When I first became a Christian, i didn’t belong to any particular church. However, I felt in my heart of hearts that Jesus founded ONE church, and that church must still be around. I investigated the claims of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists to be the “true church” but some of their teachings didn’t square with scripture (plus, as I realized later, it’s highly unlikely that Jesus would wait until the 19th century to restore his Church). Unfortunately, my readings had givenly a strong anti-Catholicism. I eventually joined a Baptist church because it actually believed the Gospel, unlike many of the older ‘mainline’ Protestant churches who seemed to water down the faith. I attended for several months, then left for the new church the pastor started after he had a dispute with some of the church elders. I attended his church for awhile, then kind of fell out of churchgoing for a couple years. I had a friend who was Catholic who tried to talk me into going to RCIA, but with my “Protestant pride” I knew better (Or so I thought). I eventually came into contact with a Russian Orthodox lady. The Orthodox was just different enough from Catholicism for me to put my Bible-know-it-all attitude aside long enough to listen. I was very interested in Orthodoxy, but it seemed to me to ethnically centered: Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, etc which is fine if you belong to one of those ethnic groups. At about this time my friend brought up the subject of RCIA again, and this time I was ready to listen. I read all I could about the Catholic Church, and came home on Easter 1996.
Why did I become Catholic? Because of the Sacraments. Because (with the exception of the Orhodox) it is the only church that can trace it’s roots to Jesus. Because the thousands of churches in Protestantism all claim to follow the Bible but can’t agree on what it teaches. Because unlike many Protestant churches, it has never watered down the Gospel or changed it’s moral teaching (like birth control and abortion).
