Hey… another one like me. I did self study and I didn’t have to go through RCIA… although I wish I did. You can skip RCIA if you believe in what the Mother Church teaches.
Now with that out of the way, if self studying is for you, I’ll give you suggestions on what I did. In my case it all started with questioning my own faith then proving them.
First off, you can start with Apologetic books. I did gain a lot reading Apologetics books. The good one you can have is by Patrick Madrid. Answer Me This and Why is that in Tradition are good starters. A decent Catholic bookstore should have them. There’s also a new Catholic Answers Bible. You can get this through
crossroadsinitiative.com under resources.
Then if you crave more and ready for the big time, go for books written by Scott Hahn. Or any Catholic book you can find but I do recommend Scott Hahn’s first. When looking for Catholic books, you might want to look for an “Imprimatur” and “Nihil Obstat”. This will assure you that what you’re reading is in line with Church teachings and tradition. There are so many books out there from very credible authors!
Then from here, you can branch off to some heavier stuff like Jeff Cavin’s “Great Bible Timeline”. I gained even more from this. Although, this may be quite expensive.
Also, it doesn’t hurt to attend a lot of talks where you can find them. I am fortunate enough to have a parish in the Chicagoland area do this. I’ve been through talks from Dr. Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Mark Shea and yes, Fr. Corapi.
I also listen to a lot of Catholic Answers whenever I can. I love most of all when it’s Q&A Open Forum. I download them and burn them on a CD so I can listen in my car. Speaking of car, if you have Catholic Radio, it’s all that’s in my car radio… nothing else.
I’m really thankful to God for all this. I have my little library with those books I mentioned. I’m happy to have learned my faith for the last 3 years and I’m not stopping. The Catholic faith is incredibly rich that a lifetime isn’t enough to learn all of it.
I pray that you will gain so much more with what I have suggested. I’m sure you will if you have the heart for self study like I do. I loved my faith more and more this way and nothing can sway me away. And if you combine all of what you read, attended, heard into a whole… You’ll be amazed at what you have.
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