Light On Dark Water

 I don't think I would have read this book had not our after-Mass study group chosen it. I was aware of it, of course: the conversion of former Presbyterians Scott and Kimberly Hahn had been well-publicized, and Scott's name was already known as a Catholic scholar/controversialist before this book appeared. (Some of you may share my surprise that said appearance was twenty years ago.) I had read a bit of Scott's work, and heard a couple of audio presentations in which he discussed his journey. And I didn't really think the book was likely to add much to what I knew. And, to be blunt, what I had seen of his work did not lead me to think that the book would have a lot of literary merit. That is, I didn't expect anything along the lines of The Seven-Story Mountain. He seemed to be intellectually very solid, but without a great expressive gift. And being pretty familiar with the general trajectory of Protestant-to-Catholic conversions, I thought I probably knew the story.

That's a rather awful thing to confess, I know, because the drama of every soul is unique and has its own kind of beauty. But it is how I felt. My expectations were confirmed when I learned that the book is in some significant part a transcription of several of those audio presentations. And I was more or less right about the literary merit. Rome Sweet Home did not win any prizes for its prose style: it's a plain, straightforward, conversational narrative. 

Still, I found it fascinating. And the a large part of the reason for that is Kimberly's story. The narrative switches back and forth between the two. Scott's is pretty straightforward. As a Presbyterian, he is zealously committed to the truth, and to the quest for true Christian doctrine. Once he opens himself to a serious and just appraisal of Catholic theology, his conversion seems almost inevitable. The Protestant reliance on scripture alone, for instance, collapses for him when he considers the question of where the authority of scripture comes from. It is the sort of intellectual process that is, in broad terms, pretty familiar to us. He doesn't have the very deep resistance that some Protestants (even merely cultural Protestants) do: it is strange and shocking to him that he becomes convinced of the truths of the Church, but it doesn't seem to shake him to his roots. 

Kimberly Hahn, on the other hand, is shaken to the roots. It is her story that makes this book more dramatic than I expected it to be. As the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who even as an adolescent was dedicated to her faith, she has very deep emotional roots in Protestantism. She was anti-Catholic, not in a hostile and bigoted way but in simply assuming that Catholicism is a corruption of Christianity. Scott's rapid progression toward the Church is extremely disturbing to her. She tries to ignore it, she tries to resist it, she tries to allow it while holding herself apart from it. She is torn desperately between her loyalty to her husband and her loyalty to her family. She prays that the cup be taken from her. 

Soon after the completion of their journey to Rome the Hahns became human advertisements for the Church, and specifically for Protestants who might be hearing the call. I assumed, for no particular reason, that it had been a fairly easy process for them, and that they had made the trip hand-in-hand. Not at all. Kimberly suffered real anguish in the process, and it came very close to destroying their marriage. That they did in the end emerge hand-in-hand is a tribute to the powers of love and grace. It's definitely a story worth reading.