"So we had these books in the home: a lot of Ignatius Press books..."

From a recent National Catholic Register interview by Justin Bell with Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action:

You said you converted to Catholicism not that long ago. Can you walk me through that process a little bit?

I was received into the Church two and a half years ago. Best day of my life, although every day after that has been pretty good, too. I was raised as a Protestant, and my parents were very faithful people; and they taught us to read the Bible and love and respect life. I learned about Jesus Christ as a Protestant.

But in my upbringing, my dad was on his own spiritual journey, reading the Church Fathers and doctors. So we had these books in the home: a lot of Ignatius Press books, for example. And so, I was reading these as a young teen. I read Joan of Arc by Mark Twain when I was 12. I was reading Mother Teresa's writings at 12, 13 … like Total Surrender, Loving Jesus. Then I was reading St. Thomas Aquinas, and I was actually translating him in and out of Latin. That was part of the education experience that I was given by my parents because we're home-schooled. They really pursued classical education for us. That was really neat, too; that's another side of the story, but …

I was becoming formed by some of the best thinkers and saints of our Church, doctors of our Church, as a teen. I was very much drawn to the Church. I was drawn to Our Lady. I admired her so much, although the Protestant community doesn't really talk about her very much. … My family talked about our faith, and, of course, about theology and different aspects of the Catholic tradition and everything. But we were still Protestant.

So then, when I got to UCLA, I fell in with — literally, one day I was looking for a church to go to — I had been experimenting with different Protestant churches, and I couldn't find one that I clicked with, as they say, because the Eucharist wasn't there and the theology was not sound. And I knew it, but I hadn't really gotten to the place in my head that: Oh, I need to be Catholic; that just makes sense. I had been intellectually convinced over a period of years, but I really didn't have Catholic friends, you know, strong Catholic friendships or anything like that, so it didn't really occur to me that I could convert.

Read the entire interview on the National Catholic Register site.