Journey to Catholicism prepared CEC director for her role

In the latest episode of the Catholic Kiwi Podcast, Mrs Mulqueen spoke about her current role and her faith journey, which included periods in other churches in other countries.

Coming to faith while studying and working in Japan, Mrs Mulqueen joined a Protestant, Bible-believing church and was exposed to many arguments against Catholicism. But she had many faith questions and went to various churches and studied at a Bible college in New Zealand.

Her husband, Wayne, who worked for Focus on the Family at the time, was drawn to the Catholic Faith and wanted his wife to be open to the idea. She had many reservations, but at the suggestion of a priest, they attended the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) together.

“When Wayne said, ‘let’s become Catholic’, I was like, ‘yeah, right’. I realised I had pushed anyone Catholic away from me,” Mrs Mulqueen said to Joanna Kearney on the podcast. 

Somebody told Mrs Mulqueen about the Catholic Enquiry Centre and Fr Neil Vaney SM, the director at the time, “sent me booklets with a lovely letter and we corresponded a bit. I went through all the booklets and I underlined all of the things I didn’t understand or couldn’t quite get the gist of. It was so great to have somebody on the other end to kind of work through some of these questions”.

“It really blows my mind that now it has gone full circle and I am working at the Catholic Enquiry Centre. It is so wonderful, because I know what it feels like to be searching, asking questions . . . full of doubts, concerns, curiosity.”

Mrs Mulqueen said she is sensing a “quiet revival” in the Church in Aotearoa New Zealand

“Earlier last year we might have had only 5 or 10 enquiries a month. Now we are up to 50 this month already. Most of them are at those early stages of faith, asking questions . . .

“We are right here for people who are asking questions at any stage of the journey.” 

“I really encourage people to reach out to us,” Mrs Mulqueen said. “We can talk on the phone and we can pray with people. But what we love to do is connect enquirers with their local parish. We don’t want people to fall through the gaps, so we have set up a network called Catholic Enquiry Connect, and our dream is to have a ‘connector’ in every parish in New Zealand.” There are already more than 120 people in the network.

Mrs Mulqueen spoke on the podcast about her battle with breast cancer, which meant she had to give up her position as pastoral worker at the Catholic parish in Waimakariri. But she and her husband experienced the “power of the community wrapping around us and the prayer, feeling held and carried by other people’s prayer, and the intercession of the saints”.

FULL STORY

Catholic Kiwi Podcast: Season 2, Episode 5 – Carly Mulqueen (YouTube)