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Thursday, April 16, 2009

How does it happen?

These days you can never know for sure who it really is that is davening next to you in shul.

For Jerusalem's Hebrew-speaking Catholics, Jewish identity is cardinal

"...Neuhaus, the community's vicar, is a 46-year-old Jesuit priest raised as a Jew in South Africa. His path to Catholicism began when his parents sent him to study in a yeshiva in Jerusalem as a teenager. Neuhaus told of how in Jerusalem, he met a Russian-Orthodox nun related to the family of the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. "I was 15, and she was 89," Neuhaus carefully explained. "She had an incredible influence over me from a spiritual standpoint. She radiated the presence of God. Her influence raised many spiritual questions about my faith." Neuhaus promised his parents that he would discuss his religious direction with them and wait 10 years before making a final decision. He did as he promised, converting and becoming ordained at the age of 26.... "Many of our members attend synagogue as an act of solidarity."

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