Converting a troubled soul

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BlessedYoungCatholic

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First of all thank you all for taking the time to read this and answer.

Ok the real issue is 2 of my friends and I are trying to convert this friend of ours who is very troubled to the Catholic Faith. This man was previously raised an atheist and now believes Jesus exists. He also believes in hell or heaven but completely rejects anything else. He did suffer a lot of traumatic experiences in his life. We have tried NUMEROUS times to share the love of Christ and mercy with him but he refuses to believe in it, but there was still hope as he was starting to open up to God and become curious.

A few months ago he got in this relationship with this Girl who basically is feeding him all the wrong things and before he used to be prolife and now he completely rejects the church teaching on birth control and abortion. She is purposefully trying to not having him convert to the faith by feeding him lies about us and he expressed a desire not be friends with us anymore due to our faith and prolife stance. She is also making him emotionally dependent on her in order to control him and she often leads him to sin in impure ways. We as his friends have tried to reason with him but he won’t listen. Basically he did a 180.

We want him to know God and love him and I believe he wants to as well, its just the girl is brainwashing him. The reason I posted this is because we are concerned for the state of his soul and we want him to go to heaven. Please help us by offering any kind of advice regarding him because we fear we may lose him soon as he is starting to become distant.

edit: lots of people think we are pressurizing him to become catholic. that isn’t the case he started to ask us questions about our faith ad we happily shared them with him. We don’t bring up religion unless he brings it up and now we can’t even have a conversation with him without him blaspheming and insulting the faith. Its too the point we don’t want to be friends anymore but we are concerned for him as this girlfriend is also encouraging him to do others stuff I won’t mention.
 
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BlessedYoungCatholic said:
we fear we may lose him soon
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He is not yours to gain or lose, nor is it within your power to gain or lose him. Pray for him, and show him Christian love by your lives and not so much by your words.
he is starting to become distant.
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Make sure you are not pushing him away. I think the best you can do at the moment is to maintain your friendship with him, be patient, be not judgmental, and show rather than tell him the way, the truth, and the life. Live as Christians yourselves, pray for him, and let God’s grace convert him.
 
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I mean this with all due respect, but it isn’t your job to convert him. Of course you can talk to him about what you believe, but you come across very frustrated that he won’t live his life the way you think he should. You need to respect where he is in terms of his faith journey.

It seems as though right now, what makes more sense to him is what his girlfriend is telling him. As difficult as that is, you need to accept it. Perhaps you can agree with him to stop discussing your beliefs with each other if it’s putting a strain on your friendship. If you truly believe this girl is manipulating and bad for him, he’s going to need his friends. So don’t badmouth her to him, try to be friendly to her when you see her. Be there for him.
 
I know you think you’re doing some great things for this guy, but my impression on reading this post was, 3 people are pressuring a person who was previously traumatized to accept their belief system, and now he’s found a girlfriend and his 3 “friends” are trying to break them up.

It’s fine to set a Christian example, to treat the person with love, to answer his questions about your faith when he asks, to witness Jesus to him when it’s appropriate (like thanking God / Jesus when something good happens), and to tell him your beliefs on certain topics (such as pro-life).

It’s NOT fine to get frustrated at him because he rejects what you’re telling him, to gang up 3 against one to “convert” him, to demonize his girlfriend (You should be treating her exactly the same as you’re treating your friend).

Furthermore if this person has been through a lot of trauma in his life, you need to understand he may be vulnerable and not be so pushy.

If you’ve shared the basic teachings about Jesus and Catholicism with him, then you need to back off a bit and just pray for him and not be pushing him to convert or think like you. If he chooses to go off with a girlfriend who rejects the faith instead, that’s his choice to make. It’s not really your call to decide that the girl is “making him emotionally dependent on her” or “brainwashing” him. Many of us, when young, prefer the relationship with our girlfriend or boyfriend over our friends. It’s totally normal, and if you’re trying to get him to give up his girlfriend for Catholicism, that’s likely not going to work. Furthermore, you should be just as concerned about the girl and her soul and instead it seems like you just want her out of the picture so you can “convert” your friend.

