, by the way!) also had succumbed to a brain tumor around the same time as Nancy. Throughout our initial friendship and developing romance, Lisa was always quick to remind me that if we ever were to get married, our children would be raised Catholic, to include attendance exclusively at Catholic schools. Having become totally smitten and enamored, what else could I say to this but, “Absolutely!”

In 2001, following an abbreviated (fast, you say?) courtship, Lisa and I exchanged wedding vows as it was Lisa’s heartfelt desire that our union be rec

I WILL NEVER BECOME CATHOLIC!

ognized and blessed in the eyes of the Church. I had no compunction about being married in a church and did not feel any urgency to have a parallel ceremony in a synagogue to accommodate my heritage. Our initial attempt to start a family resulted in sadness and disappointment, as Lisa suffered a miscarriage during the early stages of the pregnancy. But on our second effort, we were deeply blessed with the birth of our daughter Natalie. Shortly thereafter, we tried to augment our little family, but were met again with sadness, as baby Frederick Nathaniel died during birth close to Christmas in 2003. He received a deeply moving and respectful Catholic funeral and was laid to rest the day after Christmas.

As the years progressed, in a sign of respect, I accompanied Lisa and Natalie regularly to Mass every Sunday and participated in other major Catholic liturgical observances, including Christmas and Easter. By this time, I no longer followed many of the Jewish customs and traditions I had grown up with, yet my devotion to and vocal defense of my Judaic heritage was unshakable. And so, when Lisa and I had our conversation a few years ago about Catholicism and Judaism as it pertained to my religious “status,” my reply was “NEVER” to the then furthermost possibility of conversion to Catholicism. I deeply believed conversion would be tantamount to despoiling the memory of my adoptive parents and a betrayal of my Jewish heritage.

And yet….Going to Mass, observing parishioners partaking of the Eucharist, attending church-based community functions, listening to talks given by the parish priests, volunteering at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional School where our daughter attended, watching our daughter grow in her Catholic Faith at home and school--all of these activities seemed completely natural, enjoyable, comforting and rewarding to me, though I did not share my feelings with Lisa! These identical feelings were mustered during our family pilgrimage a few years ago to Rome where we visited all the Papal basilicas, Castel Gandolfo (where we saw Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), Lourdes, Lisieux, and other cities. Why, I wondered, was this so? Unbeknownst to me at the time, during a visit to St. Paul Outside the Wall, Lisa was fervently praying for me to “come to the fullness of the Faith” while also snapping a photo of me standing under an enormous painting depicting the Conversion of Saint Paul.

Because my childhood as an adoptee was so extremely happy and fulfilling, I had no interest, curiosity or desire whatsoever, even as an adult, to engage in any form of “data mining” to reveal my birth origins or circumstances of my adoption. I was supremely content with myself and who I am. But after much teasing by Lisa and her frequent insistence that it would be helpful for Natalie’s sake to have some medical “history” to fall back on, I consented to a DNA test. A gift, of sorts, on

my birthday. I thought it would be “fun to see how much Jew is really in me,” especially as my adopted parents told me when I was very young that my birth parents were Jewish.

Well, what an utter shock of earthquake proportion was felt in our household when the results showed up. I have not one iota of Jewish DNA in me. My biological heritage is Danish/Swedish on my birth mother’s side; French/Belgian on my birth father’s side. Yikes! Lisa was in tears when she read the DNA report. “How am I going to break the news to Joe that he has no genetic link to Judaism?,” she thought. Despite the surprise we all felt at this news, I resolved to make every reasonable effort to learn, if possible, the identity of my birth parents. At this point I felt I must know the truth. The first step was my request to the Illinois state office of records for my birth certificate, that yielded the names of my birth parents. (This information is only now available to adoptees following a fairly recent change in Illinois law in 2002, which happened to coincide with the year our daughter Natalie was born.) Using the birth certificate as a launch point, Lisa embarked on a search to track down my birth parents and any living biological relatives, not knowing what we might find.

One of the first things we learned based on a newspaper clipping Lisa found online, which also included my birth mother’s photo, was that my birth mother was Lutheran. Not knowing

how I might react, Lisa first asked me if I would like to see the photo, and when I looked at the beautiful face smiling back at me there was no denying that I was her son! What we did not yet know was if she or my birth father were still alive.

After much research and hard work, sometimes into the wee hours of the night, Lisa was successful in pinpointing members of my maternal birth family. Still concerned with how I might react to any news she might find, Lisa prayed for guidance and cautiously reached out to someone she thought might be a distant relative to my birth mother. Lisa also discovered, much to her delight, that although my father is no longer living, he is interred in a Catholic cemetery. I am sure you can imagine the thoughts racing through my wife’s head at this point. After hearing back from the distant relative almost immediately, Lisa was told that they were not sure if my birth mother was still alive. They graciously agreed to take our contact information in the hopes that if my birth mother were still alive, she would reach out.

