A Prophet Goes Home

Dr Thigpen was a former protestant pastor who became a Catholic in 1993. He devoted the rest of his life to writing about the Faith, especially the Church's presence in his home state of Georgia.

From Crisis

By Joseph Pearce

Paul Thigpen was a true son of the South who loved the city of his birth, devoting himself, following his conversion, to an intense study of the history of the Catholic presence in Georgia’s oldest city.

On February 24, one of the most prolific Catholic writers and theologians of the past 25 years crossed the finishing line of this life, crossing the threshold into “the heaven-haven of the reward.” 

The death of Paul Thigpen came as a shock to those who knew him because he died suddenly, in his sleep, being stolen away stealthily by the thief in the night. He was only 71 years old and was due to be interviewed the following day by EWTN on the latest of the dozens of books that he’d written since his conversion and reception into the Church.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, on May 18, 1954, Paul Thigpen was a true son of the South who loved the city of his birth, devoting himself, following his conversion, to an intense study of the history of the Catholic presence in Georgia’s oldest city.

I recall his leading me on a long walking tour of the historic parts of Savannah, including graveyards, during which he waxed learned and lyrical on the key role that Catholics played in the city’s past. Most of the details of all that he told me have faded from my faltering memory, but I remember his telling me about the heroism of Catholic nuns who, during a typhus epidemic, stayed to minister to the sick and dying after the city’s leaders and wealthy elite had fled. This earned the Catholic Church such respect that Savannah was spared the anti-Catholic riots that afflicted other parts of the South. 

Raised as a Presbyterian, Dr. Thigpen lapsed into a period of youthful atheism before returning to his Protestant roots. Having attained a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Yale University, he would earn his Master’s degree and doctorate in historical theology from Emory University. After years as a Protestant pastor, he finally came home to the Catholic Church in 1993. His reception into the Church marked the beginning of his vocation as an indefatigable defender of the Faith, primarily through the writing of dozens of books. 

Dr. Thigpen rose to prominence in 2001 with the publication of The Rapture Trap: A Catholic Response to “End Times” Fever (Ascension Press), which exposed the Protestant heresy behind the hugely popular Left Behind series of apocalyptic novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Such was the success of Dr. Thigpen’s theological response to LaHaye’s and Jenkins’s dispensationalist misreading of the Book of Revelation that The Rapture Trap Study Guide was published in 2003.

The books that Dr. Thigpen authored in the quarter of a century following the publication of The Rapture Trap would fill a whole shelf and are too numerous to list in full. The Passion: Reflections on the Suffering and Death of Jesus was published in 2004 to coincide with the release of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ; other notable volumes include A Year With the Saints: Daily Meditations With the Holy Ones of God (2013), Manual for Spiritual Warfare (2014), A Year With Mary: Daily Meditations on the Mother of God (2015), Saints Who Battled Satan (2015), Saints Who Saw Hell and Other Catholic Witnesses to the Fate of the Damned (2019), and The Life of Saint Joseph as Seen by the Mystics (2022). 

Among the many volumes that Dr. Thigpen authored is one which is probably the least known and yet is probably his best, at least in my considered opinion. This is The Burden: A Warning of Things to Come(2013), which I described in my endorsement of it as follows:

This is an astonishing work. A jeremiad of relentless spiritual force and prophetic potency. The Burden has the power of Jeremiah’s message mystically fused with the Muse of T.S. Eliot. It shows the Heiliger Geist ripping the Zeitgeist to shreds, the Holy Spirit excoriating and exorcising the Spirit of the Age. It speaks with the righteous anger that Christ poured forth on the money changers in the temple. It is a blowtorch in the dark. The Burden is light! It will enlighten your life and lighten your burden.

And there’s no need to take only my word for it. Fr. Dwight Longenecker, who is himself the author of numerous great books, described The Burden as “a strange and marvelous book of poetic prophecy for our perilous times” and as “a crucial call to complacent Christians wandering in the Wasteland to wake up and repent before it’s too late.” Matthew Pinto, Catholic entrepreneur extraordinaire and founder of Ascension Press, described The Burden as “a brilliant work—bold, daring and fabulously engaging,” and the late, great Al Kresta, radio host extraordinaire and President of Ave Maria Communications, wrote that “it will sober the foolish and bring tears to the wise.”

Dare we hope, in the wake of Paul Thigpen’s death, that a daring Catholic publisher might release a new edition of this most powerful and neglected of his books?

The tributes of those who knew Dr. Thigpen serve as a testimony to his stature as a scholar and to his status as a saintly man of God. Conor Gallagher, the CEO of TAN Books, described him as “one of the most respected Catholic authors” and “a man who never left a conversation without making you a better person.” He will be remembered, Gallagher continued, “for his intellectual clarity, faithful witness, and generous dedication to sharing the truth of the Catholic faith.” As important was his faithful and unfailing commitment to his vocation as the pater familias. He was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, Gallagher said.

Marcus Grodi, founder of the Coming Home Network and longtime host of The Journey Home on EWTN, remembered Dr. Thigpen as “a model of kindness and joy” on the many occasions that he had interviewed him on television. “When I think of him, I see his broad smile and contagious laugh,” Grodi wrote. 

Matt Swaim, the Coming Home Network’s outreach manager and host of the Son Rise Morning Show on Sacred Heart Radio, remembered him as being “magnanimous, brilliant, and kind.” Another friend, theologian and professor Luke Togni, considered Dr. Thigpen’s life to be “a testament to the strength of gentleness.”

Kindness and gentleness are the two characteristics that my wife and I recalled about him, along with the sense that every meeting with him was an edification which, like prayer itself, lifted the heart and mind to God.

Kindness and gentleness are the two characteristics that my wife and I recalled about him, along with the sense that every meeting with him was an edification which, like prayer itself.One final memory I’d like to share is Dr. Thigpen’s tireless advocacy of the cause of the Georgia Martyrs, five Spanish Franciscans murdered in what is now Georgia in 1597 while serving as missionaries to the native population. Dr. Thigpen had researched the facts surrounding their death and called for prayers to be said for their beatification. His efforts and his prayers bore fruit in January of last year when the Holy See confirmed that the Georgia Martyrs were murdered “in hatred of the faith,” conferring the title of Venerable upon them and paving the way for their beatification. It was a great mercy and blessing that Dr. Thigpen should live long enough to rejoice in the papal recognition of these great martyrs for the Faith, albeit that he would not live to see their beatification, which is set for All Hallows’ Eve this year in his hometown of Savannah.

There seems no better way to end this praise and appraisal of the life and legacy of Paul Thigpen than with one of his favorite passages from Scripture: 

Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:2-3)

Those who were blessed to know Paul Thigpen will be heartened by the thought that, as a good and faithful servant and humble child of God, he is now being purified and that he will see God as He is and no longer through a glass darkly. Perhaps, indeed, we might hope that he will be present at the beatification of his beloved Georgia Martyrs in the company of the saints. May it be!