I have read your articles on Roy Schoeman, and a friend recently told me that his conversion from Judaism to the Catholic faith was quite extraordinary. Can you tell me about it?
Schoeman was born in New York to German Jewish parents who had fled the Holocaust.
He was raised as a very devout Jew, receiving extensive Jewish religious education. After graduating from high school, he even briefly considered ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
But, after entering the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) his faith eroded. The highly scientific environment of the university caused him to fall first into agnosticism, and then into atheism, although he never lost his deep-seated Jewish identity.
He went on to attend the Harvard Business School, graduating with an MBA magna cum laude, literally “with great praise”. He later joined the faculty as a professor at the exceptionally young age of 29.
But despite having achieved such great worldly success, with its prestige and wealth, he felt empty, depressed, and with a profound lack of meaning in life. He found comfort, however, in communion with nature.
Then, when he was walking one day along a deserted beach on Cape Cod, he experienced what he describes as being in heaven and feeling the direct, physical presence and immense love of God for him.
It was a God who knew him and his name personally.
This led him to understand that life has an eternal purpose, that every choice matters, for better or worse, and that God had watched over him lovingly from his first moment.
Since this was not the rigid picture of God he had expected, he desperately wanted to know the name of this God.
He prayed: “Let me know your name … I don’t mind if you are Buddha, and then I’ll become a Buddhist; or Krishna, and I’ll be a Hindu; or Apollo, and I’ll be a Roman pagan, as long as you are not Christ and I have to become a Christian.”
Because of his strong Jewish upbringing, Christianity was the one path he actively resisted.
Exactly one year to the day later, he was asleep when he experienced a vivid dream or vision.
He felt a hand on his shoulder that led him into a room where he was left alone with a young woman of indescribable beauty. He instantly knew, without being told, that she was the Blessed Virgin Mary.
He describes her voice as being “composed of that which makes music, music,” and her presence lifted him into a state of ecstasy.
Mary offered to answer his questions. Too proud to admit that he didn’t know the Hail Mary, he asked her what her favourite prayer was.
She told him it was “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”
This is, of course, the prayer on the Miraculous Medal, which was revealed by Our Lady to St Catherine Labouré in 1830.
Through this experience Schoeman realised that the divine grace and love he had experienced on the beach the previous year had come through Jesus Christ and Mary, and that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, whom all Jews were awaiting.
When he woke up, he was completely in love with Mary, and he was determined to be the most authentic Christian possible.
But, at the time, he knew nothing about the differences between the Christian denominations.
He first approached Protestant churches but found they did not have Mary.
Then he went to Marian shrines, where there was often a Mass, and he felt at home when he heard the psalms being read.
He also wanted to receive Christ in Holy Communion. This naturally led him to the Catholic Church, which he entered four years later, in 1992.
He says that one Catholic priest whom he approached told him he was better off remaining a good Jew.
In answer to this, he says that some Catholics are reluctant to share their faith with non-Catholics.
But Catholics, in his words, are sitting on a pile of gold, which non-Catholics want, and Catholics are afraid to give it to them. This is simply a lack of love for them.
He sees his conversion from Judaism to the Catholic faith not as a change of religion, but as coming to the fulfilment of Judaism, since the long-awaited Messiah is in fact Jesus Christ.
