Falling off my horse: The conversion of a Daily Kos Progressive to Devout Catholic

For the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul.

Up until shortly after I returned to the Catholic Church in 2006, I used to be a very involved political progressive. I was truly not important nor specially influential. But in no particular order, I marched in a peace march in DC next to Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton. I canvassed door to door for John Kerry through MoveOn.org, and at Madison’s biggest rally ever I was right up front. I went for jaunts in the countryside with marijuana and free speech activist and perennial political candidate Ben Masel. I interviewed John Edwards. I begged journalist Bill Moyers to come out of retirement, and when he did, he told me “your message made the difference.” I was so much a part of the big progressive website Daily Kos, that founder Markos Moulitsas-Zuniga offered to pay my airfare to their national convention, and was a founding member of the religiously pluralistic Daily Kos “faith & politics” spinoff site, Street Prophets.

Now, none of this means I was someone important, and though there are a lot of “name” people in this post it is mostly because it’s such a crazy story. I was having a good time (progressives are all about having a good time), I was an obsessive enough internet user to become well known on these online communities, I was trying to do good and to be a loving person according to what I believed then, and oh boy I was more than just a bit confused about some things, for instance an unborn child is a person from the start and marriage is between a man and a woman.

And now, I’m a daily Mass going pro life Catholic, deeply concerned about religious freedom–and yes, still concerned for the poor. Look at my blog. But believe it or not, God was forming me through my experience with the progressives.

For the feast of the conversion of St Paul, I present the illustrated story, which is highly condensed to the most interesting parts and the parts I have photos of.

continue at Laetificat Madison