Crossroads and Homecoming
The toughest decision for someone raised in a very Protestant family in a very Protestant part of the world is not abandoning the faith but to consider conversion to Catholicism.
To illustrate, consider the following – the first conversation I had with my dad about Catholicism:
“Dad, what if I were to tell you I was thinking about converting to Catholicism?”
…silence…
And then he said, “I would tell you I raised you better than that.”
And that’s about as deep as I’ve ever had an opportunity to really dialogue with my family about it.
Friends weren’t much better. Some just stopped talking to me. Others just don’t like talking about it and so don’t. Which is a pity because if I ever needed a friend to help show me “the error of my ways,” it would have been then. But no friends were to be found.
Except those that were Catholic. Those that were excited, inspired, and encouraged by my conversion. To tell you the truth, I really didn’t need their sympathies/empathies – though they did lighten the burden some. What I needed most were the folks I was leaving behind, but they never came.
Of course, by that time, too, I had burned a lot of my Protestant bridges and many of my friends knew it. I had essentially renounced sola fide (as Protestants understand it anyways). My research into and conversion to the Eucharist pretty much had killed off any sense of sola scriptura. So perhaps by that time, people had already given me up as a lost cause. I hope not, but I really don’t know either way due to the silence.
My family did make the biggest noise about it all… not so much on theological grounds – how could they, they don’t know and don’t want to know anything of substance about Catholicism – but on familial grounds. And it’s still a very bitter pill to this day. For example, I had to tell them that as part of my conversion I should no longer accept communion in a Protestant church, and my family should not accept communion in the Catholic Church. The reasoning is simple: why partake in something you don’t believe. I think I can make an argument by familial bonds in the case of me taking in the Protestant church, but the reverse does not hold for my family.
So I was only left with my conscience, and I got on the road to conversion with my conscience made confident by faith in Jesus. A journey of 3 years it took me to beat a path to the Emmaus that is Rome: half a year of researching the patristics, Catholicism, and Protestantism individually, and two and a half years of religious formation in the catechumenate and continued research.
I entered the Church on Easter Vigil night 2001. I have attended no other celebration that rivals the Catholic Easter Vigil. It is glorious in every sense of the word. On my night, I was Baptized (because I had never received Baptism) and Confirmed and at long last I partook in the real Flesh and the real Blood of Jesus the Christ in my first Communion.
Thanks for sharing your story. While I am still attending protestant churches (when I go) I have visited many catholic and also orthodox churches and I love the tradition and history that is missing in the protestant churches.
I was 25 before I realized that Catholics believed in the same Jesus I did. And then I dated a baptist turned catholic that my family wouldn’t accept because he didn’t have the “right” faith in Jesus. Not very fun.
Anyway, thanks again.
This hits home; a good friend in college converted to Catholicism [and not just to marry his Hispanic wife], but because he got a dose of the authentic Gospel in studying Catholic doctrine. We had plenty of really good discussions about it, and I’m probably the only one of his Protestant friends that did so …
I think a lot of Protestants won’t try to talk you out of it because they don’t know enought about Catholicism, or maybe even their own faith, to be able to do so.
I think largely, that’s true… but with the crowd I walked in, that’s certainly not true of a few guys – or at least, that’s not how they portrayed themselves every other day of the week. Perhaps that’s the other side of your point: being anti-Catholic is, in general, more facade than informed? :dunno:
…but there’s a little more to that part of the story that I need to tell… but I wanted to get here and then jog backwards briefly… perhaps that will make it a little more clear.
I’m not sure where this silence in the face of conversion comes from; you are certainly not alone in feeling it. It seems that most protestants only want to snipe at Catholics rather than having an honest dialog. Now, don’t get me wrong: many close friends of mine are protestant, and do have some dialog, but the vast majority just write you off as insane, or mislead, and never want to journey into the darkness with you to help you find your way.
Everyone has to go through versions of the ‘dark night of the soul’.
Spencer, your story reminds me a LOT of my own journey to liberalism. I’m not trying to make myself a martyr or anything (and I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing either)…I just wanted to say that I can really empathize with what you felt going through all this, and I’m glad you’ve found peace in the Lord on your own terms.
:hug:
Spencer,
I admire your courage. I never had to make that break with my father; for me, it was just a matter of making the faith he passed on to me my own. The Eucharist is the center, the anchor, and the motor of my own faith, the wonderful thing that I would want to share with someone who already believed in the divinity of Christ.