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“The reason I moved from right to left is not because my fundamental values changed,” said Sitman, who has converted to Roman Catholicism.

Brigid’s moment is happening as many Irish are disillusioned with traditional Roman Catholicism and its patriarchal leadership amid a secularizing culture.

His father was a leather wholesaler; his mother, who managed the home, had converted to Judaism from Roman Catholicism in 1932.

They communicated so much history — how the French brought Roman Catholicism to Vietnam; how the war and its aftermath upended lives and scattered refugees — and how Nature had the last word, overwhelming them in vegetation.

Tying them all together is the presence of Roman Catholicism.