One of last semester's students, a seminarian finishing what used to be called "philosophy" in the seminary, sent me an email today in which he told me:
- He enjoyed my class very much; and,
- He had put my name on a list of recommended instructors for other seminarians finishing their actual philosophy requirements; so,
- I would be getting a lot more seminarians in my classes; and,
- He hoped that this would lead to my conversion to Catholicism.
Had he told me that he hoped that I would convert from my life of sin or my skepticism or any number of other things, I might have understood, but now I find myself wondering what beliefs he thinks I have or what I may have said in a survey class on the philosophy of mind—other than that appeals to God don't help one in philosophy—that led him to believe that I was raised in no religion or another religion.
I mean, I could return to Catholicism in some sense, but I couldn't be converted to it. Why did he think that I chided him one day outside class on his lack of knowledge of Aquinas?
3 comments:
(1) through (3) are quite nice. My guess, with regard to (4), is that he wasn't drawing the distinction you are between converting and returning to Catholicism. Still, I wonder what lead him to concede you aren't a Catholic.
One of my favorite days at what I believe is the same university as your story was the day when, in a term teaching phil of God, a seminarian was in my office and was shocked to learn that I wasn't Catholic. He thought it clear from my teaching that I was. When he left, another student from the same course came in to object to my teaching the course given that I was obviously an atheist.
When you discuss then debate with the seminarian why you left the Church, as I inferred, I would love to be a fly on the wall to listen in..but right now I can't move because Butters is sleeping on my foot
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