Conversion StoriesJewish

Seth Cherney: Convert from Judaism

August 18, 2014 No Comments

Seth grew up, in California, in a nominal New Age Jewish family that celebrated Passover, Christmas and Buddha’s birthday. As a child he had no concept of the present of God in his life. He attended a Catholic high school and had his initial encounter with Church at the elevation of the host in the Holy Eucharist. At the age of 16 he knelt and prayed, “God, if you exist, let me know if Jesus Christ is your Son.” At the age of eighteen, he travelled to Rome to study philosophy at the Angelicum (Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas). After meeting St. John Paul II during one of the Pope’s monthly Rosaries, Seth was baptised at midnight, only feet from the Vatican walls. He spent five years with the Communauté Saint Jean in France, longer than that at Santa Croce (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross) in Rome studying systematic theology, and a year in Jerusalem studying the Bible and archeology at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. Seth is currently teaching systematics and moral theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville.