Conversion of Avery Robert Dulles

Avery Robert Dulles is a graduate of Harvard and is the author of “A testimony to Grace.” From history courses in the middle ages and the renaissance, Avery seems to have gotten interested in medieval philosophy; and this led to the study of Plato and Aristotle. The inadequacies of the philosophy of these thinkers, profound as they were, were not found in the philosophical systems of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Under their guidance, he came to see that God of philosophy could be none other than the God of the Christian revelation.

This led to a diligent reading of the New Testament to learn more about Christ and the teachings He commissioned his followers to transmit to all generations. Desiring to be incorporated into the living Christ, he turned more and more to Catholicism. He became aware that the Catholic Church was not a fossil of the middle ages but a living force in the world today; a force drawing open minds to her as the magnet draws steel.

Reading, pondering and praying, he spent her last year in college: he had now begun to realize that one’s knees one comes best to know God and to love Him. Knowing no Priest, he arranged through a Catholic bookstore to meet one and receive instructions.

Convinced of the Divinity of Christ, the existence of a visible Church founded by Him, and the identity of that Church with the Catholic Church, he entered the fold and became a priest in the Society of Jesus.