Converts should just "sit down and shut up"?

[ConcernedConvert]

I had a very similar experience upon becoming Catholic with my wife within the past 3 years. My wife and I both converted from Protestant denominations. She grew up mostly Lutheran, I mostly Wesleyan. After years of investigating the Catholic Church and almost two years of attending Mass fairly regularly without being Catholic, we decided we wanted to become educated, go through RCIA and look into becoming confirmed.

We tried contacting two different priests who were within about 30 miles from us to get these classes going and see what we need to do. No luck. Finally we got connected with a priest at an FSSP Parish about an hour away where my father in law attends church. He immediately jumped on the opportunity to teach us and educate us. I remember several weeks worth of great discussions and answered questions with this priest that we had built up as protestants. We really were learning not only the teachings of the faith, but why the church teaches those things and when those teachings were affirmed historically. Long story short, it was great and we were eventually confirmed by a wonderful priest whose parish we still to do this day only attend occasionally due to distance.

I remember vividly, the week after our confirmation and first communion, we returned to our local NO Parish in our town for mass. Father, had the deacon give the homily that day. I remember listening to his homily and nearly wanting to jump out of my seat because half of the stuff the deacon was saying completely contradicted the teachings of the church and what we had just had affirmed to us by our confirmation priest at the FSSP Parish regarding homosexuality.

To this day we fairly regularly hear things from some priests that are unsettling as i know they are not in line with church teachings. We have had several discussions with Cradle Catholic Friends who know very little about historical teachings and i have even heard priests say things such as, “I wish more Catholics were converts, they have a zeal for the faith.”

Obviously this does not encompass all cradle Catholics, but it was just something i have experienced.

 

[DeniseNY]

Obviously I was raising questions back then that challenged changes in the Church. Many people welcomed these changes, and when they didn’t understand them or couldn’t assimilate or articulate how they conflicted with what was true in times past — especially when it came to sensitive moral issues — they became hostile about being challenged. Simple as that.

Did it ever occur to you that this “hostility” came not from ignorance nor an unwillingness to discuss, but from confusion? The Church went through a huge upheaval, and a lot of Catholics had difficulty coming to terms with those changes. It was a time of great confusion for many. And confusion can lead to fear.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Perhaps a better and more general way of asking the question would be “are the unique and original contributions and observations of converts welcomed, or are they expected simply to come into the Church, keep their mouths shut, and not question anything?”.

If you want to make it general like that, then it really depends on the person, the intention, and how it’s presented.

Scott Hahn is a convert. Catholics love his stuff, including cradle Catholics. He uses his knowledge of the Bible, which is very likely greater than many Catholics, to make good contributions. I’m not personally in his fan club, but that’s not because he is a convert, it’s because much (though not all) of what he says is pretty obvious to me because I have decent Bible knowledge.

My mother’s favorite priest was a convert. He had been a Jewish rabbi who became a Catholic priest in middle age. He was far more learned and also more traditional than the average priest in our area, and probably was stuck where he was because he converted later in life so his career trajectory as a priest was limited. He always gave good counsel and gave talks about the Holy Land. I think of him often and wish he was around being my priest now.

My father was a convert. He converted at age 37. He went to Mass every Sunday and holyday, prayed a rosary every day, prayed night prayers in his room before bed every night, never lost faith even when he became very ill, repeatedly. He was a good father too.

These converts add so much to our faith.

Contrast this with the type of convert who joins the Catholic Church and then starts complaining about everything from Marian devotion to the music at Mass, and asking why Catholics don’t do things like their previous Protestant church. Most Catholics hear that and think, “Why don’t you just get back where you came from?”

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Did it ever occur to you that this “hostility” came not from ignorance nor an unwillingness to discuss, but from confusion? The Church went through a huge upheaval, and a lot of Catholics had difficulty coming to terms with those changes. It was a time of great confusion for many. And confusion can lead to fear.

Yeah, let’s not forget cradle Catholics 43 years ago were also frequently hostile to other cradle Catholics as well. It was a generally contentious time. You weren’t a special case because you were some teenager who just joined the Church. Although I can see somebody thinking that maybe when you had been around the block a few times you’d understand why your viewpoint was, in their opinion, wrong.

