Early childhood

I was born in Findlay Ohio in 1956 to two wonderful parents, Paul E Alge and Margaret “Rose” Warren Alge. Dad was a cradle Catholic and went to St Michael’s when he was young. Mom was Southern Baptist. She was divorced.

Because Dad wasn’t earning enough money to support us, we moved to Birmingham AL. It was there that I was baptized. My baptism happened at St Bernard Catholic Church in Birmingham, in the Inglenook neighborhood. The church is no longer Catholic. I was 3 when I was baptized, in 1959.

I remember vaguely of going to mass when I was still very young, I may have been 5 or 6. Then we stop going. I vaguely remember my dad said he was excommunicated because Mom was divorced. So, we didn’t go to any church for a while.

The previous paragraph is very critical to staying away from the Catholic Church. It was very hurtful to me as a child and later a young adult that Dad was thrown out of church just for marrying my mother. I know now why and accept Catholic teaching as right and just, but at that time, because I didn’t understand, it was hurtful.

Later childhood

My aunt lived next to us, and she was Presbyterian and a Sunday School teacher. She started taking me to Sunday School when I was 8. Later, my parents started going. I remember Dad saying it was close to the Catholic Church. As I reflect on it now, I’d say it wasn’t anywhere close to the Catholic teaching.

Occasionally, we would go on vacations to Findlay Ohio, my birthplace. I got to visit with my grandmother, aunts and uncles and other family. I got to go to mass with my grandmother and I still remember making the sign of the cross using holy water. My grandmother had all kinds of stained-glass picture frames of the Blessed Mother Mary and Jesus, and I was fascinated with them. I would sit in the living room and just look at them.

During the 60’s, one of the most popular movies was the Sound of Music. Our class went to see it as a field trip and my parents also took me to see it. It is one of my favorite movies of all time. I was fascinated with the nuns. They looked so holy. When I would get to the age where I could drive, I would just go to the local monastery and just drive around it. I was at peace. This monastery became the cable television network known as EWTN.

When I reached 11, it was time for me to join the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church would not accept my Catholic baptism, so I had to be baptized again. When I was in RCIA, it was easy to get the baptism record of my Presbyterian baptism. My Catholic baptism took some work. I always thought I was baptized as an infant and that meant in Findlay Ohio. Through search, I found it at the Cathedral of St Paul in Birmingham AL since the church I was baptized in is no longer a Catholic parish.

During this time, I would have visions of altar during sleep. I saw candles, incense but I didn’t know what to make of it. I mentioned it to my mom and aunt, and they just dismissed it.

Adulthood

After high school, I began having a desire to become Catholic. I mentioned it to my dad, and he had no problem with it. He never wanted to leave the Catholic Church. Whenever he prayed, he made the sign of the cross and always said Catholic blessings. I used to frequent this Catholic bookstore and buy bibles and some books. I was serious. I knew it was the Church founded by Jesus Christ. There was one problem. I let my fear of mass stop me. If I had a Catholic friend or anyone, I knew that was Catholic, I think I would have had the confidence to go to mass. I now see it that I didn’t put my complete trust in Jesus Christ. I let Satan trick me.

In 1986, I was almost killed in an automobile accident. Ironically it was on the day of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. I was coming home from a client’s home after spending the day with them teaching them about their computer and heading to school for my evening class and a drunk driver hit my car head on. I started to spend more time at church and getting more involved in the Presbyterian Church and in 1988, I was ordained as an elder. Since the accident happened on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, I feel certain that the Blessed Mother prayed for me that day as I was told it was a miracle that I lived through it.

I’d say about this time, I ran into Mother Angelica at a local Sears and Roebuck store. She was with several nuns and got to talk to her for a few minutes. It didn’t take long to notice how holy she was. Her aura had holy all around her. While I was Protestant, I knew who Mother Angelica was. Since EWTN was local to us, I would occasionally watch EWTN and enjoyed watching Mother Angelica.

