By Mark Kwasny
Saturday, December 5, 1998; Page B09

Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. I never questioned the possibility that there were other options, at least at first.

I grew up in a household where we didn't talk about God much, but we sure heard a lot about it if we didn't make it to church on Sundays. Our family was typical Catholic for the suburban Detroit area: We went to Mass but left our faith at the front door immediately after the service.

Throughout my young life, I felt an attraction to God. I went on religious retreats. I was involved with church youth groups and, as I got older, became a facilitator for them. After college I sought jobs with Catholic organizations, never realizing that working for one of them would cause me to question my faith.

It was 1991, and I had signed on with a Washington-based group dedicated to spreading the message of Catholicism around the world. During the year I worked there, I became troubled by what I saw, and didn't know how to explain it.

Other employees were criticizing the church and its leaders. Two of my office mates were homosexuals; the female second-in-command, a nun, liked to remove from the common daily prayers pronouns that even remotely referred to God in male terms. Others in the office subscribed to literature that was antagonistic to official Catholic teachings.

I knew that what these Catholics were doing was not Catholic, yet for the first time in my life, I began to wonder just what it was that I was supposed to believe.

At the same time, I met non-Catholic Christians who introduced me to the plethora of Christian churches and practices. A lot of them were truly in love with God and worked hard to prove it to the world. Others used their religion to justify their own actions and behaviors, some good, some bad. I saw a lot of Bibles and heard a lot of Scripture being quoted.

My non-Catholic friends pounded away at their beliefs. Yet those I knew to be Catholics either didn't understand their faith or were criticizing it or denying it.

I began to openly question just what it was that made being Catholic so special. I even mentioned to my fiancee that perhaps there was no difference between the Christian denominations and that maybe we should investigate some so-called Bible churches.

Before deciding to make some dramatic switch, I studied the literature of various churches, comparing and contrasting their beliefs and styles of worship.

I was very skeptical of leaving Catholicism for some other Christian faith. Protestant denominations alone number more than 30,000, so picking the "right one" was an impossible task.

Then I began to read everything I could on the Catholic religion. I learned things I never was taught and certainly had never experienced among my fellow faithful. I found out why the Church opposes homosexuality and abortion and why the faithful should rest on Sunday, positions clearly defined by the catechism and other documents. It wasn't the Catholic Church that was falling by the wayside, it was errant members.

Of course, now that I had a much better understanding of what the Church taught, the difficult part was in following through on it.

As a newly married couple, for example, my wife and I confronted the issue of whether to use artificial contraception. We studied the issue intensely and ultimately rejected contraception in order to completely fulfill God's plans for our lives. Because of that stance, our first daughter, Kathryn, was born on God's time.

We had all the usual concerns: money, housing, material goods. If it had been up to us, we would have waited to have a child until all the conditions of life were perfect. Life is never perfect, and we realized that the best time to have a child was when God wanted one for us.

Our faith has helped us considerably when we have taken unpopular stands with friends and family. Being a Christian in today's society is certainly countercultural. But because we are firmly rooted in our faith, we have been able to confidently oppose abortion, the homosexual lifestyle and euthanasia.

God doesn't change. We knew that once the Church takes a position on an issue, it, too, couldn't change.

In a world where confusion and outright rebellion against God is commonplace, I have come to know and rely on my faith as a Catholic. Nothing can destroy or even shake that which is firmly built on the rock.

Mark Kwasny, 33, develops Web sites on the Internet, mostly for Catholic organizations. He lives in Front Royal with his wife and three children and attends St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.