I’m a cradle and I experienced hostility from adult Catholics a number of times as a teen, also since my mom was active in parish groups I got a sense of adults sniping at each other.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Contrast this with the type of convert who joins the Catholic Church and then starts complaining about everything from Marian devotion to the music at Mass, and asking why Catholics don’t do things like their previous Protestant church. Most Catholics hear that and think, “Why don’t you just get back where you came from?”

I have someone in my acquaintance, a nominal convert (no longer attends Mass) from an evangelical upbringing, who is much like this. She simply cannot assimilate Marian devotion, and for her, all important questions of faith and morals were settled in her childhood. She is also, and rightly so, scandalized by the sexual abuse revelations in the Church.

I have wondered if there could be a “niche” of sorts in the Catholic Church, perhaps an “evangelical rite” that resembles, let’s say, the worship of Christians such as Baptists, Church of God (all of them, there are several), Mennonites, and so on, to the extent it still can and remain faithful to Catholicism. I have in mind, for instance, a simplified “Lord’s Supper”, great emphasis on Bible study, preaching and evangelism, traditional evangelical hymnody, and an attenuated devotion to Mary and the saints, just enough to remain safely orthodox.

This acquaintance was raised in an isolated mountain valley whose residents somewhat resemble the medieval Waldensians — simplicity of worship and lifestyle, traditional morality, and a great emphasis on Christian charity — “see how those Christians love one another”. There is generally nothing “bad” or “wrong” about what they do believe (some, though, believe in “once saved always saved” and/or tangible gifts of the Holy Spirit — tongues, healing, other physical manifestations), they just don’t have the entire truth of Catholicism.

All this said, though, I can never, and will never, recommend that anyone who has come into the Church should leave it.

 

[1ke]

They may be valid now, but they weren’t then.

The permissions and indults involved in both began in 1969 through the Holy See.

 

[po18guy]

If I did, I chose not to listen to them. I listen to non-quiet converts like Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. David Anders.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Have any other “converts” experienced anything like this?

I came into the Church eight years ago and have not experienced anything like this.

Most people are interested by the fact that I am a convert and are encouraging. (I don’t bring it up all that often, but sometimes it arises in conversation.) When I was in RCIA, I did run into two or three cradle Catholics who had a somewhat negative reaction when I told them I was in the process of converting – as in, they seemed to think it strange that someone not born into the faith would want to become Catholic or go through all the bother of changing religions. But that type of reaction is very much a minority; the reactions of most fellow Catholics have been positive.

 

[phil19034]

o greater gift. May I adhere to it until my dying day.

When I was first received into the Church, though, I was referred to as a “convert”, which I accepted at the time, and used the term for myself, though later on I had to reconsider this, as I didn’t “convert” from anything. Aside from a few (mostly cultural) rudimentary remnants, I knew little of anything about Christianity until I came to Catholicism. I had basically not believed in much of anything.

Anicette:

thanks you.
So really a convert.

That depends upon how you use the term. I have reasoned “well, I was very young, and I never practiced any other faith before then, so I’m not exactly a convert”. A priest once told me that given my circumstances, I didn’t need to refer to myself as a convert.

to some… a convert is simply a person who was not a “cradle Catholic”

 

[BartholomewB]

to some… a convert is simply a person who was not a “cradle Catholic”

That’s certainly the way I use the word. The priest who handled my conversion is himself a convert, though he never mentioned that at the time. I only found out by chance, years later, that he was brought up in a Spiritualist family.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I have wondered if there could be a “niche” of sorts in the Catholic Church, perhaps an “evangelical rite” that resembles, let’s say, the worship of Christians such as Baptists, Church of God (all of them, there are several), Mennonites, and so on, to the extent it still can and remain faithful to Catholicism. I have in mind, for instance, a simplified “Lord’s Supper”, great emphasis on Bible study, preaching and evangelism, traditional evangelical hymnody, and an attenuated devotion to Mary and the saints, just enough to remain safely orthodox

