Why I am Catholic

were very much the order of the day, but the spartan life was borne with humor-laced esprit de corps — except perhaps in the matter of shampoo. Marilou’s mom heavily diluted each bottle — on the theory that watered-down shampoo would go farther. Her daughters objected, “But Mom, we just end up using twice as much!”

Even in the family’s disagreements, I found much to admire. Still, I might’ve ended by concluding that Marilou’s family were just nicer people than my family and I were. Happily, the story doesn’t end there.

Marilou invited me to join her family at church.

I’d never been inside the local Catholic church, though our school bus passed the humble white frame building twice each day and our school days were punctuated by the ringing of its bells. None of that prepared me for what I would experience when I passed through the doors of St. Louis Catholic Church on a late April morning in 1967.

I think of the moment as the first expression of my Catholic gene. A coming home.

Within weeks, I’d begun private instruction that I assumed would lead to my baptism the following Easter. We were not a churchgoing family, but there was no particular hostility to the practice of faith. In fact, Mom read occasionally from the Bible she’d been given on the day she was confirmed in her Lutheran faith. And Dad frequently trumpeted that kids “should be allowed to make their own decisions about church.”

Turns out, Dad hadn’t meant that his kids were free to join “that” church. But it was St. Louis’ pastor who tapped the brakes on my conversion. As I came to the end of my period of instruction, Father urged delaying my baptism out of consideration for my parents’ feelings. He further asked me to spend time considering whether my eagerness to convert might be my “teenage rebellion.”

Nothing was lost in the waiting.

By Debbie Kaczmarek

MARILOU. The story of my being Catholic begins with that name.

It’s a decades-old story — and not an especially exciting one. I dusted it off recently, though, in response to an inquiry from our young pastor. I wished then — and now — that I could honestly include mention of a locution or two — or a vision, perhaps. I can’t. Still, there may be something in the ordinariness of my story that applies in this time when so many people identify as non-religious.

Marilou’s family farmed land at the opposite corner of our expansive rural school district. Still, I knew that the family was Catholic, for on Fridays, Marilou and her many siblings sat at the lunchroom tables occupied by students who could not consume school lunches, which ran heavily to Iowa beef and pork.

Maybe that was the initial attraction — that Marilou and I were from religious minorities. Catholics were scarce in our corner of Clay County; non-church-going households like mine were even less common. Or perhaps the connection was forged through music: Marilou, a grade ahead of me, was the creamy-voiced alto in several vocal ensembles in which I also sang. During my sophomore year, as we rehearsed after school and evenings for spring music competitions, Marilou invited me to join her family for supper.

That invitation planted the seed for my life as a Catholic.

Visiting Marilou’s home was my first experience of a home in which the Catholic faith was lived. It wasn’t a church-y place, though the farmhouse décor featured a crucifix and images of Jesus and Mary his mother, and meals were preceded by prayer. Frugality and discipline

The door to a Catholic life was opened to me by the simple hospitality of a farm girl. It was kept open — opened more widely — by the example of ordinary, faithful Catholics I encountered in the years before I joined the Church as a 21-year-old bride-to-be and in every day of the 50 years that have followed.

Kaczmarek retired from teaching English and speech to return to her farm roots. She and her husband, Duane, raise sheep and free-range chickens at St. Isidore Farm, their Rice County acreage. Lifelong involvement in the pro-life cause and interest in responsible public discourse led Kaczmarek to join in the founding of Speaking Proudly, an oratory contest for Minnesota high school girls. Parents of three grown children, the Kaczmareks are members of Immaculate Conception in Lonsdale.

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