Conversion - by those who are well read

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ConfusedTim

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One of the difficulties I see in religious matters is the sheer volume of data to consider to arrive at a conclusion where I feel 100% confident of my beliefs. Its not easy being a believer of any persuassion and in the past I have tried:
  1. ignoring religion - i.e. not thinking about it ever
  2. finding fault with it - check out the Iinfidel Guy Show which is really entertaining and informative
  3. going to non denominational church - entertaining, good fellowship but lacking something
  4. come back to the Catholic Church which seems to make most sense, especially the more i learn about it although I am not 100% sure and still ahve some doubts.
I have the impression that the more informed a person becomes the more sympathetic they become to the Catholic Church -even to the point of conversion and there are many examples of informed protestant scholars becoming Catholics. By this i mean people who are pastors/theologians or other full time scholars i.e. have the real time to consider all the facts and make an informed decision.

My question is, in the last 100 years or so are there many examples (you will always get the odd person in any group hence the focus on numbers) of learned Catholics (same type of categoriies as mentioned above i.e not Jo Blo like me who has the will power of a sheep, the memory of a goldfish and no quality time to read up) who have decided that the Church is too far removed their beliefs and moved to a non Catholic church?
 
I am not a theology professor or a great learned person however but I can answer your question on being 100%. You will never be 100%, no doubt in your beliefs and if in some brief moments you are it will not last for ever. That is part of faith. We always have doubts or questions. We must always work at our faith.

An example of this is when it comes to Church teaching on the Holy Spirit. We believe that there is one in three and three in one. How can one prove this or completely understand it. We cannot. We reach a point in understanding but much of it is left to faith. Faith is believing in what you cannot see. Eventually we reach points of temptation or doubt where we simply have to trust in God.
 
It always seems to me that people leave the Roman Catholic Church because they do not have a full grasp of what the Church really teaches, and that people enter the RCC because they study ECF, Church History, and the Bible put it together and conclusion leads them home to the RCC.

But to be fair, I have heard a number of stories of Priests converting to non-Catholic Christian denominations. I don’t know any personally, but have heard of them, there is even I book I believe.
 
Doubt is part of the human condition. If you live, you live with doubt. So if you live your faith, you struggle with doubt in that faith. Why do you feel the need to believe something so completely before you can embrace it?

I have known Catholics who have left the Roman Catholic faith in order to join the Orthodox faith (the Russian Church is a large historical influence on my home region, even though most of its believers today are US-born non-Russians/non-Slavs), and even more to become atheists or agnostics or just to free up their Sundays (or whatever other reason someone would stop believing in Christ; I don’t really know). But that is immaterial, isn’t it? Many learned people have come to believe in falsehood, just as many uneducated have grasped the truth to their own satisfaction where they feel it is to be found. A person’s relationship to their faith can change, even if the content of the faith itself does not.
 
ConfusedTim said:
One of the difficulties I see in religious matters is the sheer volume of data to consider to arrive at a conclusion where I feel 100% confident of my beliefs. Its not easy being a believer of any persuassion and in the past I have tried:
  1. ignoring religion - i.e. not thinking about it ever
  2. finding fault with it - check out the Iinfidel Guy Show which is really entertaining and informative
  3. going to non denominational church - entertaining, good fellowship but lacking something
  4. come back to the Catholic Church which seems to make most sense, especially the more i learn about it although I am not 100% sure and still ahve some doubts.
I have the impression that the more informed a person becomes the more sympathetic they become to the Catholic Church -even to the point of conversion and there are many examples of informed protestant scholars becoming Catholics. By this i mean people who are pastors/theologians or other full time scholars i.e. have the real time to consider all the facts and make an informed decision.

My question is, in the last 100 years or so are there many examples (you will always get the odd person in any group hence the focus on numbers) of learned Catholics (same type of categoriies as mentioned above i.e not Jo Blo like me who has the will power of a sheep, the memory of a goldfish and no quality time to read up) who have decided that the Church is too far removed their beliefs and moved to a non Catholic church?
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There have been quite a few conversions from Rome to Anglicanism over the years. As one might expect, the CC does not publicise such things - why would it ? - & the Anglican Church is not given to publicising its converts from other Churches; which IMO is very attractive.​

 
How do you know?