If I were really bad and wanted to stir controversy, I would say this was already done with Vatican II. (I am mostly kidding and am not trying to start a controversy, and I appreciate both the old and the newer form of the Mass.) But to some extent we did see this after Vatican II. The Mass was shortened and somewhat simplified. We do see more emphasis on Bible study and evangelism (and this is a a good thing). We sing more hymns, and a number of them are hymns you might hear in a Protestant church, too. I don’t know whether devotion to Mary and the saints among Catholics has lessened since then (I hope not), but I think it would be a very misguided idea to de-emphasize the saints or discourage devotion to them.

I have someone in my acquaintance, a nominal convert (no longer attends Mass) from an evangelical upbringing, who is much like this. She simply cannot assimilate Marian devotion, and for her, all important questions of faith and morals were settled in her childhood. She is also, and rightly so, scandalized by the sexual abuse revelations in the Church.

Probably “nominal” is the key word here. Most converts from from other branches of Christianity enter the Church because we have grown to love the Catholic Church and the Mass and the sacraments and all of its ancient beauty, and we don’t want to see them changed or have a watered-down rite especially for us. The woman you describe must be a small minority.

 

[phil19034]

They tended to be … more liberal.

“More liberal” is the key. Liberal cultural Catholics (even the ones who go to church) often do not like converts – esp ones from evangelicalism – unless the convert is liberal or moderate.

You can see it clearly if you read a number of the emails from the John Podesta wikileaks (Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager) and other “catholic” leaders of her campaign.

Discussions of Catholic religious activities​

Sandy Newman wrote to Podesta: “I have not thought at all about how one would ‘plant the seeds of the revolution’, or who would plant them.” Podesta agreed that this was necessary to do as Newman suggested and wrote back to note that they had created groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United to push for a more progressive approach to the faith, change would “have to be bottom up”.

Raymond Arroyo responded: “It makes it seem like you’re creating organizations to change the core beliefs of the church,” he said. “For someone to come and say, ‘I have a political organization to change your church to complete my political agenda or advance my agenda’, I don’t know how anybody could embrace that.” Professor Robert P. George added that “these groups are political operations constructed to masquerade as organizations devoted to the Catholic faith”.

The leak revealed an email sent by John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The email discussed conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s decision to raise his kids in the Catholic Church. He wrote, “Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) … It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.” Palmieri responded: “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable, politically conservative religion—their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelical.” Supporters and members of Donald Trump’s campaign called the email exchange evidence of anti-Catholic sentiment in the Democratic Party. Halpin confirmed that he had written the email, though he contested claims that it was “anti-Catholic” and said that it was taken out of context and that he had sent the email to his Catholic colleagues “to make a fleeting point about perceived hypocrisy and the flaunting of one’s faith by prominent conservative leaders.”

Podesta emails - Wikipedia

Liberals who happen to be cradle Catholics or cultural Catholics often do not like it when converts enter the Church (unless the convert is liberal too).

Sounds to me that what you experienced was was a liberal parish or a a lot of liberals in a particular parish.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

EnglishTeacher is right that V2 already “Protestantized” the Mass to some degree. I don’t think we need more change right now as many Catholics are already trying to get back to the traditional.
I also think there are people who are constantly dissatisfied with their particular religion or particular church the same way some people are dissatisfied with relationships, and they tend to chamge chyrches repeatedly or change back and forth. Some folks are seeking a perfection they won’t find anywhere, others constantly second-guess themselves, or just like to complain. This is not a large percentage of converts, but it’s a very vocal percentage. I tend to just ignore them and sometimes pray for them, as they are not pleasant to be around but I don’t want to tell anyone to leave the Church.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I have wondered if there could be a “niche” of sorts in the Catholic Church, perhaps an “evangelical rite” that resembles, let’s say, the worship of Christians such as Baptists, Church of God (all of them, there are several), Mennonites, and so on, to the extent it still can and remain faithful to Catholicism. I have in mind, for instance, a simplified “Lord’s Supper”, great emphasis on Bible study, preaching and evangelism, traditional evangelical hymnody, and an attenuated devotion to Mary and the saints, just enough to remain safely orthodox

Yes, as a practical matter we do “sort of have this” here and there. I have in mind particularly mission areas where few are Catholic and evangelical religion prevails.

