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From Lesbian Atheist to Stay-at-Home Mother of Six: Quebec Journalist Tells Her Story
Life Site News ^ | May 20, 2010 | Georges Buscemi

Posted on 05/20/2010 12:03:05 PM PDT by GonzoII

Thursday May 20, 2010


From Lesbian Atheist to Stay-at-Home Mother of Six: Quebec Journalist Tells Her Story

Brigitte Bedard captivates 200-strong crowd with her conversion story at May 15 Quebec Life Coalition Conference in Quebec City

By Georges Buscemi

May 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - “I was an atheist for as long as I could remember” recalled Brigitte Bedard, a young-looking 41-year-old journalist and stay at home mother of six with cropped tousled brown hair and stylish thick-framed glasses. She was addressing a crowd of 200 participants at the Quebec Life Coalition pro-life conference on May 15 in Quebec City.

While Bedard is less well known than the conference’s keynote speaker – Cardinal Marc Ouellet – whose staunchly pro-life statements made later that afternoon were seized on by the anti-life Quebec media, she might be the speaker who most touched hearts that Saturday afternoon.

Ms. Bedard grew up at a time when Quebec society was undergoing what historians call the “Quiet Revolution,” a period of time from the early-sixties to the mid seventies when Quebec society shed its Christian heritage and adopted secular values. “I was born in 1968 — talk about bad luck” she joked.

Bedard had a typical childhood in a non-religious household, and went to the notoriously leftist Université du Québec à Montréal, where she studied literature, eventually graduating with an MA. “I filled my mind with all the radical feminist literature — I drank it all up” she said.

She began a series of heterosexual relationships, which all ended badly. “Prodded along by what I was reading, I began thinking that since all my heterosexual relationships were failures, that I might be a lesbian.” And in fact she dove into the lesbian lifestyle, and admitted that she revelled in it for quite some time. “It was actually a very good time, in a way, being with a big gang of girls, tearing up the town, chain-smoking like there was no tomorrow. I was also very sexually active.”

Despite the fun and the excitement of the lifestyle, she felt broken, she recalls. “I was a mental wreck. I just felt that I was spinning out of control, that I was keeping appearances but I was miserable inside.” Things came to a head when, inexplicably, she broke into tears one night at 3 am and began shouting in her empty apartment in a trendy district of Montreal, imploring God to “take her away.” “Here I was, a militant feminist lesbian atheist lying on my apartment floor crying my head off imploring God. I wasn’t in my right mind, but I was desperate for help.”

She began seeking help, meandering in and out of countless 12-step type programs, in the hopes of finding some kind of solution for her anxiety and “messed-up life.” To make matters worse, she had just quit smoking: “I was suddenly forced to face life in the raw, without any protection or buffer.”

At wit’s end, she recounted how someone she knew talked about visiting “the monks” at the famous Saint-Benoît Abbey in Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Quebec. The idea, as bizarre as it seemed to her, intrigued her, and she went, but not without reservations. “I went to the monastery armed with all the contempt and hatred for the patriarchal Church that I had stored up from years of radical feminist studies. For radical feminists the Church is basically enemy #1.”

She entered the convent and was assigned a room and a monk with whom she could converse twice a day. “For three days in a row, two hours a day, I badgered, screamed at, practically foamed at the mouth in the face of this monk, dredging up basically every insult, cliché, dirty thing that I could think of, or invent about Christianity. I was so mad, so hurt and angry, and I was dishing it all out to this monk, who never said a word the whole time, but instead just looked at me, nodding his head.”

Then, at the end of those three days, something happened that changed her life forever. “It was the third day, the sixth hour of screaming. We were about to wrap up yet again. I was basically done screaming, there was a pause, and then the monk looked up and said to me “you have no idea, absolutely no idea how much God loves you; He made you out of nothing, he knows you, you have no idea how much he loves you, His daughter. So don’t feel ashamed, let it all go. Give it up, give it all up, give your life up to Him … He loves you so much.”

Those simple words at that crucial time “absolutely floored her” she recalled. From that moment on, her life had utterly changed. “I am His daughter, there are no two ways about it, and I can’t explain it.” She admits she is at pains to explain exactly what it was that caused her conversion: “I just say that God floored me, staggered me; I didn’t convert myself, he brought me to Him.”

