Conversions to/from Catholicism

[Dive_Pistol]

Hi,

I want to know about your conversion experience, whether it was to or from the Catholic faith, and what influenced you to convert. What was the final deciding factor or argument that convinced you?

Thanks

 

[PerfectTiming]

I’m sort of a convert. I decided to become a Catholic at 8 years old, but fell away from faith when I got older. When I was 16 a friend of my mum’s heard I was Catholic and offered to take me to church. I had never taken confirmation so she took me to RCIA. Rediscovering my faith changed my life. My parents had separated and I had a lot of anger and resentment because of it but it taught me how to let that go and forgive. The thing that really cinched it for me is that I felt at home. Somehow it just felt right, like my faith filled in the missing pieces of a puzzle.

 

[dzheremi]

The question in the OP is malformed, at least in my case (and I would suspect in the vast majority of other converts’ cases). When I converted to Catholicism, it is because I was convinced by the weight of the arguments presented to me by the Catholic Church, not because there was one final factor that caused an “aha!” moment in my brain. Similarly, when I finally left the Roman Catholic Church it was after a long period of wrestling with those same arguments and questions that I had accepted upon converting, but had since come to view in a different way in light of different arguments or approaches to the same questions. Again, there’s no “aha!” moment here, either. Looking for a single factor or cause is futile and overly simplistic, as attractive as it may be. People are complex, and anyone who would convert from or to something for one reason or issue or argument likely lives a very weak, easily destroyed faith.

 

[nickybr38]

I was searching for a Christian ‘home’ after many years of spiritual isolation.

Friday night I was anti-Catholic (I actually made a statement to my sister that all the denominations I’d tried just didn’t work, all that was left was the Catholic church and that wasn’t even a REMOTE option).

Saturday morning I woke up with the SURE knowledge that I HAD to join the Catholic Church. I had no doubt where this knowledge came from. The blinders had lifted and I immediately acted as the Spirit led me.

It really was as simple as that.

After that I started studying the Church and everything fell into place like pieces of a puzzle… as if I’d been carved to understand things in a Catholic way and when I attempted to fit into other denominations things just didn’t fit because they weren’t the right pieces.

My sister used to call me a closet Catholic… she was right.

I will be brought into full communion with the Catholic Church April 23rd of this year. I’m very excited! The more I learn the more I come to understand this IS my home. It always has been I just didn’t know it because I was raised to believe the Catholic Church was evil. Capital E.

I have never once doubted this decision and I have never been happier in my spiritual walk. I’m home.

 

[yosephdaviyd]

Hi,

I want to know about your conversion experience, whether it was to or from the Catholic faith, and what influenced you to convert. What was the final deciding factor or argument that convinced you?

Thanks

When my journey led me to the Catholic Church I knew I had found the truth and I had to be responsible to that or the remainder of my life would be a lie. That was the final deciding factor, so the speak, but my longer story is at davidlgray.info/myconversionstory.html

 

[Augustus24]

I used to be a virulent anti catholic protestant. I was attending an evangelical christian university, and I was taking this medieval history class. The professor was a Catholic, and I challenged Catholicism in his class. He challenged me to disprove Catholicism in a real way, not just mindless platitudes like “The Pope is the Antichrist”. I spent the next 8 months researching, reading history and theology, and the scriptures. By the end of my research all my arguments had been crushed, I came to realize that Catholicism is simply the ONLY cogent form of Christianity. I was received into the Catholic Church about 6 months after graduation from college. I guess the argument that was the “silver bullet” for me was my reading of the church fathers, especially St. Augustine’s ‘City of God’. I came to the conclusion that the faith that St. Augustine was practicing was not protestantism at all (I had believed that St Augustine was closer to protestantism), but rather it was Catholicism. Then I read a host of other Church Fathers, and realized the same was true for them as well. The first doctrine I truly bought into was the Real Presence.

 

[catsrus]

I was raised a lutheran but was never particularly attached to it and would go with friends to methodist, evangelical, presbyterian and other churches and never saw a whit of difference among them.
I began to look into The Catholic Church because a freind of mine (who was a non practiceing Catholic) and I got into a long night bull session about relgion and I felt the need to check out her theological presentation.
It was not an ah-ha moment, and actually took about 3 - 4 years, but the more I read the history of the church, the more I wanted to read and explore. After about 6 months of really doing this on a regular basis, I just walked into the nearest Catholic Church, found the priest and ask him for instruction.
That was 12 years ago. I’ve never looked back. All the protestantism I’d ever known seem so watered down with such weak arguements that I could not believe that The Catholic Church had been there all the time and I never knew of it!
BUT, I’d been raised VERY anti-Catholic and would not have thought to looked for God there when I was young.

 

[rev_kevin]

I was born and raised in the Catholic faith and went to a seninary to be a priest. While there I could not accept what was being taught. I could not believe some of the things that they were teaching, ie. Mary being a virgin all her life and so on and still find some of the teachings pretty far fetched. So I stopped going to Church all together. Then some years had passed and I came to know a family that were Baptist and was invited to go to church with them, so after several months I decided to go to church with them. At first I was not sure about this because of the size of the church, (about 2,000 =/- members) so I didn’t go for a couple of months after that. Then once again I decided to give it another try and I found that the people there welcomed me with open arms from the pastor to the regular member. So I became a regular there. My friend asked me to go to what we call “mens breakfeast” one morning (its open to both sexes, its part of our mens ministrys). they treated me as a equal and now I help cook breakfeast, my job it to cook the eggs and gravy. One day while in services something came over me, it was a feeling I never had before, it was a feeling of great happiness and sorrow at the same time. I felt Christ. After services the pastor would ask if there was anyone who wanted to give themselves to Christ or become a member of the church to come up and speak to him about it. Well I did. I was like a little baby crying because of the feelings I had which I could only explain as Christ had entered my heart. I went up and talked to him, we said the sinners prayer, while I was crying, (yes I’m not ashamed to say I was crying) and then he introduced me to the congragation. Next thing I realized was a line of people to welcome me to Christ and to the Church. It was a very moving experience for me. Oh by the way my oldest son was with me at that time. Now I’m a ordained minister and I go do services in nursing homes. I have never felt Christ that strong in me in all my life. Its a feeling I never felt as a Catholic. This experience has nothing to do with how the people treated me, it was Christ who brought that family into my life and it was Christ who entered my heart, and it was Christ who gave me this great joy and ability to preach his word to others. Christ get all the credit not man.

