I had “left-the-Church,” doctrinally in June of 1958. The event occurred when Karen and I married in the First Congregational Church of Sandusky. On the other hand, I had become a “lapsed Catholic” several years before, while I was a student at Kent State University. The process had begun during my Freshman year. It was not a problem during the time Karen and I dated, at least not for us. Her parents were concerned I might, somehow, be a crypto-Catholic. That was not really the case. Yes, on occasion, I did attend Mass with college friends and may have considered myself to be a “cultural” Catholic, but not really a “believer.”
After our marriage, we continued to attend a Catholic Mass in the Sage Chapel of the Anabel Taylor Hall at Cornell. At the time, I thought it was interesting that the Anabel Taylor Hall housed the department of religion and the adjoining Myron Taylor Hall, the Law School.
The Chapel in Anabel Taylor was truly interdenominational. The “stage” area of the Chapel consisted of a turntable that could be rotated to reveal a Catholic altar, a Jewish bema, or a Protestant worship space depending upon the day and time of a service. I preferred observing the Mass, and Karen was willing to accompany me, since we both still believed in a Trinitarian God. It was also beneficial to both of us that the Director for the Newman Club was Fr. Donald Cleary, an ex-military chaplain and magnificent homilist. Even though I could not receive Communion, I enjoyed the weekend service we attended.
This was before the “left turn” in our lives.
In late summer, Karen and I had gone on a drive in the surrounding countryside. We always enjoyed the views of the hills of the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York and any opportunity to spend a few hours sightseeing the lakes and waterfalls of the region. One weekend, we were not too far from our new apartment on West Shore Drive when a car with an elderly diver approached us. He was returning home after a long trip and attempting his final turn into his driveway. However, being momentarily distracted, he turned directly into the front of our Ford which was about to pass him in the opposite direction.
Karen recalled the damage as being slight. I remembered an insurance reimbursement of about a thousand dollars. Fortunately, we agreed that neither of us suffered any significant physical harm. However, the incident did lead to a question and response that completely changed our lives over the next sixty years.
Karen wanted to know if I believed that, if I had died in the accident, would I go to heaven or to hell. Being raised by first-generation American parents who grew up in the traditional European cultures of Catholicism, I responded that, yes, I believed I would probably go to hell. Several years later, following what came to be known as the Second Vatican Council, my response might have been different. But the past is the past, and the future was not yet the present. Karen said she could not accept this negative result. She said we should be “remarried” in the Catholic Church. She did not want my belief to stand in the way of our union.
Technically we did not need to be “remarried,” rather, our marriage required that it be “convalidated” within the Church. We met with Fr. Cleary. Karen agreed to become a Catholic. We exchanged our vows taken in the presence of Fr. Cleary and two witnesses, Josie and Mario Marini, who had become close friends. Mario held a postdoctoral position in the Biochemistry Department. The event took place on September 26, 1958; our daughter was born exactly one year later. We continued to celebrate our marriage on June 22, but Deborah’s birthday has retained a double meaning for us to this day.
A car turns at the wrong moment and two lives turn at the right time.