She now works as an independent journalist and happily married stay-at-home mother of six. Life for her now is not all peaches and cream, however. “When I need quiet, there’s nothing I can do except for one thing: get up at 4 am. Which I do, pretty often, just to get some peace.” Remarking on the differences between her life now and in her lesbian days, she quipped: “Living with a man is definitely a pain, but living with a woman all the time was a living hell.”

Brigitte Bedard, who writes for the Nouvel Informateur Catholique, was one of four conference participants (plus keynote speaker Cardinal Marc Ouellet) at the annual Quebec Life Coalition conference at Quebec City on May 15. Video recordings of the talks (in original French, or dubbed in English) are available through Quebec Life Coalition.

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10052001.html


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TOPICS: General Discusssion
KEYWORDS: catholic; conversions; homosexualagenda
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To: far sider
Seriously, the whole 'screaming at the monk' thing is pretty strange but I'm happy she found Jesus.

Keep in mind that she had years of the filty, vile and disgusting (adjectives, I need more adjectives!..."empty" is a good one) atheist lifestyle, so she needed some serious "deprogramming". Praise God.

21 posted on 05/20/2010 2:18:01 PM PDT by aSeattleConservative
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To: trisham

I stepped on one on the back step last night when I went out to get a cat in. Ugh.


22 posted on 05/20/2010 2:51:09 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: Amberdawn

We’re all human, so we’re all Impossible. No sex, race, or class more than any other.


23 posted on 05/20/2010 2:51:52 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: Tax-chick

They are disgusting. Our property is in a vale, and we have hundreds of them each season.


24 posted on 05/20/2010 2:52:27 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

I think they’re eating the leaves off my Japanese eggplant. The poor plants look pathetic.


25 posted on 05/20/2010 2:55:50 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: GonzoII

French Canadians are...hmmm...different.


26 posted on 05/20/2010 2:57:05 PM PDT by wardaddy (never been particularly pious but I stand with Franklin Graham...bigtime...you betcha...ya'll)
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To: Tax-chick

I’m sure they are. Have you tried the beer trick?


27 posted on 05/20/2010 3:16:16 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

No, not lately. I suppose I could ... although it would interest the catz, too.


28 posted on 05/20/2010 3:44:27 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: Tax-chick

So, you put out the beer traps, the slugs fall into the traps, the cats drink the beer and with it the slugs. Less cat food to buy!


29 posted on 05/20/2010 3:47:49 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

Ick!


30 posted on 05/20/2010 3:49:10 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: Tax-chick

:) Pure protein!


31 posted on 05/20/2010 3:49:52 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

It’s bad enough when they throw up undigested dry cat food.


32 posted on 05/20/2010 4:02:24 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: Tax-chick

LOLOLOL! You have a point!


33 posted on 05/20/2010 4:19:58 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Ro_Thunder

That’s funny! Element of truth makes it work!

You’ve heard the one about why God made man first..? Didn’t want someone around telling Him He was doing it wrong, that’s not right, etc...


34 posted on 05/20/2010 5:36:19 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Amberdawn

See what happens when a group of women and a group of men have to figure out how to pay for a check at a restaurant. Good analogy as to what living with each is like.


35 posted on 05/20/2010 5:38:50 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I should also include, how each group orders their food at the restaurant as well.


36 posted on 05/20/2010 5:39:18 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Tax-chick

Yeah-Too bad some on here just don’t get it....


37 posted on 05/20/2010 5:45:35 PM PDT by Amberdawn (As you go through life brother, whatever your goal, keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Oh?


38 posted on 05/20/2010 5:47:26 PM PDT by Amberdawn (As you go through life brother, whatever your goal, keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.)
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To: Amberdawn

I see that. I suppose it satifies a need for them. I’m going to meet my needs with some wine and a book ;-).


39 posted on 05/20/2010 5:48:14 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Amateurish," agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Because he was a rough draft?


40 posted on 05/20/2010 5:48:19 PM PDT by Amberdawn (As you go through life brother, whatever your goal, keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.)
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