One of my favorite activities as a young man was bowling. I started when I was in high school. Not long after graduation, I ran into a beautiful girl that I wanted to know better. Unfortunately, she was recently married. However, we became good friends and friends with her husband, but I didn’t approve of how he treated her. I would never try to break up a marriage, but they began having marital problems, they never had a marriage. She would confide in me about everything, but I kept our friendship platonic until after the abuse became physical and she wanted to leave and wanted to spend her life with me. So, I told her how I felt, and she left him and got a divorce. We didn’t stay chaste and a couple of days prior to the divorce becoming final, she delivered our first son. We married 8 days later. We would have another son 3 years later then we did something that we shouldn’t have done according to Catholic teaching, but we weren’t Catholic then. She had a tubal ligation procedure after delivering our 2^nd son.

We moved around different Presbyterian Churches, trying to find one that had children or had Sunday school for children. The church I grew up in was now an older generation and had no children except for mine and they weren’t about to have a class for one or two children.

In 2002, both my parents passed away, two months apart. One month later, my aunt passed away. The following year, my mother-in-law passed away. I handled my grief by spending more time serving my church, which included committees, leading worship and teaching Sunday School

In 2006, I lost my job as a computer programmer. Initially, I couldn’t find any employment and I used my free time very poorly. I let Satan tempt me and I got consumed into lots of sins of the flesh. This went on for many years. Thankfully, God reached out to me, and I got away from it, but pornography remained. But at least I was going to church again.

Later life

One of the things dear to my heart is life. I do not approve of anyone killing another unless it is to defend another human life. So, when many political candidates started supporting abortion, I voted pro-life. When I heard about the movie “Unplanned”, I planned to go see it at the theater. Unplanned is a movie about Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director who left after finally seeing abortion for it really is, baby murder.

I went to see Unplanned one afternoon . I wanted my wife to go also but due to the content, she stayed home. Within 5 minutes, I was in tears. How could anyone support abortion? By the end of the movie, I felt God was telling me something. I thought initially He wanted me to speak for the unborn, which I had been doing, but to go further and explain things from a biblical point of view since many pro-choice advocates twist scripture to fit their stance.

I had been using a Bible software for the computer and smartphones called Olive Tree since the Palm pilot days. I decided to start using this other free software but you can pay for the resources you need, called Logos. This seemed to really help me in my studies.

Within 5 or 6 weeks of seeing Unplanned, I was planning to ask my pastor of the Presbyterian Church about beginning a pro-life ministry. Before I could ask him, the denomination posted on social media that they support abortion in cases such as incest or rape. They also said all leaders must agree to this. I was an ordained elder and I could not agree to it. I went to church the following Sunday and felt so alone, like God wasn’t there. After that Sunday, I never stepped foot in that church or any Protestant church for Sunday worship again.

I started spending the next few weeks in prayer and study. What I wanted was truth and I didn’t get it at my church. But which church? The Catholic Church wasn’t on the radar as because of what I thought was the teachings on divorce, that people with divorces were not welcome. Also, the Catholic teaching on Mary was confusing because I couldn’t find scripture to support the Catholic view of Mary.

I researched other denominations. They all had something that seemed to disagree with the Bible. I started noticing lots of pro-life advocates that were Catholic and I started developing an interest but not sure why. What I thought about the Catholic Church didn’t seem to follow scripture even though I understood it as the Church founded by Jesus Christ. I had a lot of questions.

Several members of a pro-life group was suggesting other denominations and pushing me away from Catholicism. The more they pushed, my interest seemed to grow. So I decided to read some books on Catholicism.

I had no idea what books to start with. My requirements was not to read anything written by Protestants because I felt they might not be completely honest about it. I had a Kindle Unlimited subscription so I searched for books on Catholicism and found one, “Waking up Catholic”, I forget the authors name. I read it completely that first night and nothing scared me away so Catholicism was a possibility. The issue about my wife’s divorce still wasn’t resolved.

