The Collegian

Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: Focus

A statue of mary and the child Jesus rests in fron of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Hillsdale. Easter Sunday saw six Hillsdale students baptized into the Catholic faith at the church.

Easter Sunday was particularly significant for six Hillsdale students who joined the Roman Catholic church that day. According to John Freeh, faculty adviser for the Catholic Society, they are part of a growing trend, both on campus and nationally, of conversion to Catholicism.

"Some people are attracted to the liturgy of the Church; some people like the system of moral teachings," he said. "I think some of it has to do with the previous pope, John Paul II. He did a good job of explaining Catholic teaching."

He credits the core curriculum with raising interest in Catholicism among students here.

"Hillsdale's Great Books [class] has a hand in wider exposure to Christendom and the history of Christianity," he said, noting that many of the converts he works with study humanities or languages.

Several of the students who he has seen convert while at Hillsdale have gone on to enter seminaries to become priests.

For senior Amanda Schleue, who entered Hillsdale as an atheist, the change has been dramatic.

"I am a totally different person," she said. "I think the only thing that has remained is I still love to work out. Everything has changed. The way I treat my friends and family is different; I adopted that forgiveness aspect of Christianity. I held grudges, I was a little bitter, and now it melted away. It doesn't exist anymore."

Schleue's journey to Catholicism took four years and began with relationships she developed in Chi Omega sorority. She noticed that two of her friends in particular, senior Michelle French and former student Rachel Duryea, lived very differently than she did.

"I decided to open my mind and be like, 'What is this, what's different about their lives?' And I realized it was Christ, it was Christianity."

She began praying, but was confused by the number of denominations in Christianity. Then she began dating a Catholic.

"I thought, 'Well, God put this person in my life, I might as well see what this is about,'" she said.

She began going to Mass and started taking one of the Catholic inquiry classes Freeh offers every year.

Continued...

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