A Chemist Comes to the Faith

Student organizations at Michigan Tech are represented by faculty advisors. For St. Al’s, Dr. Marty Thompson serves that role. If you had asked him ten years ago what he would be doing today he might have said something about advancements in his genetics research, but he would probably not have thought he would be a devoted Catholic.

Dr. Thompson, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at Michigan Tech, comes from a background of atheism. As he describes it, he was never hostile to faith as his parents were non-practicing Lutherans, but rather he was simply irreligious. Marty’s wife, Marta, grew up Catholic but only attended Holy Mass during Christmas and Easter.

In the summer of 2008, their lives were to make a dramatic change. An emergency ultrasound, after what they thought was a miscarriage, revealed that their 7-week-old daughter was still alive. The following months of a high-risk pregnancy rekindled Marta’s faith. With what little he knew of Christianity, Marty offered himself to Christ.

Marta returned to Mass with Marty who joined the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program at St. Al’s, which guided them back to the sacraments. RCIA was led by Sister Ellen Enright and also involved several Michigan Tech students who helped facilitate the program. One of the RCIA leaders was also a student in one of Dr. Thompson’s classes at the time.

Marty recalls the surreal experience of interacting with one of his students in another environment in which the student was his teacher. Coming from a background in which it was simply assumed that faith and science were mutually exclusive, Dr. Thompson
was surprised at how easy they were to reconcile.

He believes now the unity of faith and reason has helped to make him a better scientist by providing a more full understanding of what science is, and what it is not.

As the next step in the journey of faith Marty is taking classes at the Augustine Institute and is in the diaconate program for the Diocese of Marquette. God willing, he will be ordained a permanent deacon in 2020.