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I came from a very loving home, had a happy life with no great aspirations, but going to the seminary changed me. There was a chunk of my childhood missing. Once I'd realised it wasn't for me, I still felt a tremendous pressure to continue for fear of letting everybody down.
I trained to be a priest - started to. I went to seminary school when I was 11. I wanted to be a priest, but when they told me I could never have sex, not even on my birthday, I changed my mind.
Each of our children during their high school years went to 'early morning seminary' - scripture study classes that met in the home of a church member every school day morning from 6:30 until 7:15.
That was my aspiration, so I was there in a seminary with just boys who were studying to be priests. Pretty rigorous schooling; we never got home, we stayed there all year.
When I was 13, I entered the seminary in the hope of becoming a priest. But I often found myself helping the nuns in the kitchen and thus discovered my passion for cooking. I began to cultivate my skills and aspirations at the age of 15, when I embarked on my first apprenticeship.
When God saved me, He gave me a thirst to learn and to read and to study. I thrived in college. I got a bachelor's degree in philosophy and then went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.
I was born and bred a Catholic. I was brought up a very strong Catholic - I practiced in a seminary for four years, from eleven to fourteen, and trained to be a Catholic priest. So I was very steeped in all that.
I went whole hog at the actor's lifestyle - really embraced it. I had by then known how much I loved acting already, because I discovered acting from a teacher in the seminary - that's the first place I ever did it, in the seminary.
Some of the priests from the Seminary were in the nunnery every day and night, and often several at a time.
I first came to Jewish-Catholic relations in 1963, while studying for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
