Catholic Converts- What made you convert?

[GiannaMarie_JMJ]

WOW!
Thank you all so much again for replying to this thread!!! The Holy Spirit is certainly working through you all. I hope to hear more beautiful stories, they bring tears to my eyes.

God Bless,

GiannaMarie_JMJ

 

[OHCAC]

Let’s see:

• Ability to have a drink at a church function - perish the thought!
• A guardian angel, and
• 50 days of Easter!

Seriously for me it was a combination of several things that all came together in about one year after I’d been going to a RC church as a Protestant for 16 years. First, a Catholic wife who was extremely patient with me and my questions and the same for many, many people in the church. There was not pressure to join or convert me, they listened, they responded, they found answers when they didn’t have them, they were great.

Secondly, it was the negative responses and behavior of many people outside the RCC of other faiths that really turned me off. I grew up Southern Baptist and I never experienced a wave of anti-Catholicism at my church. But boy did I find it later in life from people in my family when my wife and I were married, from people I knew who I’d discuss Catholicism with - not even telling them I was considering it - I’d just bring up something about Catholicism and out would come the negative comments - usually very ill-informed, etc.

Along those lines I worked for a company that merged with a company based in Salt Lake City, so everyone there was LDS. Many of these were great people on the surface, but as you delved deeper with them there was a pronounced arrogance of “we’re better than you, know more than you, raise our families better than you, have revelation you don’t,” etc. I respected them enough to learn more about their religion because, hey, they could be right. But as I studied both my Protestant refutations of Mormonism and their works as well, I found on the one hand why they believe but on the other why they shouldn’t - theological holes you could drive the QE2 through. I’m not a theologian but have learned a lot through my studies and found too many basic questions in the LDS faith without solid answers.

Finally it was the Journey Home on EWTN. I simply saw way too many very learned, humble people, who knew way more about both the church they’d come from and the RCC, theology, philosophy, etc, than I ever would who had converted. They understood all the sticky questions that were keeping me from converting at a much deeper level than I ever might and they’d converted - so I felt should strongly consider their rationale and listen to their stories.

I think the tipping point for me was seeing Francis Beckwith, some of whose books I’d read and admired, who was President of the Evangelical Theological Society, tell his story as to why he became Catholic. And Dr. Kenneth Howell taking a personal call from me out of the blue after I’d seen him on EWTN, and take his valuable time to explain why Mary not only could be sinless and not refute Romans 3:23 but why she had to be sinless.

And it made sense! Like many others on this thread it kind of all came together at the same time and not only did all my Protestant questions get answered but I came to find the Church so much deeper, broader and richer than I’d ever realized it to be before - even though I’d been attending Mass for many years (just slow I guess). As I go through time I find there’s always a logical, theologically sound answer to my questions that was usually thought out hundreds of years ago! I have no doubts about this being the Church Christ founded on earth - thanks be to Him that He found me.

 

[shelby2014]

I would love to type the details, but it is too late.

I said to convert (from nondenominational Protestant) God would have to win me over emotionally and intellecutally. Emotionally, He won me over in the Mass. (I have never seen a group of people so excited about Jesus, and that would probably offend some of my protestant friends to hear).

Intellectually is more complicated, and it was done little by little. Important points that really got to me:

• The authority of the church and papacy vs. thousands of protestants out there trying to understand or find the truth…
• The vast majority of Catholic practices that protestants object to were in place by the time the Bible (NT) was assembled. We have to take it all - either Jesus was a story and a hoax and the gnostic “gospels” have the same cred. as the real gospels, or we take the story of Jesus, the canon of the New Testament, and the traditions of the Catholic church in one lump sum.
• The CC’s defense of the truth of the church against heresy over centuries
• Learning more about the falling apart and splintering of the church during the protestant reformation. These were sheep without a shephard. It really made me so sad. I know the CC was messed up in those days, but it was not entirely fallen away. And I could see that, rather than saving the faith, the protestants lost so much by leaving. And we are now a splintered, divided group of Christians. And that has, I believe, in ways led to a downward spiral of moral relativism to where we are now.

 

[dsears]

I grew up in a nominal Baptist home, but my grandmother (whom I would stay with on Saturday nights and whom I still stay with on Saturdays when I’m in Indianapolis) would take me to church on Sunday mornings. I learned the faith from her. In 2004 I decided to go to a Methodist College and so my Grandmother and I started attending an evening service at the local Methodist Church. When the Baptist Church split (in 2006) over the termination of the head pastors job I left and joined that Methodist Congergation. I stayed there for about 6 months, but the congergation was too large and did not offer what I needed as a religion major to advance. So I went to a smaller UM congergation that was actually closer to my grandmothers house. Within that congergation I found a warm, loving, and nutouring spirit that helped me through some trying times within my last one and a half years of college.

That congergation sent me away to seminary. Since the seminary is 200 miles away I had to find a local congergation here that I would fit into. I started going to a progressive UM congergation here that was very welcoming and loving. (I am the furthest thing from progressive, but it is very hard to find a non progressive protestant church here.) I felt thought that I needed the sacraments more than the UM church offered so I found the local Episcopal Church. And I was supprised that the priest was not progressive. (At least not in his preaching. I do not know politically.) But with the mess the Episcopal Church was in and finding out that while the UM church claims to be more pro-life, they are very pro-choice in their action. As the summer progressed (2009) I became more troubled with both the Episcopal Church and the UM church and I became what I self described as an Anglo-Papist. When I started describing myself as such I knew I had to become Catholic.

With the begining of the fall semester last year I went to the local Catholic Church and talked with a wonderful young priest (Fr. D. Schalk) who is now my spiritual director.We agreed that it was time for me to become Catholic, but since I was at a protestant seminary he would bring me in the old fashined way instead of through RCIA. So throughout the later part of the summer last year and through the fall I met with Fr. Schalk and we went through a book by Pope Benidict when he was still a Cardinal, another book (whose author I cannot remember for the life of me) and Lumen Gentiem (spelling??). I was brought into the church on Saturday October 31 at a special mass. I found it odd that I was joining the Catholic Church on the day that so many protestant churches call reformation day in honor of Luther. So I went with what my academic advisior said. (I was making my own reformation against the protestant church.) I am unsure of the next step from here, but I know I am home. The Catholic Church is were I am called to be and I am grateful to both Fr. Schalk and the head pastor Fr. J. Black for allowing me to enter the church as I did and for their guidance as I finish up at the Methodist seminary and decern my next move.