Al Kresta / Ave Maria Radio (Left), Karla Dorweiler / Detroit Catholic (Right)
CV NEWS FEED // In the wake of beloved Catholic media personality Al Kresta’s recent passing, one woman shared the story of how the late “Kresta in the Afternoon” host influenced her conversion and the launch of her women’s Bible ministry.
In a June 21 article published by the Detroit Catholic, Sue Middlemis described how working in a bookstore Kresta managed influenced her return to the Catholic faith in 1998. Kresta, the founder and president of Ave Maria Radio, passed away from liver cancer on June 15.
Middlemis had grown up Catholic, but she left the Faith in college, telling Detroit Catholic that her decision was largely due to a lack of answers she received about the Faith from Catholic groups on campus. She instead joined Protestant groups on campus and began attending a Presbyterian church.
Middlemis stated that once she married her husband, whom she met at a Protestant Bible study, she had “no interest in returning to the Catholic Church.”
“But then I started a job at a bookstore that was managed by Al Kresta,” she said, “and that changed everything.”
Ultimately, Middlemis stated that it was the example of Kresta’s own reversion story that prompted her return to the Catholic Church. She recalled that the longtime radio show host had her family to dinner at his house, where he shared his story, along with a set of books, including “Faith of the Early Fathers” by William A. Jurgens, which had influenced his journey.
“I could not believe what I was reading,” she said, adding:
I found out that Catholic teachings I had been told (in Protestant studies) had begun in the Middle Ages were actually right there from the beginning. And the more I read, the more it threw my world upside down.
Middlemis returned to the Catholic faith in 1998. She has been running a Catholic women’s Bible study group for the past 20 years, and that group has welcomed 514 women from across 57 parishes.
Driven by a mission to provide women with resources to understand and grow deeper knowledge of their faith, Middlemas stated that she would continue her ministry as long as possible.
“You can’t be obedient to Jesus if you don’t know what he is teaching,” she concluded:
You can’t be obedient to the Church if you don’t know Church teachings. And you can find all those answers in the Scripture.
If you want to have an intimate relationship with Jesus, you have to be in His word.
