Squanto and My Conversion

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Some 10 years ago, I started teaching. My first set of classes included an eleventh grade Bible class and a seventh grade "social studies" course. The phrase "social studies"--I explained recently to a visiting priest in our parish from Oxford--is the American way of saying "history". I think "social studies" makes it sound more scientific as if history were merely the by-product of men sitting around a fire, smoking pipes and telling stories. I, personally, think social studies sounds like the work of a fiction novelist. In my mind, I think of some kind of large, puppet master staring down upon society under a microscope.

Back to the point of how Squanto, the infamous Native American guide to the Pilgrims, has anything to do with my conversion to the Catholic religion.

About this time, 9 years ago, I began my lesson on the history of the Separatist movement that eventually culminated in the Mayflower's journey across the Atlantic. The textbook I was forced to use for this seventh grade class was put together by Bob Jones University. If you are not already familiar, Bob Jones University is an anti-Catholic, fundamentalist school. In turn, their books have no citations (fundamentalist) and make every effort to put down the Church in favor of "simple Christianity" or "Bible believers" (anti-Catholic). This chapter was no exception. In fact, I let my students tear out an entire section of one chapter because it was so blatantly anti-Catholic. Although I was by no means Catholic at the time, I knew that such rhetoric had no place in a history book, and that polemics was not in the best interest of the normal development of a young mind. Therefore, I told them to tear out the section. So in grandiose fashion, I allowed the students to march up to the front of the class and dispose of a part of their textbook in my trash can.

They loved it.

Once they all sat back down, we looked at the chapter again and to my surprise, the author allowed for one detail to slip through the cracks:

Catholic Squanto

Squanto was saved from slavery by monks. 

By MONKS!

Facts conveniently left out:
1. A Protestant sold him into slavery
2. The Monks were Catholic
3. Squanto was Catholic

History Fail. Social Studies success! Bob Jones University propaganda machine success! A seed toward the conversion of Brent to Catholicism...

...What?

I remember thinking to myself, "Self, isn't it weird that God is providentially using Catholic monks to help the establishment of the plymouth colony?"

I will confess that I did not run right out and beat the doors down of the nearest Cathedral and convert. Nope. However, what did happen in my heart was the gentle acknowledgment that God seemed to be using Catholics. When you formerly thought of Catholicism as "dead religion" that is a baby-step worth noting.

Duly. Noted.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL! GO TO MASS AND START YOUR DAY OF THANKSGIVING THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE!

(HT: Taylor Marshall)