Forums: Conversion Rate

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A lawyer for a runaway Christian convert from Ohio who was also an illegal immigrant says the 18-year-old woman has gained permanent residency in the United States. Kort Gatterdam, a lawyer for Rifqa Bary, said Tuesday the news means Bary can now start applying for a driver's license, Medicaid coverage and college scholarships. Gatterdam says Bary, a native of Sri Lanka, received her permanent residency card last week and can apply for citizenship in five years.

Question: My sister was baptized and has since married and had a child. My mother claims the child is Jewish, but how could that be? If Judaism is a religion, if someone leaves it, she's no longer Jewish, right? Response: Logically, I would have to agree with you. If Judaism is a religion, then someone who doesn't believe in the religion should be no longer Jewish. The reality, however, is that it doesn't work that way. Throughout the Tanach, we find Jews breaking every facet of their covenant with G‑d, joining and forming all sorts of idolatrous cults and heathen...

NEW YORK – Anne Rice has had a religious conversion: She's no longer a Christian. "In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control," the author wrote Wednesday on her Facebook page. "In the name of ... Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen." Rice, 68, is best known for "Interview With a Vampire" and other gothic novels. Raised as a Catholic, she had rejected the church early in her life but renewed her faith in recent years and in 2008 released the memoir "Called Out...

The Knesset Law Committee approved the first step of a new conversion-to-Judaism law – yet another step in an issue that has been controversial since the establishment of the State. It stipulates, for the first time, that conversions must be according to Jewish Law. The committee, by a 5-4 vote, allowed the latest conversion proposal to be voted on in the Knesset for its first reading. If the bill passes, it then returns to the committee for emendations, if necessary, followed by two more readings in the Knesset. If it passes these stages, it becomes law.

The True Account of Prisoner Claude Newman (1944) by John Vennari, from the March 2001 issue of “Catholic Family News.” The following true story of Claude Newman took place in Mississippi in 1944. The account was told by Father O'Leary, a priest from Mississippi, who was directly involved with the events. He has left for posterity an audio recording it. Claude Newman was a Negro man who worked the fields for a landowner. He had married when he was 17 years old to a woman of the same age. One day, two years later, he was out ploughing the fields. Another...

Q: What does Islam do to the liberal psyche? A: Confuses it. The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals. They’ve convinced themselves that the best way to do that in general is to defend the cultures that are non-white. But what they forget, and what they’re being confronted with, is that non-white cultures contain misogynistic, collectivist, tribal, gay-unfriendly and female-hostile traditions. And so they’re confused: on the one...

Bus ads ask 'Leaving Islam?' * From correspondents in New York * From: AP * May 27, 2010 5:51AM THE questions on the ads aren't subtle: Leaving Islam? Fatwa on your head? Is your family threatening you? Ads carrying those phrases are appearing on at least 30 New York City buses, paid for by a conservative activist and the organisations she leads. The activist, Pamela Geller, says the ads are aimed at Muslims who are already contemplating leaving the faith. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority says the ads don't violate any of its guidelines.

Sure, it was explained to me when I converted that the gate would be narrow, but I had no idea. Born “nothing,” I completed my adult catechism and chose to become a Catholic in 2000, to the thinly veiled displeasure of people close to me. Archbishop Fulton Sheen put it right when he said, “There are not over a hundred people in the US that hate the Catholic Church, there are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing.” Now the horrific replay of the 2002 clerical...

March 22 Fr. Donald Calloway Former Episcopal FROM Aquinasandmore blog We recently had the opportunity to interview Fr. Donald Calloway M.I.C., well-known Marian priest, popular speaker and presenter, and author of the new book No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy.Our interview:Father, our readers and customers know your name from your many books and talks, but can you give us some more information about your background?IÂ’m a convert to the Catholic faith. I was born in 1972 to non-Christian parents; my parents were not members of any religion. When my mother remarried I was adopted and baptized into the...

This morning my devotions took me to the final chapters of John (which, to those who know the reading plan I’m using this year, is an admission that I’m a few days behind). We find such poignant little stories in these chapters, stories like Peter and John running to the empty tomb, Thomas falling on his face before the risen Lord, Jesus restoring Peter after his three denials. There is one story among them, though, that I love most of all. Mary Magdalene has come to Jesus’ tomb and is distressed to see that his body is gone, the stone...

After reading some more Koran tonight, I had an epiphany. I realized that some of the worst parts of the Koran were similar to worst parts of the Christian Bible. I now believe many parts of both were misinterpreted. While I realize that Islam has been violent throughout its history, so has Judeism and Christianity (think Crusades). I'm not sure I believe in the 72 virgin promise, but I am starting to get Mohammed's believe in a better after-life. I need to read more. That said, our world has gone to shit. There can be a better place for those...

Hello! My name is Father Jay Kythe. I am the pastor of the Church of St. Pius V in Cannon Falls and St. Joseph’s in Miesville. I wanted to tell you a little about myself. I was born in 1969 in New Orleans to parents from India. They arrived two years before I was born, desiring a better life for their family. My father came to become a professor of mathematics at the University of New Orleans, and my mother is a stay-at-home mom. I have one older brother, who is now married and lives near Los Angeles. They wanted...

Isabella and Lisa Miller Alexandria, Va., Jan 5, 2010 / 06:13 am (CNA).- In a case showing some ramifications of the legal recognition of same-sex unions, a Virginia woman has disobeyed a Vermont court order to turn over sole custody of her biological daughter to her former lesbian partner.Lisa Miller conceived and gave birth to her daughter Isabella through artificial insemination in 2002 while living in a same-sex civil union with Janet Jenkins in Vermont. Miller left Jenkins and homosexual practice a year later and converted to an evangelical form of Christianity, the New York Times reports.Jenkins brought a...

Brit HumeBrit Hume stated that he does not believe that Tiger WoodsTiger Woods’ Buddhist beliefs have the resources by which to find full recovery from his wayward lifestyle.

My new son, Jeff, is out of jail, as of last February. Now this Christmas he put up the tree with his two children—Haley and Jeff Jr. I saw them last evening. When I walked into the house, there the three of them were sprawled across the living room floor playing a board game. Haley is 8. Jr. is 11. Jeff Sr. is 35.