Kirk grew up in a little town in southwest Missouri, in an active and committed Disciple of Christ family. When he was in the 8th grade, he saw the movie “In This House of Brede” and then read the book it was based on, about a woman in an English village who entered a Benedictine monastery. Through this, and a good Catholic friend and his family, he fell in love with the Catholic Church. Kirk was received into full-communion with Christ’s Catholic Church when he was 16 years old, on Palm Sunday, 1976.