On May 26, 2016, she called, and after several months of daily conversations getting to know one another and learning more about my birth family, Lisa, Natalie and I were supremely blessed to have an emotionally-charged and joyous reunion with my birth mother, Rose, who was living in Escanaba, MI. (Yep, I’m a Noo Yawker with farm-boy blood!) Being rejoined again for the

first time in 64 years, she took me aside and whispered in my ear, “I prayed and always knew you would come back to me.” (Amazingly, my adoptive mother also was Rose.) Over the following two years we were warmly welcomed and enjoyed several get-togethers with my “new” maternal family. I have multiple brothers and sisters on both sides of the family and numerous nieces and nephews. Sadly, my birth-mother Rose passed away in 2018.

Now, realizing through the discovery of my birth parents that I have a very distinct connection with Christianity, I developed a much firmer understanding and appreciation for who I truly am. It also helped explain the reason why, as both a child and later as a young adult, I didn’t especially like Hebrew school, felt at times that attending synagogue services was burdensome, went through the motions to look, act and sound Jewish, but lacked any close bond with members of my adopted family or other Jews. I just never felt a comfortable “fit” in the Jewish mold. My birth mother, on the other hand, possessed an enormously deep faith and zealous devotion to Christ throughout her life and I am convinced she passed this “gene” along to me. . In fact, during her pregnancy with me, she regularly watched Bishop Fulton Sheen on television, as she thoroughly enjoyed his sermons--so much that she unexpectedly sent our daughter Natalie a Miraculous Medal as a Confir

mation gift with an accompanying note that it was “blessed by a Bishop that your mom may be familiar with.” She had been given the medal by my birth father and held on to it all those years. Lisa and I firmly believe that Bishop Sheen played a part in my conversion.

And so, with a renewed confidence in the probity of seeking the truth about myself and my faith, I immersed myself in learning more deeply about Catholicism. As a Jew, I was taught that we must fear Christ, his Teachings, and Catholic Doctrine as it sows confusion and is contrary to Jewish law and precepts. It had long been drummed into me that Catholicism was pernicious falsehood. (The deep fear and mistrust of Christianity caused members of my adopted father’s ultra-Orthodox family to literally break off and dispose of the crosses on the tops of the King pieces in chess games.) Imagine, therefore, the long-standing mindset I had to overcome in opening my mind and soul to allow Christ to enter my life. It certainly was a struggle, and despite all the reading I did, attending RCIA classes, chatting at length with the Dominican sisters who staffed our daughter’s school, our parish priests, contemplation, and praying for divine guidance, I just was not certain. By accepting Christ as my Savior and Catholicism as my faith would I be dishonoring my adoptive parents and their Jewish Heritage? I frequently experienced what Lisa and I jokingly called “God-Winks” or “Light

ning Strikes” that were intended by our Lord to show me I was heading in the right direction. Still, I wasn’t sure.

What was particularly challenging in my conversion journey? The Trinity. Shema Yisroel--”Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one.” How can ONE possibly equal THREE? The math doesn’t work! How does someone reconcile this? How can it be true? Until one day at Mass there was a woman sitting next to us in the pew. She was wearing a colorful sweater with a Chanukah dreidel on the front with the Hebrew letter “gimel.” In Hebrew, the letter “gimel” is also the number “3.” Another “God-Wink” sent in my direction. Okay, Father/Son/Holy Spirit, I hear you! (As Mass concluded, I approached the woman and she related that the sweater was a gift from a friend but she had absolutely no idea what the graphic on the front meant.)

But the last “A-ha” moment on my journey to the Catholic Faith that pushed me “over the edge” occurred when our family visited our good friend Father Christopher Vacarro at the Catholic Student Center at Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg. As we entered the reception area of the building, on the wall was a large painting depicting St. John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. The final “Lightning Strike” from above. I told Father I was ready to enter the Church. I received the Sacraments of Baptism,

Confirmation and First Communion on August 9, 2017, the Feast of Saint Edith Stein, Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Quite an appropriate date, don’t you agree? My long journey “home” was now complete. But my “new” life as a Catholic and disciple of Jesus Christ has just begun. Finding Truth really does matter, as it has caused me to attain a true recognition and understanding of myself and to daily experience an extremely close and comforting bond with Jesus and “Momma Mary,” who jointly provide me with clear direction and spiritual strength that helps me strive to be a better person, bolsters the love, devotion and respect in our family, and guides me on the path to ultimately achieving salvation. I continue to study and learn more about Christ and our religion every day--that makes me exceedingly anxious and excited to share the “good news” with others so they, too, may come to experience the same comfort, realization of self, satisfaction and spiritual joy that I have found. If you are reading this story, and there is someone in your life whom you would like to find the Truth of Catholicism or come back to the Faith, my wife would like me to mention that she had been praying for 17 years for me, holding fast to the words of St. Paul that God wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” (See 1 Timothy: 2:4.) Come join me! ”