What Is The Primary Reason You Are Catholic?

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Probably 60 percent B and 40 percent A.

The “B” part, Upbringing, means that being an American Irish Catholic is a huge part of my cultural identity. Even if I were to absolutely quit the Church tomorrow and walk away, I would not be able to lose that part. In my experience a lot of ethnic Catholics and Jewish people feel that way. Also, because Catholicism is a huge part of why half my ancestors (mom’s side) even came to USA, and my dad made the choice to convert from Protestant and become very devout, it is really an integral part of the family history. Finally, I have to say that if I were not born to Catholicism, I would probably find it intimidating and a bit weird, and would definitely need some really good guidance (such as a devout spouse who would encourage but not boss me) to absorb it.

The “A” part is that if I were to sit down and do some comparison of religions, just to pick one, I would definitely want one with Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church is both the one that goes back to the original Jesus and also the only one that has the real Presence in the Eucharist. So it’s no contest from a logical choice standpoint.
 
crystalmayner66 said:
for those of you who profess and live the catholic faith, what is the biggest reason you do so?

A) logic

b) family upbringing

c) personal encounter with god

d) beauty of catholic tradition

e) witness of other catholics

f) supernatural phenomenon

g) other (feel free to explain)

my answer would have to be c). When i attended a stuebenville youth conference, and encountered jesus in eucharistic adoration, i experienced love. I didn’t know who he was, or what i was all signing up for, but i knew he was good, the ultimate desire of my heart, and i decided to follow him then and there. I’ve been learning how ever since. :d
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a, d, f
 
A, B, and C in equal measure… maybe slightly skewed towards B.
 
spiderweb said:
For me it was first B, then A and C kind of mixed together.
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Actually E (Witness of other Catholics) was a very big part of it throughout my life. The Witnesses were my parents that were so influential in all aspects that I took it for granted to the point that it actually flew under my radar. Parents were definitely the primary source of the Faith for me both in teaching it and living it.
 
D, E, G, and in an interesting way, F.

I grew up Lutheran. My grandmother was a devout staunch Lutheran. As I grew up, we moved to a place without a Lutheran church, so we attended a Methodist congregation. I went off to college, and as happens to so many, I fell away from the practice of faith. I got married, and moved to rural Kansas to go into business with my father. My wife and I returned to the Lutheran church. As we began to have children, we drifted over to the Episcopal Church, and while the liturgy was beautiful, there was something that didn’t sit quite right. I can not to this day p(name removed by moderator)oint what exactly that was, but needless to say, we quit going to church altogether.

Fast forward five or six months, and we find ourselves in Wichita, Kansas one Sunday morning after attending a WSU basketball game the night before. It was early in the morning, and I asked my wife what she wanted to do. “Let’s go to church,” she said. Well it happens that right where we were driving there was St. James Episcopal Church. I whipped into the parking lot, and said, “Great! Let’s go here!”

My wife had a funny look on her face, and pointed across the street from St. James to a large structure with a sign that read Church of the Blessed Sacrament and she said, “No, let’s go see what these Catholics are all about.”

In we walk. We sat in the back row, and I thought I knew what to expect having attended some Catholic weddings and funerals. Being from a Lutheran/Episcopal tradition, we were familiar with liturgical worship. We knew about the rules for participating in communion, so we behaved accordingly, and participated in what we could as non-Catholics.

Growing up, I had always viewed Catholics as kind of stuffy, standoffish, and frankly kind of condescending towards people with other beliefs. What I witnessed that day, and here’s the “holy spirit” part, shattered that preconception.

What I witnessed that day was a unity, a body, a body of Christ if you will. The people there were doing all those “silly little things” that we had seen Catholics do for years, the rosary, the sign of the cross, the holy water, the genuflecting…but they were not doing them to put on some show for each other. They weren’t there to socialize and visit with one another, and they certainly weren’t there to see me. It was immediately evident that they were there, with one mind and accord, to do one thing only, and that was to worship Jesus. The awe and respect they showed during the Eucharist sent chills up my spine.

We walked out, and I looked at my wife and asked, “Well, what did you think?”

With watery eyes, she looked straight at me and said “Yes! That was what church was supposed to be.”

We were in our home parish priest’s office the next morning signing up for RCIA.

As a cradle Lutheran there was no logical reason for me to step foot into that Catholic church that Sunday morning. The ONLY explanation I have, is that the Holy Spirit grabbed both of us by the elbow and led us there.
 
I was raised Catholic. I remain Catholic because of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the fullness of Truth and Sacramental Confession. I love the Mass, Mary, the Communion of Saints, the Divine Mercy, the Precious Blood and many other things about being Catholic.

Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church wrote the Bible.
Also, our doctrines never change.

I love statues, too.
 
I’m a cradle catholic, but I was Catechised well.

What kept me Catholic? In my more tumultuous years when I wanted to be attracted to something less morally rigid, it was the Eucharist. No matter the attraction to other faiths, I couldn’t abandon the Real Presence.

I was also very lucky to have some great priests in HS and some great parents who made the faith, and the reason behind it, come alive.

The reason behind the faith. Aquinas; Augustine, etc. The great Catholic philosophers amazed me. It put backbone in my faith. It still amazes me when the new atheists act as if faith is completely unreasonable or even worthy of contempt. For me, compared to Kreeft, Dawkins comes off as petulant. I see that petulant attitude alot in Media. You often hear about the Galileo, but seldom the Lemaitre.
 