Actually, knowing is in its way opposed to faith.

Read Hebrew 11–“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

There have been quite a few conversions from Rome to Anglicanism over the years. As one might expect, the CC does not publicise such things - why would it ? - & the Anglican Church is not given to publicising its converts from other Churches; which IMO is very attractive.​

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I would agree, but I don’t think that its the RCC church that publishes these stories, more like the converts themselves giving testimony of their own conversions. I would be hard pressed to see the Church parading up converts and their stories for publicity.
 
1edyson said:
I would agree, but I don’t think that its the RCC church that publishes these stories, more like the converts themselves giving testimony of their own conversions. I would be hard pressed to see the Church parading up converts and their stories for publicity.
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EWTN has a TV program called The Journey Home. Converts tell their stories there…
 
geometer said:
EWTN has a TV program called The Journey Home. Converts tell their stories there…
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Yes, but those are people who choose to tell their story there. And do not forget that EWTN is not a branch of the Church. Yes, they teach proper teachings and yes they are in union with the local Bishop and Rome, but they are not an office of the Church
 
One reason why i became Catholic is because during my course of research in finding the One True Church, only the Catholic Church didn’t boast about its rising number of converts. I’ve been to several other non-Catholic churches and whilst its members were ever so smiley and welcoming, they were always too eager to want me to board the ship.

On the first day of my RCIA, the very first thing our late Father Amiotte (God bless his soul) told us was that there were no obligations to convert. He emphasized that conversion is a very serious matter and you should only do so when you feel comfortable - at your own pace. God is a patient God.
 
ConfusedTim said:
My question is, in the last 100 years or so are there many examples (you will always get the odd person in any group hence the focus on numbers) of learned Catholics (same type of categoriies as mentioned above i.e not Jo Blo like me who has the will power of a sheep, the memory of a goldfish and no quality time to read up) who have decided that the Church is too far removed their beliefs and moved to a non Catholic church?
Click to expand...
According to the Journey Home website hundreds of protestant clergy have converted to Catholicism in the last 15 years.

I believe it has to do with the availability of early Christian documents via the internet, but that’s just my opinion.

You can listen to many of their journies here:(probablly about 250)

ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=-6892289&T1=journey+home
 
I posted this on another thread, but it seems to apply here though I am not 100 years old yet, so here it is, with some modification:

"There is, in regards to faith, the much ignored difference between substance and contents. Intellectual and emotional knowledge, including faith, are contents of the mind, capable of manipulation. Such are dependent, mutable, and necessarily incomplete. That puts anyone’s faith of whatever stripe into the catagory of material rightfully submissable to thorough examination by universal principles. Such universal principles may or may not correspond with postulates of faith systems which are themselves subject to scrutiny.

Knowledge by Identity* is another matter, corresponding to the Soul in the way spoken of by St Theresa of Avila, the soul being the “host” of the intellect, and the emotions being lesser yet. Despite that useful heirachy of understanding, religionists often tend to confuse their self identification which is substantive, with intellectual material heavily colored by emotion, all of which is contents.

That contents is ephemeral, whatever claims may be made for it in terms of dogma, tradition, and teaching. Therefore, pious religious belief may in fact be prophylactic in action against substantive Self/Soul knowledge. “Gnothi Seauton.” "

~~

I know many folks who were faced with a crisis in faith, myself included. The preparation for such a crisis, even given a well grounded catechetical education and prolonged interviews with clergy of scholastic ability, was in my case inadequate. I had to go “outside.” I will always be grateful that I did, as I learned much that is pertinent to spiritual advancement that is not touched upon by the Church in any of its presentations that I, at least, have come across. My understanding has so far continued to unfold in a meaningful, practical, and elevating way, even re-establishing a ground of perception that has given me new insights even into the deeper significance of the Church. I feel very safe in saying that no way would have found that had I continued my inquiry within the bounds of Catholic dogma. Those others whom I have mentioned, most of them scholarly and well read deep thinkers, have had similar experiences with our and other Churches.

Bindar Doondat
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* For a remarkable exploration of this idea, I recommend F. Merrell-Wolff's *The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object.* My personal opinion is that this is where St Aquinas went when he stopped writing, saying about his work something like "It is all as straw" when put up agaist his final realization.
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