Just back off and pray for the both of them; if a lie is being said about your faith you can correct it and then move on without needing to get any deeper into it like “your gf is a liar and she is brainwashing you” etc. Pray and leave them to the Holy Spirit. Conversions can’t be pushed or forced or accomplished by a group working on a guy because at some point his faith is going to have to stand on its own, not because his friends are pushing him. Continue to be friendly and kind, but on the subject of religion, leave it alone unless he asks a question or you absolutely need to correct a lie being told.
 
BlessedYoungCatholic said:
A few months ago he got in this relationship with this Girl who basically is feeding him all the wrong things and before he used to be prolife and now he completely rejects the church teaching on birth control and abortion. She is purposefully trying to not having him convert to the faith by feeding him lies about us and he expressed a desire not be friends with us anymore due to our faith and prolife stance. She is also making him emotionally dependent on her in order to control him and she often leads him to sin in impure ways. We as his friends have tried to reason with him but he won’t listen. Basically he did a 180.
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I agree with other posters about not being pushy, but this does worry me if it’s what’s actually going on. See if you can find actual evidence, somehow, that she’s abusive in the ways you’ve stated. Big red flags there, and a trauma survivor may be just the right victim for such a trap.

By this, I mean to say: Drop the conversion part and just be good friends. Look out for him and make sure he knows you’re there for him. He needs it.
 
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We don’t bring up the topic of religion often we like to discuss other stuff but now every time he talks to us its he starts o insult us on our religion so we have no option to defend it. What’s concerning is he wasn’t like this before he started dating her.
 
I’d suggest just saying to him, “Look, you don’t have to believe as we do, but you do need to respect our beliefs. It’s inappropriate and disrespectful for you to keep insulting our faith every time we have a conversation. It’s hurtful to us too. You need to stop this, or we can no longer be friends.”

And then stick to it. If he keeps being insulting, end the conversations. You can leave the door open so that if he wishes to be friendly without being insulting, he has that option.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I’d suggest just saying to him, “Look, you don’t have to believe as we do, but you do need to respect our beliefs. It’s inappropriate and disrespectful for you to keep insulting our faith every time we have a conversation. It’s hurtful to us too. You need to stop this, or we can no longer be friends.”

And then stick to it. If he keeps being insulting, end the conversations. You can leave the door open so that if he wishes to be friendly without being insulting, he has that option.
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This, 1000%.

As hard as it is, don’t put everything onto his new girlfriend. She can be as anti-religious as she likes, but it’s him who’s making the decision to be rude and it’s him who’s being a bad friend at the moment.
 
Thanks we try not to be pushy and let God work by not bringing up the topic of faith unless he does. The issue with the girlfriend is she is also convincing him to do dangerous things and we are simply concerned for him. That is the sole reason i can honestly say we are still friends with because after this relationship he can’t even talk to us without insulting the faith.
 
We should do I know but here’s the deal I didn’t want to mention this part unless necessary. He and the girlfriend are doing bad things and he is now starting to associate with her friends who often mislead him into doing dangerous things. we have been friends with this guy from childhood and if we leave him we think that he could possibly go down the wrong path.
 
Lou2U said:
you truly believe this girl is manipulating and bad for him, he’s going to need his friends. So don’t badmouth her to him, try to be friendly
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I know she is because both of them are starting to get involved in dangerous stuff. We don’t ever badmouth her since we TRY to see God in her but she certainly does to us and treats us with disrespect. We are simply concerned we don’t ever bring up the topic of faith unless it has been brought up by him. Of course now he keeps insulting our faith at every conversation
 
You’re not going to be able to “rescue” your friend. You can try having a frank talk with him, like an intervention, about how he’s involved in dangerous stuff and needs to stop, but if he doesn’t want to change then all you can do is sow the seed and leave it at that. Like I said, let him know your door is always open if he wishes to talk or needs help, but you can’t be policing his morals every day.

Additionally, if you are minors, and he is doing something dangerous to his health, such as drugs, alcohol, criminal activities, self harm, then you need to tell his parents or, if his parents are absent or disinterested, someone else like the school counselor.

I know it’s a hard thing to let go in a situation like this, but it may very well be that your friend is just sick of his childhood friends and wants to go down a new path that looks exciting to him. Like I said you’re probably not going to be able to stop him.
 
