HEALY — Freshman Zachary Katz (COL ’18) announced his intention to convert to Catholicism Monday after proofreading his classmate’s Problem of God paper. Having come to Georgetown without a faith background, Katz describes the “profound theological insights” contained in fellow freshman Ricky Whitman’s (COL ’18) essay as nothing short of “a spiritual awakening.”

“I never really bought into the whole idea of some white-bearded man floating around in the clouds who obsesses over whether or not people eat shellfish,” Katz tells The Heckler. “Religion just wasn’t a part of my life growing up. My parents are Jewish…well, culturally Jewish…they hid the bacon whenever my bubbe came to visit—but that was about it.”

Katz first encountered religion in a serious way when, upon enrollment at Georgetown, he enrolled in “The Problem of God,” one of Georgetown’s two introductory theology requirements for freshmen.

“Every upperclassman I spoke to said PoG is a real breeze,” Katz recalls, “I figured I would just show up to class every now and then and slide through with a C. When Ricky asked me if I would proofread his paper it was actually the first thing I read for the class all semester. I thought I was just doing some editing; I had no idea my whole life was about to change forever.”

Whitman had written his five-page paper in response to a prompt about the problem of theodicy, the question of why a good and all-powerful deity would allow evil to exist in the world.

“This the-idiocy stuff made a lot of sense to me,” says Katz, “I once had to endure testicle surgery due to a hydrocele I developed playing lacrosse. Anyone who has suffered that is bound to question the existence of a God. But then I read what Ricky wrote about how ‘maybe suffering just makes us more human’ and my mind was totally blown!”

Katz devoured the rest of the paper and admits to being in tears by Whitman’s concluding sentence: “I guess God just moves in mysterious ways.”

“That was deep,” Katz remembers, his eyes becoming misty.

The two students met the following day in Sellinger Lounge where Whitman asked Katz if he had caught any grammatical errors in his paper.

“Forget about the typos!” Katz blurted out. “We have more important things to discuss—who is this Jesus guy and what more can you tell me about him?!”

Perplexed by Katz’s religious fervor, Whitman suggested that maybe he should try speaking to one of the campus Jesuits. Katz then proceeded to spring up from their table, still clutching Whitman’s paper, and dashed across campus to Healy Hall, barging breathless into the office of Vice President for Mission and Ministry, Kevin O’Brien, S.J.

“I was incredibly pleased when Zachary came by my office,” says O’Brien. “It is always a joy to see the Holy Spirit at work in the world, guiding hearts and minds like Zachary’s to the Heavenly Father through Problem of God.”

O’Brien spoke with Katz for over an hour about some of the theological issues raised in Whitman’s paper. It was then that Katz expressed his desire to become a member of the Catholic Church and asked O’Brien “how soon [he could] get the holy shower thing done?”

“I think he was referring to baptism,” O’Brien surmised. “One thing is very clear: Zachary will need a few extra months of RCIA [Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults] to get these doctrinal issues sorted out. He was under the impression that there would be self-flagellation involved and kept asking me how Gandhi was able to conceal from all of India that he was secretly an anonymous Christian…but I suppose that’s to be expected when your only knowledge of Karl Rahner’s theology comes from a freshman’s Problem of God paper.”

For his part, Katz feels himself reborn in his newfound love of God.

“I feel like there is a world of boundless possibilities ahead of me now that I have accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. I thank the Good Lord every day for Ricky Whitman, whose inspired words made Christ’s love real to me in a way it never was before,” he says.

Asked for comment about his theological essay, Whitman had the following to say:

“What? Oh yeah, the paper. I wrote that thing in, like, an hour. Sure hope I get an A!”