When Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ, was in Jesuit studies in the 1970s, he experimented with drugs and dabbled in New Age phenomena such as astrology.
Today, after many intervening years of prayer and study and maturation, it's a different story: he's now a staunch defender of traditional Catholicism, and his weekly programs on prayer, Scripture, the Rosary, and Pope John Paul II's encyclicals reach 105 million homes worldwide via the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). When the Catholic cable network's founder, Mother Angelica, suffered a stroke in 2001, he took over her program slots.
"I definitely consider it to be God's grace that I'm still a Jesuit," says Pacwa.
Pacwa, who speaks twelve languages and has a doctorate in Old Testament from Vanderbilt, recounted his journey from spiritual rebel to traditionalist in his semi-autobiographical book Catholics and the New Age. It attacks the idea that such phenomena have any place in Catholic spirituality.
Fr. Mitch is also bi-ritual, Latin and Maronite Rites. Last year, he conducted a very successful retreat for the Eparchy of St. Maron.