Further, if Olson and others had bothered to read the Westminster Confession, they’d know that the Reformed doctrine does not exclude secondary causes.

While the Catholic Church does indeed have dogma regarding predestination, it is not identical to the position advocated by Calvinists. Though too long and involved for a blog comment discussion (and as much as I like a good exchange, my boss prefers I actually do work, which I find quite unreasonable :-) ), a pretty good summation can be found (embedded in a much longer article) in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

“….the Catholic dogma of predestination keeps the golden mean, because it regards eternal happiness primarily as the work of God and His grace, but secondarily as the fruit and reward of the meritorious actions of the predestined. The process of predestination consists of the following five steps: (a) the first grace of vocation, especially faith as the beginning, foundation, and root of justification; (b) a number of additional, actual graces for the successful accomplishment of justification; (c) justification itself as the beginning of the state of grace and love; (d) final perseverance or at least the grace of a happy death; (e) lastly, the admission to eternal bliss. If it is a truth of Revelation that there are many who, following this path, seek and find their eternal salvation with infallible certainty, then the existence of Divine predestination is proved (cf. Matthew 25:34; Revelation 20:15). St. Paul says quite explicitly (Romans 8:28 sq.): “we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints. For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the first born amongst many brethren. And whom he predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.” (Cf. Ephesians 1:4-11) Besides the eternal “foreknowledge” and foreordaining, the Apostle here mentions the various steps of predestination: “vocation”, “justification”, and “glorification”. This belief has been faithfully preserved by Tradition through all the centuries, especially since the time of Augustine.

“There are three other qualities of predestination which must be noticed, because they are important and interesting from the theological standpoint: its immutability, the definiteness of the number of the predestined, and its subjective uncertainty.”

As for myself, after many years of dating and even trying e-Harmony – who in response to my desire for a educated, athletic, active Catholic woman, matched me with a series of Protestant elementary school teachers who all looked like they could play middle linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys – I decided on Christmas Eve 2004 that I would pray a rosary every night for a year that this year would be the year I finally met “the one”. Lynda and I met in the spring; she willingly embraced Springsteen concerts and Notre Dame football, I willingly embraced getting out of bed before noon on weekends and having a dog who wanted to play ‘fetch’ for 5 hours straight, and we were engaged in 2006 (happily married since 2007).

Rosaries rock.