I have someone in my acquaintance, a nominal convert (no longer attends Mass) from an evangelical upbringing, who is much like this. She simply cannot assimilate Marian devotion, and for her, all important questions of faith and morals were settled in her childhood. She is also, and rightly so, scandalized by the sexual abuse revelations in the Church.

Based on what I know, she converted mainly for family reasons, and this was before RCIA. She is fiercely devoted to the memory of her family growing up, and simply cannot see (or will not see) that there was anything whatsoever deficient or wrong about her upbringing.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

I also don’t think of you as a convert. I was Lutheran for quite a while, about 30 years, and then I left the church, any church, for close to 40 years. Then I became Catholic. It was where I was always meant to be, just took me 70 years to make it. I can hardly say that I converted from Lutheranism after an absence like that. I guess I converted from churchlessness, if anything.

I have met only wonderful people that I can discuss Catholicism with. They seem thrilled to have me in the church, and I am thrilled to be there and to have such nice people to discuss religion with.

 

[Dovekin]

Congratulations on surviving for 43 years in the Church. Not everyone can make it that long.

Catholicism is a complex product of simple faith directed at loving God, and the difficulty involved in doing that with other people. Sometimes trends hit one another at cross purposes, and what seems like a simple issue unexpectedly raises other issues.

Take the term convert. A well catechized person would know it means someone who turns toward Christ and accepts baptism. After the RCIA was issued in 1972, it would no longer be used of already baptized persons who became Catholic. If you read earlier materials, they would give you an incorrect impression of what the term meant. If you tried to say what you say here, it would raise issues about how we relate to other Christians, how we are corporately a Church, etc. Those are not simple things, so even those who know might not want to get into a deep theological discussion that would not address the real issues you were having. Sit down and shut up? Maybe, depending on context, but I doubt it would happen too often.

Communion in the hand, EMHCs and dissent are other issues like this. Opposing the first two could well be examples of “dissent.” Or not. The conversation was enmeshed in years of liturgical change, with dissenters on the Right (like SSPX) and supporters on the Left. What looks simple hid a lot of problems.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Based on what I know, she converted mainly for family reasons, and this was before RCIA. She is fiercely devoted to the memory of her family growing up, and simply cannot see (or will not see) that there was anything whatsoever deficient or wrong about her upbringing.

I could see that. If a person converts primarily because he/she is marrying a Catholic (for example) rather than because he has become convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, then that person might be more likely to remain attached to his old faith practices.

I still have much affection and respect for the denomination I was brought up in, but I have no desire to change the Mass or other Catholic traditions to make them more like the evangelical protestant communities. (Just my own feelings; I realize people come into the Church from many different places.) One cultural difference from the Baptist and evangelical churches that I thoroughly miss, though, is the whole congregation joining in and singing the hymns together. Catholics congregations generally just don’t seem to enjoy singing at Mass, and I can never figure it out. A few people will quietly/timidly try to sing the hymns, and the rest don’t even bother - at least in most of the parishes I have been to.

 

[steph03]

Where Peter, Paul, John, Andrew etc. Born Catholic? No, they converted… I am glad no one told them to shut up… You are in good company!

 

[OraLabora]

We all “convert” when we finally allow the grace of our baptism into our hearts. It very much also applies to cradle Catholics and reverts like me. I was raised Catholic but stepped out of Church for 22 years. The zeal of the newly converted applied to me. When I finally “got” Catholicism, I could be a royal pain in the butt!

Benedictine spirituality with a great spiritual director finally brought me to the reality that Catholicism is not mostly about following rules, but about inner conversion, a lifetime project.

Every time we turn from sin, we enter a new conversion, every time we fall into sin, we need to reconvert.

 

[phil19034]

It very much also applies to cradle Catholics and reverts like me.

Reverts rule!!!

I too am a revert— best of both worlds