 

[rikkk1958]

I was born and raised in the Catholic faith and went to a seninary to be a priest. While there I could not accept what was being taught. I could not believe some of the things that they were teaching, ie. Mary being a virgin all her life and so on and still find some of the teachings pretty far fetched. So I stopped going to Church all together. Then some years had passed and I came to know a family that were Baptist and was invited to go to church with them, so after several months I decided to go to church with them. At first I was not sure about this because of the size of the church, (about 2,000 =/- members) so I didn’t go for a couple of months after that. Then once again I decided to give it another try and I found that the people there welcomed me with open arms from the pastor to the regular member. So I became a regular there. My friend asked me to go to what we call “mens breakfeast” one morning (its open to both sexes, its part of our mens ministrys). they treated me as a equal and now I help cook breakfeast, my job it to cook the eggs and gravy. One day while in services something came over me, it was a feeling I never had before, it was a feeling of great happiness and sorrow at the same time. I felt Christ. After services the pastor would ask if there was anyone who wanted to give themselves to Christ or become a member of the church to come up and speak to him about it. Well I did. I was like a little baby crying because of the feelings I had which I could only explain as Christ had entered my heart. I went up and talked to him, we said the sinners prayer, while I was crying, (yes I’m not ashamed to say I was crying) and then he introduced me to the congragation. Next thing I realized was a line of people to welcome me to Christ and to the Church. It was a very moving experience for me. Oh by the way my oldest son was with me at that time. Now I’m a ordained minister and I go do services in nursing homes. I have never felt Christ that strong in me in all my life. Its a feeling I never felt as a Catholic. This experience has nothing to do with how the people treated me, it was Christ who brought that family into my life and it was Christ who entered my heart, and it was Christ who gave me this great joy and ability to preach his word to others. Christ get all the credit not man.

I was moved by your story Rev. Kevin, and I for one believes that Christ touched your heart. Although I agree with you wholeheartedly, I only want to emphasize that accepting Christ is about reverence and devotion which must also seek for the Word which Christ taught us. This is the reason why I can not leave Catholicism because I want to belong to His Church. We Catholics wish you well, and we always believe that if your heart is true and worship God with all your heart and mind you are not far from His Kingdom.

 

[rev_kevin]

I was moved by your story Rev. Kevin, and I for one believes that Christ touched your heart. Although I agree with you wholeheartedly, I only want to emphasize that accepting Christ is about reverence and devotion which must also seek for the Word which Christ taught us. This is the reason why I can not leave Catholicism because I want to belong to His Church. We Catholics wish you well, and we always believe that if your heart is true and worship God with all your heart and mind you are not far from His Kingdom.

Thank you very much. Its nice to hear kind words here.
God Bless you.

 

[TimothyH]

I was a practicing Catholic (married to a Catholic deacon’s daughter) but couldn’t tell you why we kneeled or what the word "Eucharist’ meant. Had been to confession exactly once in my life when I was eight years old.

I was looking at different Churches and actively studying with Evangelicals and Baptists. Their pastor’s study notes one week said that Baptisim didn’t really do anything, that it was just symbolic - I had seen enough baptisms and been in the Catholic Church long enough to know that this was not what Catholicism taught and so I started studying anything I could get my hands on. I called in sick and burned vacation days so that I could study…Calvin, Luther, Augustine, Aquinas, Hahn, even read Max Lucado and Joel Osteen, went to Baptist conferences and even to a Messianic Jewish temple asking endless questions.

The weight of evidence was in favor of Catholicism - scripture seemed to make the most sense in light of Catholicsim. Protestantism, and especially Evangelicalism, seemed to always have to do some sort of contortion or some sort of gymnastics to make their beliefs fit scripture or scripture fit their beliefs. Catholicism seemed to blend very naturally with what I was reading in Scripture.

I had made the intellectual decision in favor of Catholicism and then one night I sat down to read John 6 looking for loopholes, to see if there was any possible way for it to -not- be the actual body and blood of Jesus. I read it slowly. I read it a second time, very slowly, pausing on each word to understand it’s meaning. Then I read it a third time and when I got to “My flesh is true food…” I fell on the floor crying. That was it. The moment was a gift from God who quite honestly, I think had simply had enough.

At that point I realized what all my sin was doing to Jesus and began to love Jesus more than myself. My love for God became inseperable from my love for his Church. When I got up off the floor I literally said, “Uh, oh… I gotta go to confession!” Scared me to death. I made a confession of 37 years the next day.

For me it’s about the Eucharist and the supreme authority of Rome handed down from St. Peter and the Apostles. No matter what argument anyone brings up, no matter what happens in my life, and the Eucharist stands for me as a fortress, as does the absolute authority of the Church which serves as a compass needle which never points in the wrong direction. I can’t imagine life without receiving the Eucharist or the rock upon which the Church is built.

-Tim-