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Here’s the thing, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, I really do. I get the impression from your posts that you feel a lot of responsibility for your friend, and that just isn’t your job.

Of course you want him to be the best version of himself. But the point is, he has to want that too.

You can’t lead him to water and then get frustrated when he says he’s not thirsty. He has to want it himself, and right now he wants to listen to his girlfriend. It is horrible for you, even more so because they’re both being incredibly disrespectful. I think this is less about his girlfriend, and more about his choices.

His choices don’t align with yours, and perhaps they never will. I can understand you’re upset because you have a sense of “so close!”; that he was on his way to listening to you and agreeing with your beliefs. It sounds a little to me like you see him as in the middle of a tug of war. You’re trying to pull him one way and his girlfriend another. The fact of it is: it’s his choice. He’s chosen to listen to her, he’s chosen to demonstrate that by being rude to you. It’s the horse-to-water analogy - even if she’s led him astray, he’s chosen to drink.

If he is doing something that’s dangerous, then I recommend you tell someone he will listen to. But it isn’t your responsibility to stop him.
 
I would further note that this is an incredibly common occurrence with young people. It’s the subject of all kinds of YA fiction and TV shows: what do we do when our dear friend X seems to just be going off the rails. Usually at leat one person in the group will be trying to act as some substitute parent figure and it just doesn’t work, you’re not his dad. In some cases it even happens in the opposite direction, for example you have a whole group of Evangelical friends and one wants to go become a Catholic, or a whole group of party-hardy friends and one decides to go live the life of St. Francis.
 
Dangerous stuff? Maybe you should talk with him about that. Maybe, maybe not, it depends. Some dangerous stuff is practically irreversible, like getting high on opiates. Other dangerous stuff might be a passing phase and more easily remedied, like driving recklessly.

I mention addictive drugs because that can seriously undermine faith.

As @Lou2U wrote, his dangerous behavior might be better addressed by another.
 
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Oh no not drugs and stuff like that. The issue is his new friends often do things he like vaping and other nonsense and I’m pretty sure he might have or could start to do those things. Well he isn’t technically a minor anymore so I guess we have no control over it. The biggest scare right now my friends and I are facing is that he could end up fathering a child and most likely if they do they WILL choose to abort the baby. When we discussed this possibility with him, he merely said that if it happened abortion is the option to go. So that’s what I mean by dangerous stuff I guess. I know it’s not really my friends businesses but if he does end up fathering a child there’s a new human being in the mix who could get killed mercilessly.
 
BlessedYoungCatholic said:
Oh no not drugs and stuff like that. The issue is his new friends often do things he like vaping and other nonsense and I’m pretty sure he might have or could start to do those things. Well he isn’t technically a minor anymore so I guess we have no control over it. The biggest scare right now my friends and I are facing is that he could end up fathering a child and most likely if they do they WILL choose to abort the baby. When we discussed this possibility with him, he merely said that if it happened abortion is the option to go. So that’s what I mean by dangerous stuff I guess. I know it’s not really my friends businesses but if he does end up fathering a child there’s a new human being in the mix who could get killed mercilessly.
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I think I’ll take your advice on prayer though. As for the friendship it’s in God’s hands if he wants to be friends we’ll be here but if not then I guess we should move on with our lives then 😦
 
BlessedYoungCatholic said:
2 of my friends and I are trying to convert this friend of ours
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ONLY the Holy Spirit “converts” people.

Your job is to let your light shine before your friend so he sees your love, your joy, your good works and that he wants to know more about God and His Church.
 
Technically we cannot convert anyone, only the Holy Spirit can move them to the Truth. Give him information as opportunity arises, plant the seed as it were. It may take time to grow. And most importantly, pray for him.
 
as appalling as abortion is to us, there is very little we can actually do if someone is bent on going through with it, legally anyways, i know you are concerned for your friend, but he’s an adult and therefore responsible for his own moral choices. even if he was prolife and his girlfriend wanted to get the aboriton, there is very little he could even do by being the father. it’s tragic, but that’s unfortunately the world we find ourselves in. best things to do is to pray for God to change their hearts
 
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