On the feast of the Assumption on Sunday, let me relate the story of Douglas Hyde, a statesman, who was a dedicated communist and former editor of Britain’s communist paper.
Douglas Hyde was converted to Catholicism through the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
* * *
As the editor of their communist paper, he began to read all about the Catholic Church with the avowed intention of tearing it down in his writings.
But something happened as he tried to gather more weapons to destroy the church. The more he read, the more intellectually convinced he became of its truthfulness and origin as a divine institution.
* * *
But he could not yet bring himself to believe. Something was holding him back.
Link to Word Alive...
If this is the same Douglas Hyde who wrote the book "I Believed" then unfortunately Hyde left the Church because of its alleged conservatism. His passion was social justice not doctrine the obit said. Hyde died in 1996. The obit in The Independent had the following: "It was clear that Douggie's passion was social and economic justice rather than religious orthodoxy. Justice had inspired him as a Communist and it inspired him equally as a Catholic Christian.
ReplyDeleteIt was because he could not swallow the political selectivity of the present Pope, (Pope John Paul II) who has so often treated those supposed to be on the Left so harshly, that Douggie moved away from official Catholicism. On his last hospital admission form he listed himself as an 'agnostic Christian'". Sadly like many Catholics today especially on the left political orthodoxy trumps everything else.