How it Began

They say everyone loves an origin story. The Beginning Apologetics series of booklets began in 1993. For me, that was a big year for little things. I had my first little child, bought my first little home, and accidently self-published my first little volume: Beginning Apologetics.

It was meant to be a study guide for an apologetics course Father Frank Chacon and I offered at his local parish. At its conclusion, the enthusiastic attendees pestered us for copies of our lecture notes. So I gathered up our material and organized it into a single, thin 32-page booklet. We had a local copy place print up a few dozen copies. That’ll be that, I thought. Then demand exploded.

In the Beginning...

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story really began 8 years earlier, in 1985, at my freshman orientation at Hillsdale College. Impressed by its conservative reputation, I had applied to and been accepted at Hillsdale, but because it was 1700 miles away from my New Mexico desert, I hadn’t even visited it. My first day was a blur of forms and dorms and GREEN everywhere. The various campus groups held mixers, the better to introduce the freshmen to the dizzying array of activities. Campus Crusade was there, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Pretty girls abounded, so naturally I attended. These evangelical gatherings had a formula: a little guitar, a little testimony, and then—the best part—a little discussion in small groups where I hoped to get some face time with the ladies.

The Questions I Couldn't Answer

But a curious thing kept happening. When we would introduce ourselves and our denominational backgrounds, upon hearing I was a Catholic, my group would form a little semi-circle around me and start peppering me with questions: “Why do you Catholics call your priests ‘father,’ when Matthew 23:9 says ‘call no one on earth your father’?” “Why do you Catholics pray to Mary and the saints, when 1 Timothy 2:5 says Jesus is the ‘one mediator between God and man’”? “Why do you Catholics worship Mary?” I felt like a human piñata being pummeled in turn to explode all the childish fancies and saccharine lies inside.

I Began to Learn for Myself

My embarrassment led me to question my faith. My evangelical classmates seemed to know their Bibles back-to-front. They seemed so in love with Jesus. By contrast, I felt uneducated and unserious as a Christian. Were my evangelical friends, as many of them became, right? Was Catholicism filled with man-made doctrines and unbiblical errors? Was my childlike trust in my family and their Catholic faith a fiction, a childhood tale like the Easter Bunny?

Wisdom From My Dad

Then I remembered something my father told me before I jumped into my little Datsun truck and drove to Michigan. He said two things that quite literally saved my faith. He said something like: “You’re going to hear lots of new idea, lots of claims about the Church. But I want you to remember two things: (1) the Catholic Church is Christ’s Church. It alone can prove 2000 years of historical, doctrinal, and apostolic continuity. (2) Therefore, AS Christ’s Church, it must be true. And you can never prove something true to be false. Never.” That’s right, I thought. The truth will come out. If the Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ, it cannot be false. It cannot be proved to be in error. So there must be answers to these objections. I’ll put my dad’s claims to the test. I’ll put the Church to the test.

I Searched, I Questioned, I Learned

So I started to look for answers. I found my Bible and broke out my Baltimore Catechism, which had more Bible verses than I remembered about these topics. I came across an audio of Scott Hahn’s powerful conversion story. I devoured Karl Keating’s excellent Catholicism and Fundamentalism. I discovered Frank Sheed in our local library, and my education in apologetics began in earnest.

A New Apologist

I saw that, time and time again, objections against Catholicism could be clearly and convincingly answered by appeals to scripture, history, and common sense. As my evangelical friends hit me with questions, I’d research the topics and come back to them with answers. So they’d load me up with new questions.

This thrilling cycle continued for 4 wonderful years. And I’m forever grateful to my evangelical friends for their love, zeal, and patience. Yes, I got a degree in Philosophy, but my true “major” was rediscovering the truth, beauty, and reasonability of my Catholic faith. The more I learned about my faith, the more I burned to live it well, and share it charitably.

San Juan Catholic Seminars was founded

My zeal for apologetics continued after graduation. I wanted to do more, share more. My dad and I founded a group, San Juan Catholic Seminars, to bring in out-of-town apologists like Steve Wood and Patrick Madrid for talks. Local interest skyrocketed. When a newly-ordained, apologetics-loving priest, Father Chacon, came to town, he and I decided to offer a joint seminar at his local parish. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The Early Years

Those first few years, my mom Peggy would help answer phones and mail out booklets. Father Chacon and I continued to offer seminars, and then we’d turn our handouts and notes into the next volume in the series. Before long, our booklets were in hundreds of Catholic bookstores all over the country, including Catholic Answers, Leaflet Missal and many more.

The Beginning Apologetics Series

I describe these booklets as “everything I wished I’d known about Catholicism before I went to college, but didn’t.” For years, our only advertising was word-of-mouth: bookstore-to-customer; family-to-family; friend-to-friend. That’s a credit to the simplicity and clarity of the booklets, something Father Chacon insisted on. My favorite review was from a wife: “Your booklets are so simple and clear, EVEN MY HUSBAND will read them.” Over the years, a few things have changed. We’ve had to charge more. We’ve included pictures and full-color covers. We moved from distributing them ourselves in a home office to distributing them through Catholic Faith Store, an online Catholic Gift store owned by my sister Caroline and her husband Rich. But as long as there are questions—and there will be until the Second Coming—we’ll try to equip you for your adventure of Beginning Apologetics.

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