Gerald W. Schlabach at this year's Bridgefolk conference at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. — Photo by Robert Rhodes/MWR

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — In the small but growing circle of Mennonites and Roman Catholics involved in ecumenical dialogue, Gerald Schlabach is one of the few to experience both traditions.

Raised in a Mennonite family and having served in Nicaragua and Honduras with Mennonite Central Committee during the 1980s, Schlabach’s work as a theologian and as a professor of history at Bluffton (Ohio) University quickly distinguished him among Anabaptist scholars.

Now, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church — which he joined in 2004 — Schlabach is a theologian who harmonizes his peacemaking Anabaptist background with Catholicism’s tradition of social teaching.

Schlabach said July 1 that his decision to join the Catholic Church came only after years of questioning and discernment. “There was no one reason” for becoming Catholic, Schlabach said.

A former co-chair of Bridgefolk, an ecumenical Anabaptist-Catholic dialogue group, Schlabach now teaches theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He also maintains an associate membership at Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, where his wife, Joetta Handrich Schlabach, and their two sons attend.

Following a youth during which he became involved in the charismatic movement, Schlabach’s spiritual journey reached a crossroads when he and his wife served in Nicaragua and Honduras with MCC from 1982-87.

In Nicaragua, they found themselves amid the volatile conflict between the Sandinista regime and the U.S.-supported Contra rebels. As a peacemaker, Schlabach found American support for the Contras troubling, especially when he saw that so many Mennonites supported the Reagan administration’s policies in the region.

“Those are the kinds of things that shake you up when you’re trying to survive” in a war zone, Schlabach said.

Meanwhile, Schlabach’s interest in Catholicism had begun to incubate, inspired in part by the writings of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and Catholic convert who died in 1968.

While involved with the charismatic movement, Schlabach had read Catholic Pentecostals by Kenneth Ranaghan. Years later, Schlabach realized the drama of charismatic worship had helped him appreciate the dramatic focus of the Catholic liturgy.

His encounter with Maryknoll missionaries in Central America increased his curiosity.

Then in 1985, he read an article by a Mennonite who had joined the Catholic Church and made peace with embracing both traditions.

The author of the article was Ivan J. Kauffman, the former head of MCC’s Peace Section, who became Catholic in 1968 and along with Schlabach later was among the founders of Bridgefolk.

“We were in Central America at the time, and I wrote to him intrigued at this and asking certain questions . . . that were slightly naive in the way I asked them,” Schlabach said. Among his inquiries was whether members of groups such as the Mennonites could become something like a religious order within the Catholic Church.

His correspondence with Kauffman was revived when Schlabach went to the University of Notre Dame to study with Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder. Kauffman and Schlabach finally met during a conference at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College in 1997, “and [we] ended up talking late in the night two nights in a row,” Schlabach said.

That second night, as he lay in bed, “just sort of unbidden, [I] had this overwhelming sense, ‘I’m on my way to being Catholic.’ ”

Two years would pass before Schlabach — teaching at Bluffton — decided he was ready to take the step of joining the Catholic Church. Then, at the behest of his wife — who did not share his interest in joining, but wanted to process the decision in an Anabaptist way — Schlabach gathered a small discernment group, which included Mennonite friends and colleagues, as well as a local Franciscan nun, Kauffman and his wife, Lois.

Because Schlabach was about to join the faculty at St. Thomas, the discernment group decided, “not now,” Schlabach said. “Which didn’t mean never, but wait.”

Eventually, after the family had moved to the Twin Cities and Schlabach’s wife had become more comfortable with his decision, Schlabach was received into the Catholic Church during the Pentecost vigil service on May 29, 2004.

Schlabach, who also is a Benedictine oblate — following a daily prayer rule and embracing the values shared by Benedictine monastics — said his transition from “Catholic Mennonite” to “Mennonite Catholic” would not have been possible without the sweeping changes engendered in Catholicism by the Vatican II council.

Also central has been the church’s widening attention to peace issues, which remain vital to Schlabach not only as a Christian but as an academic.

“At a certain point I realized I was increasingly writing as a Catholic theologian,” Schlabach said. “Albeit, a very Mennonite Catholic theologian.”