Catholic Converts: What was the last straw that made you left the Protestant Churches?

[Jafar]

Presbyterians wasted 20 years of my life. a Church without Eucharist is more intruded by Devil.

 

[redmars3000]

Liberalism.

Gene Robinson being Ordained even though he was a practicing Homosexual. Even if you were in doubt about homosexuality, the fact that he wasn’t married and he was having sex outside of marriage told me alot about the values of the Episcopal church.

An Episcopal church in downtown San Antonio wrote on its website that part of its mission was to incorporate post-modernism into it’s message from the bible. I couldn’t believe it.

 

[wanner47]

Finding out that the ECLA’s insurance policy (the one provided to all ELCA employees, including pastors) covered abortion.

That, and I began to see the inherent flaws in sola scriptura as I studied the Church’s teachings.

 

[THutch04]

No real last straw, just the fact that the Catholic Church was the only place where there was real unity.

 

[DixiesFinest]

What was the final doctrinal issue that made you leave the variety of Protestant churches?

Plainly put, history. I am a history major, I study it, and see its importance to our lives. Protestant churches simply do not stand up to the test of history: their doctrines do not match those of the historic Church, or as we know it, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

 

[Sina]

For me it was all the non denom splinter groups and that my grandparents in the Mother country are Lutheran… (and then I learned the history of the Church ) and the beauty and mystery of the sacraments and I joined in 1999.

 

[Jennifer_G]

Hearing about an apparition of Mary (in former Yugoslavia) and wondering why Lutherans never have any micracles or visitations, did some research on the Internet, which had just started becoming public in '94/'95, and finding that a lot of my conservative views fit the Catholic faith more than Lutheranism. Then the journey started. (I’m not quite there yet, actually)

 

[DJgang]

Liberalism.

Gene Robinson being Ordained even though he was a practicing Homosexual. Even if you were in doubt about homosexuality, the fact that he wasn’t married and he was having sex outside of marriage told me alot about the values of the Episcopal church.

I agree.

I can’t help but wonder if a bishop would have been elected if he was just shacking up with a girlfriend that he had left his wife for…

Gene Robinson was immediately invited to speak at a Planned Parenthood breakfast and even compared his coming out to the Passover. (You can find that interview on the PP website)

The ECUSA stance on abortion.

Anglicans for Life Website:
The Episcopal Church states that it “emphatically opposes” abortion for such reasons of convenience as birth control, family planning and sex selection. Yet in its Stance on Abortion, the Church acknowledges the legal “right” of every woman to an abortion and expresses its “deep conviction” that legally the “individual conscience” of a woman must be “respected.” Anglicans for Life is concerned that, by upholding such “rights”, the Church forgets God’s concern for the unborn and their rights.

I once asked my priest to start a group at our church, well, he never would respond to me…I wonder why?

 

[reneeville]

The STRAW broke after an eight month period of meditative and contemplative prayer (several years of painful confliction in protestantland) when God asked “why are you a protestant?”. I couldn’t answer Him with a reasonable or logical response.
Better even than children (and I love them!!!)… was coming home to the fullness of Faith in the ONE true Church.

 

[tundramom]

The Eucharist.

The last time I was in my old AofG church, the Pastor held up the bread and grape juice and said, “we could be doing this with a snickers bar and a coke and it would be the same thing.”

To myself, I was horrified at first, but then I thought, Yup… he’s right. Why settle for junk food when I could have the real nourishment?

in Christ
Steph

 

[terri_fortner]

There was no last straw, but I laughed a little (okay a lot) in agreement with the person who said they disagreed with Sola Scriptura, and Sola Fide even before they knew there was a name for it. I didn’t know there was a name for it, but I knew I didn’t agree with it.

Its all my sister’s fault, I am telling you, if she had never started thinking about it, then I would never have read about it “in support of her” then I would have been just fine in the happy go lucky comfortable rock songs and movies type of church. Yet now, I am happy to get up at 6 am and go to Mass in the mornings. It is a great way to get up and dedicate the day to Jesus.

The only thing that stopped me from going to the old church, b/c my 4 and 5 yo kids LOVED it, was when the preacher totally added stuff to the bible that is not there! He said “When Jesus says ‘Upon this rock’ He was pointing to himself.” How does this pastor know this? Haven’t been back there since. The Catholic Church in town has become my home, even if I don’t talk to anyone and I haven’t really open up yet… RCIA starts next week, and tomorrow I have an appointment to meet the Fr.

 

[Edward62]

I was not a protestant, actually, I was an atheist. For some stupid reason I thought that God did not exist… I had a lot of fancy “proofs” and supposed “reasons” but they were all bunk. To be perfectly honest it was just that I was angry at the Church because they professed the truth that I did not want to hear (I was fortunate to attend Catholic schools for 13 years!) and I basically plugged my ears and said “La la la la, I can’t hear you, la la la!”

