My Birthday: Deo Gratis - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

I was born in 1962, twelve years into my parents’ marriage. They were older when I came along, and their lives were already marked by hardship and sacrifice. My father had served as a corporal in Korea, all of my uncles fought in World War II, and my grandfather immigrated from Germany fatherless during World War I. My mother, who grew up in Galveston, remembered watching the girls her age walking off to Catholic school in their uniforms, something she longed for and later passed on to me.
My father liked to say he wasn’t raising a hippie. At the time, I didn’t even know what a hippie was, but I knew I didn’t want to be one. My parents made countless sacrifices to send me and my siblings to Catholic schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade. My dad was not Catholic, but he supported my mother’s conviction. There were no fancy houses, bass boats, or country club memberships. Their hope was simply that their children would have a better life.
My father used the GI Bill to study …