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I actually was a musician in college, a composer and singer, and really intended to be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein when I got out.

While I was in college becoming a good Catholic I was also becoming a writer - one haunted by Catholicism.

I was raised Catholic at a time when Vatican II was just taking hold.

I have quite catholic taste in music.

I went to the Conservatory of Music in school in Rome.

It was in the Papal States that I studied the Roman Question. I traveled over every part of the country; I conversed with men of all opinions, examined things very closely, and collected my information on the spot.

Growing up, I was vaguely aware of things that went on in church, because I was in the boys' choir at the local Episcopal church. But I got the clear message that I was supposed to learn music there, and not pay too much attention to the rest of it, and I followed those instructions very carefully.

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting.

I studied with the idea of becoming a Catholic priest.