Thankfully one of my best friends sat me down and said, “Ed, how come you don’t believe in God?” and I listed all of the stupid reasons I could think of but he, of course, had much more solid answers than I could ever think of. I knew he was right, and I just started crying… I told him that when it came down to it I was trying to justify my own selfish desires and I was mad at the Church. He was very kind and understanding, and after we prayed the rosary together I felt so very much better… we went to Mass and suddenly the beautiful truth of it all rushed back to me!

To think that I rebelled and rotted my mind because I was mad that the Church condemned my sexuality (and rightly so)! In fact I think this whole experience has strengthened my faith… I’ve learned to place God above my own sinful desires. I am so thankful for the beautiful sacrament of Reconciliation and I don’t know what I’d do without it.

Sorry, I’ve been rambling… but the last straw was the compassionate and reasonable voice of a friend. I truly believe God used him to bring me back to the fold.

 

[JoyfulOne]

According to my sponsor, I was always Catholic and just didn’t know it

The final straw? Katharine Jefferts-Schori:tsktsk:

 

[chris_molter]

well, as an Episcopalian, there were a LOT of straws!

The one that finally made me realize I needed to come into full communion with the Church was the widely varying understandings of “Real Presence” that are accepted within the doctrinal boundaries of Anglicanism.

The Episcopal Church and diocese I grew up in and attended until my Tiber swim was pretty conservative, doctrinally, and I never really had to personally deal with any of the serious heterodox problems that plague much of the rest of that denomination, which was a great blessing. However, one day, we (the Lay Eucharistic Ministers aka LEMs) were meeting in the Sacristy, when I noticed that the sink had been re-piped to have both sinks going to the septic system. Now, if you know something about Sacristies, they should have one sink or repository that goes into the ground, for sacramentals like Holy water to be disposed without putting them into a septic tank!

I was aghast that for an indeterminate amount of time, people had been pouring the consecrated blood of Christ into a septic tank! When I expressed this, all of the layfolk there were pretty much like “so?”. I think the deacon (a female former Lutheran) was the only one who was equally upset about it.

That pushed me to really look deeper into why Anglicanism permitted such a wide and contradictory variety of beliefs. I understand some things in theology must be “held in tension”, but c’mon! Anyway, it got to the point that I realized that I was now outside of communion not only with Pope Benedict, whom I greatly respected as an Anglican, but the great Anglican saints of old like Thomas Becket and Anselm of Canterbury.

Long, rambling story short? Doctrine of the Eucharist.

 

[b_justb]

Comparing the Christian beliefs of the first three centuries to those of the Church of the week I was attending.

Those first Christians were just so darn Catholic.

 

[Donna_Mc]

Liberalism.

Gene Robinson being Ordained even though he was a practicing Homosexual. Even if you were in doubt about homosexuality, the fact that he wasn’t married and he was having sex outside of marriage told me alot about the values of the Episcopal church.

An Episcopal church in downtown San Antonio wrote on its website that part of its mission was to incorporate post-modernism into it’s message from the bible. I couldn’t believe it.

My husband grew up in the Episcopal Church and was turned off
by their liberal views on different issues, especially abortion. He
actually converted years before the Gene Robinson issue, he
couldn’t believe that was happening.

 

[historybrat]

There were really two reasons that I finally became Catholic.

First, I’m a history teacher. I really looked at the history of the church, and of various splinter groups. The more I looked the more I was convinced that the Catholic Church is the one true church. Every other church has to look to someone besides our Lord Jesus Christ as their founder.

Second, and this was probably the really big one, when I was a child my parents took me to many different churches and we tried many different dominations.Either they claimed they were the path to Christ and nobody else could help me, or that it didn’t matter how I got there and anybody could help me. There was no consistency. I went to one Baptist Church and they said one thing, went to a different Baptist Church and they said something else. I’m a firm believer that if something is true it should be true everywhere and at all times. If its something you can change later its not really the truth we are all seeking. The Catholic Church has been consistent in her message for two thousand years. That’s as consistent as your gonna get.

Historybrat

 

[qui_est_ce]

Then the journey started. (I’m not quite there yet, actually)

Welcome, I hope you make it through RCIA this time. I help with RCIA in my parish. I learn and learn and learn. We have had many people who have could not complete the process, and start the next session. They always end up finishing at last. I think these are truly people who listen to the Holy Spirit’s will for them - they are in God’s time, not their time.

Praying for you. This might be really hard for you, because it is really hard for me, but I am trying to make the sigin of the cross instead of just a silent prayer when I am moved to pray (like when I see an ambulance, or just now when I said I’d pray for you). Start doing it when you are by yourself, then in the car. In the car by myself is as far as I have come.

 

[woodyww]

The Eucharist! I finally realized that the Father had reserved a place for me at His table. I could continue to eat the scraps and leftovers from the floor or I could join the rest of the family at my Father’s table.

 

[qui_est_ce]

(I was fortunate to attend Catholic schools for 13 years!) and I basically plugged my ears and said “La la la la, I can’t hear you, la la la!”

Sorry, I’ve been rambling… but the last straw was the compassionate and reasonable voice of a friend. I truly believe God used him to bring me back to the fold.

You give me hope for my children. They are teenagers, one in college and they decided they could decide for themselves what’s right and wrong, and don’t need to go to mass any more.