Last night Catholic blogger and author Mark Shea ^[1] gave a talk at our parish on “How I Got This Way,” which included his conversion story as well as some teaching about how the Catholic Church contains the fullness of truth, and thus comes under attack from every angle by those who accept only bits and pieces of the truth.

I organized this event and talked my pastor into having Mark speak here. But I have to admit, I was a bit nervous beforehand. I knew that Mark was a great writer and that he was informative, funny and devoted to the Church on his blog. But I had never heard him speak or met him personally, so I had no idea if he would be any good speaking to a crowd. I had images in my head of some introverted geek who mumbled and said “um…” a lot. Fortunately, my fears were completely unfounded: Mark is a great speaker – even more funny in person than on his blog – and I would highly recommend him to anyone looking for a Catholic speaker. I had numerous people approach me after his talk to thank me for bringing him to the parish.

I also got to spend some time with Mark and found him to be a great, down-to-earth, guy. It appears that what you see on the blog is really who he is in “real life.”