Excerpt from "From This Day Forward," by Cokie and Steve Roberts. (William Morrow 2001). Cokie is Catholic, Steve is Jewish, and in this excerpt, they are discussing their courtship, and how they tried to reconcile their different traditions. The time period was after they graduated from college in 1964, and before they were married in 1966. (Reprtinted with the authors' permission.)

Cokie: There were times when we absolutely thought that this was not going to work, because of religion. I remember at some point that you thought your parents would cut you off if we got married, and I thought that we could not live like that. Your family meant too much to you. I was traveling a lot, producing TV show sin different cities, and I remember miserable phone conversations late at night in hotels rooms.

Steve: In one sense caring so much about family and tradition made it all harder. We could not ignore who we were or what we'd been taught. Converting was never a possibility for either one of us and abandoning religion was also out of the question. But gradually we came to realize how much we shared. The labels were different but the values were the same. And since then, we've often reflected that Catholics and Jews make good matches. We're both really good at loyalty and guilt.

Cokie: My reaction to all this was to be inclusive, to try to learn as much about Judaism as possible. I was in Cincinnati over Rosh Hashanah and one of the oldest temples in Reform Judaism, the Plum Street Temple, is there. I had no idea that tickets were required for services, so I went up to the door and the usher asked "What do you want?' I said, 'I want to come in. I want to go to services.' The guy said okay and he walked me down the aisle and said in this huge stage whisper so the entire congregation could hear, 'Here's one that came without her boyfriend.' It was not a good moment.

Steve: We both understood that if this was going to work, we had to be supportive of each other and had to learn about each other's background. During college Cokie once took me to visit the nuns at Newton College outside of Boston. They were from the same Sacred Heart order that taught her in grade school and high school, and seeing Cokie's love and loyalty to these women made a big impact on me. One of the things that I always tell people is that it can't be one way. It has to be two ways. Often I find that Jewish partners in a mixed marriage think that the Christian should learn about the Jewish part but don't necessarily understand that the Jew has to learn about the Christian part. And by going to temple--even without me there--Cokie was making an important gesture of respect that helped convince me this could work. Today everyone says that Cokie is the best Jew in our family, and it's true. Not long ago our daughter had to bring a special dish, called haroset, to a Passover Seder, and she called her Catholic mother for the recipe. Eventually I came to realize that if you're serious about one religion, you're serious about all of them. The real question is whether you care about faith and ritual or not. And Cokie certainly proves that.

Cokie: One year when I was dragging Steve off to temple on Rosh Hashanah he joked, 'My mother was right. I should have married a Jewish girl; she wouldn't have me go to services.'"