After I heard about Unplanned, I started following Abby Johnson on social media. In one of her posts in mid year 2019, she mentioned she was Catholic having changed from the Episcopal Church she went to during her days at Planned Parenthood. I thought “How can this be?”. She was divorced because of the movie and her book by the same name. This got me to start checking on divorce within the Catholic Church. I started googling divorce and Catholic and I came up with something on annulments. I never heard about annulments, not within the Catholic Church. So I started reading up on annulments and found out my whole life was a lie. The Catholic Church never rejected the divorced, it was only my misconceptions. I felt so bad. Then I came across the verse 1 Timothy 3:15 which says the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. It was at that very moment that I had to be Catholic. Within a week of this confession, my 40 year obsession with pornography was gone. No desire for anything but Jesus Christ. It was a miracle because I’ve tried to stop for years.

I went to my wife to discuss this. We never discussed the Catholic Church all the years we’ve known each other, which was about 44-45 years at that point, the 15 years during her first marriage as a friend and 29 years as my wife. She told me she always wanted to be Catholic. I had no idea. I should have realized it because she bought several CDs of Gregorian chant music.

Since we lived in Huntsville Alabama at the time, the closest Catholic Church was Good Shepherd Catholic Church so we contacted them to discuss annulments and the possibility of becoming Catholic. After talking with the deacon who handles annulments, we both sign up for the RCIA class which would start at the end of August that year.

We started to go to mass. I read everything I could get my hands on about Catholicism. That first Sunday, I finally saw what I saw in that vision when I was a child. The candles, incense, altar, although there was no incense that Sunday. I knew this is where God wanted me to be.

Mass was hard to comprehend at first. Everything seemed awkward but if God wanted me here, he would guide me. I started memorizing some of the responses. I still remembered how to cross myself when I went to mass as a child.

I continued reading everything about Catholicism. Catholicism for Dummies, watching videos by Bishop Barron. Then a name popped up on a Facebook group. Dr Scott Hahn. I did a little research on him. He was a Presbyterian minister in the same Presbyterian denomination, Presbyterian Church USA. He converted to Catholicism many years ago. I discovered his book, Rome Sweet Home. So I bought it. It didn’t convert me because I was already converted but it confirmed what I felt in my heart, that Catholicism is the true Church. He mentioned something I hadn’t heard before, early church fathers. So I got some books on the early church fathers. Wow! The early church was Catholic!

I think it was about this time I upgraded my Logos software to their Catholic version, Verbum. It has helped me on my journey. Lots of patristics within the software.

Mary was a person I couldn’t understand at the beginning. I accepted her according to Catholic teachings, but understanding was a different thing. I’ve discovered it is for many Protestants. One night, I couldn’t find anything to watch on television. We had a subscription to Formed, accessible through our Roku streaming device. I started browsing and found a Bible study on Mary from Dr Brant Pitre. I spent several nights on this study. It finally made sense! It comes from the Old Testament!

Within a month of attending RCIA, my sister announced she was diagnosed with cancer. She lived in Blountsville, about an hour from us. She wanted me to drive her to her treatments each day. So that kept us busy until about Thanksgiving.

In early December, my wife was forced to drop out of the RCIA class. My sister stopped her treatment for cancer and wanted my wife to be her caretaker, which also meant she would take care of her husband, who had Parkinson’s and my sister’s son by previous marriage, who was mentally retarded. I stayed at our home with our adult son and continued RCIA.

After the 1^st week of Advent, we started with the Catholic teaching in RCIA, prior, it was generic Christianity. We learned the rosary. Praying to Mary was a new experience and wasn’t sure about it. I think God knew that and showed me it was okay. There was a child in Texas I think, that the mother was forcing a sex change therapy on. So I decided to pray to Mary through the rosary, my first. Within one hour mind you, the governor of Texas stopped it. I knew then it was okay to pray to Mary.

