About Ron E. Smith “Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it.” Pope St. Felix III      Greetings to those who support the Mary’s Remnant website. My name is Ronald Smith from Chardon, Ohio. Mary’s Remnant asked that I join their ministry and participate via a webpage where I answer questions about our Roman Catholic Faith and write faith-related articles. As the quotation from Pope St. Felix III above suggests, I do my best to expose and oppose error wherever I see it and try I to counter error by defending our faith with the truth.      If you are looking for an intellectual giant to help you, you came to the wrong person. I am a nobody, a school janitor. I graduated from high school, have a 2-year police science degree and graduated from the FBI Academy. I was a lawman for 26 years ending the last 16 years as Chief Deputy of an Ohio Sheriff’s Department and Chief of an Ohio Police Department. My testimony is too long to include all here but suffice it to say that as part of my conversion experience and obedience to the Holy Spirit and to acquire humility, I had to leave law enforcement and become a janitor, simple as that!      I was reading police reports one morning. An accident had occurred where a working street prostitute, drug addict and alcoholic had ‘run’ from our officers, flipped her car, was in critical condition paralyzed from the waist down. This occurred shortly after my initial conversion experience almost 20 year ago. I phoned the Catholic hospital to see how she was doing. She was critical, possibly would not live and had not received a single phone call, visitor, card or anything. Welfare had even taken her illegitimate children from her. I prayed. I went to the local Catholic grade school and asked the nun-principal if a few kids could make some cheery cards for this lady. If they would, I would deliver them. Sister agreed. Two days later I was shocked to tears when I picked up a large box of hundreds and hundreds of cards, banners and pictures – all homemade. Every student and staff member in the school had made these spiritual bouquets. As I drove to the hospital I read a few of the cards at red lights, as they were not in envelopes. They said things like, “Don’t worry, you’ll get better because us kids are praying for you and God listens to kids,” or “I am offering my Masses for you so that you will get well,” and “I am fasting so you will get better”. Remember elementary school children wrote these!      I got to the hospital and found this lady in bad shape, really drugged up from her surgeries. She could not understand about the cards, so I just put the box in her storage locker. Somehow she consented to me praying over her, which I did and left. My family and I prayed the rosary for her for several weeks and I eventually forgot about her. “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Mt. 5:7”. We recall the song we sing in church, in part, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.”      A couple of months later the school principal called me. She said this former prostitute and now paraplegic was coming to their school to thank the children in assembly for the cards. I was invited to attend. This gal wheeled into the hall in her wheelchair and gave a beautiful talk to the kids on the dangers of drugs, alcohol and promiscuity. She then said that when her ability to make a living as a prostitute was taken away by the paralysis and her children were taken by Welfare, she did not want to live and decided to commit suicide. Being a drug addict she saved up her pain meds under her mattress. The day came ‘to do it’ when some policeman came in and prayed over her. That didn’t change her mind but she decided to wait a few more days. When she again decided to ‘now do it’ and elderly nun came in and commented about how fortunate she was to receive so many cards. When sister found that this gal had never seen the cards she put the whole box on her bed. This former prostitute said she sat on her bed all day long and cried and read every card and banner. Then, she turned her life over to Jesus.      Next, she said that Jesus gave her an instant cure of her drug addiction and alcoholism and she rapidly healed of all of her injuries except the paralysis. At an AA meeting she met a man who had remodeled the lower half of a house. He told her she could rent it for whatever Welfare would pay. She said she could get her kids back if she moved into the house but she could not take the house because it did not have a wheelchair ramp. Well, you might not believe this but for several years I had been building free wheelchair ramps for poor disabled people as something the Lord called me to do. At night I went to fence companies with my old truck and tools and took apart old treated wood fences, cut off bad ends, etc. It always worked out that when I had wood stored to the board, the Lord would send someone who needed a ramp. So, in the dead of a January winter on the wind-driven shore of Lake Erie, I built this lady a wheelchair ramp. She got her kids back, moved into the house and, the last I heard, was studying to be a social worker. “Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She replied, No one sir.’ Then Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on do not sin anymore.’ John 8:10-11.”      My law enforcement career made me naturally inquisitive and a scrutinizer of detail. About 10 years ago I went to Mass with my son, who was in college, at their campus Newman Ministry Chapel. The liturgical abuses were so numerous that I doubt that we attended a valid Mass. My complaints at the chapel level and with the diocesan bishop fell on deaf ears. As a lawman goes to his law books for truth, I started accumulating the Catholic liturgical books, Canon Law, papal encyclicals and various and other important writings of Holy Church and her representatives. I wrote a newsletter for 5-6 years that had a very popular section on Q&A’s about our faith. After I stopped the newsletter people continued, to this day, to query me on questions about our faith, deliverance, the occult and several other Catholic areas.      During my law enforcement career I encountered many cases that had occult connections. This led me to being educated in this area, including the deliverance ministry, through training by national occult investigation experts, the police academy, local college seminars and charismatic renewal seminars. One of our bishops gave me authorization to do deliverance prayer and I taught about satanism and the occult for about seven years at churches, groups of school teachers and Christian groups all over N/E Ohio.      Since I, in my own right, am neither an intellectual giant nor an educated expert, I rely almost exclusively on Church documents and writings of other experts to answer questions. I properly quote these documents and footnote all quotes so that readers can go to the actual sources if they wish. So, if you have a question – ! I’ll do my very best to answer you quickly and, more importantly, accurately with information that you can take to that person(s) who is in error.      I live with my wife of 32 years, Kathleen. Our 2 sons, Jeff (an architect) and Jacob (campus security officer) live at home with us. God bless each of you. As Our Lord Jesus said, “The truth will set us free.” NEW!!! ~ My Story, My Faith, by Ron Smith Back to the top