Portrait of the American Catholic Convert

Do you want to know the best way to ensure your child grows up to be a faithful, knowledgeable, and active Catholic? It’s simple: 1) Raise them as a Protestant AND 2) Only let them date Catholics and promise to pay all their wedding and honeymoon expenses if they get married in the Catholic Church. That second step is key.

All kidding aside (...that was not a serious attempt at Catholic parenting advice!), there are hundreds of thousands of non-Catholic parents in the United States today raising children who will one day grow up to be extraordinary Catholics (...as shown below). Some will join in the coming week as the Catholic Church in the United States will welcome more than 100,000 new adult Catholics into the faith through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).