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six pieces of real estate in all. Terry sold his home and property, and the equity from the home went to pay lawyers’ fees.

“I owned the name ‘Operation Rescue,’” says Terry. “This was by design. The lawsuits hit me personally rather than an entire board of people. It was a very bitter loss to me personally, but it protected other people from losing everything as well. If I had to do it all over again, I would. The lives of these children were worth the loss. It’s the cost of war.”

At the time Terry filed bankruptcy in 1998, there were 27 active lawsuits against him. Most of the suits were based upon the concept that Operation Rescue had hurt the abortionist’s business. Some dealt with interstate commerce. Some were related to a civil lawsuit stemming from trespassing. Others dealt with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

The Supreme Court later ruled that the NOW lawsuit was improper and that RICO did not apply.

Terry describes his current home as “The Alan Keyes home,” in homage to a fundraising letter signed by Keyes that resulted in enough money to purchase a new home. Keyes asked supporters to make financial donations to the Terry Family Foundation to “restore what the enemy took.”

A new life

Randall first met Andrea Kollmorgen, who became his second wife, while working on his first political campaign in 1998. They were later reunited at a religious convocation and married.

Prior to the divorce, Terry had begun searching and asking questions of Father Mikalajunas and others about the Catholic faith.

“Terry was at a Mass I had held at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on the Feast of the Assumption,” said Father Mikalajunas. “At that particular Mass, I received a Baptist person into the church.”

Terry and Andrea had independently joined the Charismatic Episcopal Church, a liturgical denomination not in union with Rome.

“I would challenge him, but he was anti-papal,” says Father Mikalajunas. “I would tell him, you are going to other churches to be liturgically Catholic, instead of coming home where you belong.”

“We didn’t stand much of a chance [of not becoming Catholic], with Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo praying for us,” said Terry’s wife Andrea, pointing to the photograph of him meeting the pope.

Modern dragons

Terry now has his eyes set on new issues.

“The abortion movement, the homosexual ‘marriage’ movement or the militant Muslims who are murdering Christians, don’t care if we have seven sacraments or two. They don’t care whether we have priests or preachers or if we are in communion with Rome or Constantinople,” says Terry. “They despise us equally.”

Terry has tried to share the suffering inherent in the abortion issue by being jailed.

But he’s also taken on the sacrifice of raising two adopted and one foster child.

Some of his critics took delight in the spectacle when one of those adopted children, Jamiel, announced in 2004 that he was homosexual. Belief.net interviewed father and son for articles on the subject.

“There are three options when you find out a family member is homosexual,” Terry is quoted saying. “One is accept them and their lifestyle as if it’s normal. Two is to reject them and sever your relationship. Three is to love them unconditionally, but to tell them you do not accept their behavior as normal, and to tell them the truth. If I love my son, I can’t say to him, ‘Hey, you’re committing suicide on the installment plan. This is a great lifestyle.’”

Instead, said the interviews, he reaches out to his son by phone and in letters, telling him that he loves him. But Terry has limited in-person contact with his son while he is living in the lifestyle.

Jamiel told Belief.net that Terry was, “A phenomenal father. I could not have asked for a better father. He was my best friend. I know that my dad, even in that letter, he’s doing it out of love. He’s doing it because he feels that that’s what he has to do to ‘save me.’ So I don’t even hate him for that but it just hurts me.”

Jamiel was legally adopted at age 14, but lived with the Terrys from the time he was eight.

Terry said it was hard to decide how to treat his son’s homosexuality once he passed the stage of struggle and publicly celebrated it.

“I have to be honest with him,” said Terry. “Would you tell a drug addict, ‘I accept you. This is your choice, this is your life and I will stand by you’? The average death age of a male homosexual is 42 years old because of disease, because of suicide, because of alcoholism, because of drugs, because of violence. It’s just not a good world. It’s a self-abusive, self-destructive sexual addiction.”

After a two-year study of Islam, many of Terry’s recent writings have focused on Islamist extremism.

“If we are going to understand the Islamic mind, we must study the life of Mohammed,” he said. “‘What would Mohammed do?’ needs to be the grid through which we view Islamic culture, law and acts of terrorism.”

Terry is currently working on a book with this title.

“For example, Muslims who attack or threaten death to those who mock Mohammed are following in the footsteps of Mohammed himself,” he said.

In addition, Terry serves as president of the Society of Truth and Justice, an organization dedicated to “proclaiming Christian principles in matters of public policy.” In this role, Terry became the chief media strategist for Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents of Terri Schiavo.

As a child, Terry dreamed of attending Juilliard and becoming a musician. While he never realized the first portion of that dream, in recent years he has realized the second.

During a year in Nashville, Terry worked with professional musicians to produce two high-quality music CDs. Reviewers say his voice is reminiscent of contemporary Christian musician Michael W. Smith.

Now that he’s Catholic, he looks forward to completing some unfinished business – a formerly completing music for a Mass and finishing a book about early Christianity that he started while in Rome.

“I laid down all of the basic tracks, but could never finish the Mass,” said Terry. “Now, I can understand why.”

He’s also written a series of articles a la C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, from the perspective of a knight writing to a young apprentice. The title: Dragonslayers. Whether facing the successes and failures of the past or all of the future endeavors before him, Terry realizes that his newfound faith has also given him new friends to call upon – the saints.

Taking the confirmation name of David Mark, Terry has frequently sought the intercession of the Old Testament’s warrior-king and giant-slayer.

“These are the ones who have fought and suffered before me,” says Terry. “They will help prepare us for the battles that lie before us through their prayers and example.”

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Tim Drake, based in St. Joseph, Minn., is a staff writer for National Catholic Register.