Raised in the United Methodist Church, I joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1975. (At the time, I was a member of the board of directors of the local Methodist church.) I am an active member of St. Joseph Church, Roscoe, where I serve as a eucharistic minister, lector, and cantor.
I have written occasionally for the Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)--with the byline "E. L. Core"--including columns, news stories, and feature articles. Most recently, I wrote the two-part feature article on Ven. John Henry Newman (Oct. 6 and 13, 1995), and the brief story on the Catholic Action League's seminar (Oct. 27, 1995).
I have also been a frequent contributor to Sword and Shield, the newsletter of the Catholic Action League (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA).
I am currently engaged in editing a collection of essays by converts in honor of John Henry Newman, as a testament to the living influence of the venerable cardinal's life and writings.
I am a member of the Catholic Action League, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (New York, New York, USA), and the Christian Writers of America (Staples, Minnesota, USA); he is also an active supporter of Catholic Answers (San Diego, California, USA) and several pro-life groups.
A voluminous letter-writer, I was given the Christian Writers of America's 1995 award for "Excellence in Written Communication in Defense of Christianity."
I earned a B. S with honors in Math and Computer Science from California State College (California, Pennsylvania, USA)--now California University of Pennsylvania--in 1975, and I'm employed by Lender's Service Inc. (Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, USA) as a programmer/analyst.
I am well-read in Scripture, in Church history and documents, and in apologetics. I subscribe to This Rock, The Catholic Answer, Catholic World Report, The Catholic Dossier, and The Catholic Faith.
I am also a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the collegiate National Honor Society in English, at California University of Pennsylvania, where I have taken numerous writing courses. And I have been a corresponding member of the New York C. S. Lewis Society for many years.
I have had a keen interest in some major "classic" Christian writers of this century: Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien. I am also devoted to poetry (Hopkins, Dickinson, Donne, Millay, Cummings, Frost, Yeats, et al.).