Throughout the RCIA process, I kept studying and got on social media. I don’t recommend for new converts to do this, but I started to defend Church teaching on social media and some Catholics thought I was a cradle Catholic. I had lots of Protestants attack me on the public areas of social media and especially the private messaging. Some would send me videos from Mike Winger, James White, Mike Gendron, and others. I was in a spiritual attack. But with God, I overcame those attacks. I rejected the Protestant claims. Mostly, because I was Protestant and knew what they taught and the early church didn’t believe the Protestant beliefs.

Even while with my sister, my wife finished the paperwork on her annulment and I took it to church so it could be submitted. It was difficult to get witnesses and she put me down, my sister, and another friend. Most that knew about their marriage was dead or wouldn’t do it.

It was getting to Lent and I was concerned about my wife. She was still at my sister’s house, unable to go anywhere and my sister wouldn’t let her sleep. I didn’t know what to do. In March, I went to my first confession with Fr Tim and discussed this with him. He mentioned Visiting Angels which I didn’t think we could afford. I continued to pray for her.

About 2 or 3 weeks after my confession, Covid hit. All churches were shut down and my confirmation was in limbo. I started to watch daily mass on EWTN and get to know those priests. With us living in Huntsville at the time, we were 2 hours away.

During Holy week, I think God answered my prayers. My brother-in-law had to be rushed to the hospital, came home, and it took 3 of us to get him to the bathroom. I knew my wife couldn’t possibly take care of both by herself. We called Visiting Angels and they started the Monday after Easter. My sister wasn’t pleased. She developed an attachment to my wife, not in a sexual sense but in a need sense. My wife went back home finally.

I was finally confirmed the Sunday before Pentecost. My wife was there and sad she couldn’t be confirmed too. The annulment hadn’t been accepted at this point.

In June 2020, my sister died. We continued to have Visiting Angels there for her husband and my nephew. My wife signed up for RCIA again and I went with her. She kept her original sponsor which is now a great friend to both of us.

In July 2020, the diocese accepted the annulment application. They sent questionnaire to me and I wrote a book. Later, they said my testimony was great because I went into detail about the questions. They mailed a questionnaire to my sister but she had died.

She started RCIA in late August or early September. We went every week except one week we had bad weather and stayed home. In February, the priest notified my wife that the annulment would not be granted prior to Easter so she wouldn’t be confirmed at Easter. There were lack of witnesses submitting answers to the questions and our deacon wrote a letter of recommendation to the diocese to see if that would help. It seemed to because they closed testimony in the case shortly thereafter.

We moved to Blountsville AL in October 2020 to care for the family members. It was costing $10K every month. So we were an hour away from our church, and there wasn’t any parish around. Then on the way to Walmart, I passed by the entrance to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. This is where Mother Angelica is buried and home of the Poor Clare nuns. So I started attending daily mass there and occasionally at EWTN in Irondale.

I continued praying for the annulment. Somehow, the date June 30 got in my head, it’s my wife’s birthday. I felt she would get her annulment on her birthday. I was slightly wrong. She got it a day before.

Now to marriage prep. Because we lived an hour away, the deacon decided we could watch a few videos of “Beloved” on Formed. We would watch the videos and take notes. We watched 2 videos then made an appointment with the deacon to discuss them. We made 2 or 3 appointments then we were told we had to wait on paperwork from the diocese to allow my wife to remarry. On the morning of August 9, 2021, the day of the daily mass where my wife was to be confirmed, we were met by both deacon and Father. He offered to confirm her then our marriage would be convalidated. We had to get one person in the congregation to serve as the other witness.

We continue to live out our Catholic faith by going to mass several times a week, well I do. My wife has some medical issues and goes to Sunday mass unless she isn’t feeling well. We participate in the Bible in a year and catechism in a year podcasts.

The Catholic Church has saved our lives! The Catholic Church has been a blessing to both of us!