I'm going to read you some pieces that are--
well, we'll say in the regular sphere of life kind of place.
And I was reared in South Bend, Indiana
at the University of Notre Dame.
And I was brought up Roman Catholic.
I'm 100% Irish.
I even hold an Irish passport, to tell you the truth.
So, I'm going to read you a poem called "Protestants," which
gives you a little view of how things
were in the early days for me.
"Protestants, they went to church.
It didn't count.
Adults attended Sunday school, but we were not
allowed to go with them.
Their ministers could marry and spoke English
through the service, which was not like mass because the bread
and wine stayed bread and wine.
We were the real thing.
We were taught that if you could persuade
a Protestant to become Catholic, it
meant free admission to heaven.
Eternal bliss became an easy home run.
A Protestant who became a Catholic
was a convert, meaning zealous to the point
that real Catholics seemed like Protestants beside him.
Every Catholic had this missionary calling,
the next best thing to a vocation to the religious life,
and anyone whose child became a priest or nun would get
to heaven automatically, minus any other noteworthy behavior,
or despite a life of sin.
There was a lot of pushing in those days, a lot
of good quick work with nets."