The truth & belief of Transubstantiation, that I receive the Body, Blood Soul & Divinity of Our Lord In Communion.
 
EricF said:
D, E, G, and in an interesting way, F.

I grew up Lutheran. My grandmother was a devout staunch Lutheran. As I grew up, we moved to a place without a Lutheran church, so we attended a Methodist congregation. I went off to college, and as happens to so many, I fell away from the practice of faith. I got married, and moved to rural Kansas to go into business with my father. My wife and I returned to the Lutheran church. As we began to have children, we drifted over to the Episcopal Church, and while the liturgy was beautiful, there was something that didn’t sit quite right. I can not to this day p(name removed by moderator)oint what exactly that was, but needless to say, we quit going to church altogether.

Fast forward five or six months, and we find ourselves in Wichita, Kansas one Sunday morning after attending a WSU basketball game the night before. It was early in the morning, and I asked my wife what she wanted to do. “Let’s go to church,” she said. Well it happens that right where we were driving there was St. James Episcopal Church. I whipped into the parking lot, and said, “Great! Let’s go here!”

My wife had a funny look on her face, and pointed across the street from St. James to a large structure with a sign that read Church of the Blessed Sacrament and she said, “No, let’s go see what these Catholics are all about.”

In we walk. We sat in the back row, and I thought I knew what to expect having attended some Catholic weddings and funerals. Being from a Lutheran/Episcopal tradition, we were familiar with liturgical worship. We knew about the rules for participating in communion, so we behaved accordingly, and participated in what we could as non-Catholics.

Growing up, I had always viewed Catholics as kind of stuffy, standoffish, and frankly kind of condescending towards people with other beliefs. What I witnessed that day, and here’s the “holy spirit” part, shattered that preconception.

What I witnessed that day was a unity, a body, a body of Christ if you will. The people there were doing all those “silly little things” that we had seen Catholics do for years, the rosary, the sign of the cross, the holy water, the genuflecting…but they were not doing them to put on some show for each other. They weren’t there to socialize and visit with one another, and they certainly weren’t there to see me. It was immediately evident that they were there, with one mind and accord, to do one thing only, and that was to worship Jesus. The awe and respect they showed during the Eucharist sent chills up my spine.

We walked out, and I looked at my wife and asked, “Well, what did you think?”

With watery eyes, she looked straight at me and said “Yes! That was what church was supposed to be.”

We were in our home parish priest’s office the next morning signing up for RCIA.

As a cradle Lutheran there was no logical reason for me to step foot into that Catholic church that Sunday morning. The ONLY explanation I have, is that the Holy Spirit grabbed both of us by the elbow and led us there.
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What an awesome story! Thanks for sharing.
 
Default position. I converted a couple of years back, but for one reason and another am increasingly being confronted by how little I actually agree with all these doctrines and dogmas and how unhelpful many of them are in maintaining a positive spiritual life. I still go to Mass because its what I’m used to doing.
 
peter26 said:
Default position. I converted a couple of years back, but for one reason and another am increasingly being confronted by how little I actually agree with all these doctrines and dogmas and how unhelpful many of them are in maintaining a positive spiritual life. I still go to Mass because its what I’m used to doing.
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Two questions, which doctrines do you take issue with, and what do you mean by a positive spiritual life?
 
My primary reason for being a Catholic is that I want to be on the winning side.
 
I was a cradle Catholic, but I didn’t really embrace my faith until a few years ago. For me, I would say it’s a combination of the reasons you proposed that occurred in the following order:

B) Family Upbringing - I was raised Catholic, though decided not to be confirmed as a teen. I was poorly catechized and knew very little about the faith beyond just showing up on Sundays and following the memorized script.

E) Witness of Other Catholics - I saw a unique peace and selflessness among Catholics, especially my wife. I credit her prayers and her loving, non pushy approach (and of course the Holy Spirit) as being what led me to come to the decision to go through RCIA to learn about our faith and to receive confirmation.

D) Beauty of Catholic Tradition - As I learned more about the faith, I realized how little I had been taught as a child and that there was a deep beauty and richness that was unique to Catholicism.

A) Logic - As I went through RCIA, I began researching our faith (thanks to Catholic Answers) and stumbled upon all the different apologetics. The logic and rationality of Catholicism became overwhelmingly and irrefutably obvious to me. Every time I would have a question or doubt, or had an “Aha! Gotcha!” moment where I had destroyed the idea of Catholicism in my mind, the apologists (living and from ages past) would show me how naive I was to think that I had developed an original idea against the church.

C) Personal Encounter With God - After confirmation, I still felt an emptiness. I had ravenously consumed information regarding Church history, theology, apologetics, etc… but I had not yet taken the time to develop a relationship with God. God was real to me, but in my mind He still felt like some distant goal. I took time to learn more about prayer, and realized that before going through RCIA, my prayer was almost entirely just regurgitating memorized prayers, while never really thinking about or considering the words themselves or the meaning or intention behind them. I studied different types of prayer (Lectio Divina, contemplation, adoration) and began to actually develop a relationship with God instead of just blindly hurling a packet of words in the general direction of some distant almighty being. I learned that the “boring” prayers I had memorized as a kid in Catholic school were not just witty little poems, but were powerful prayers to be prayed with deep reflection instead of just rattled off carelessly. I began to see true beauty in the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Most of all, I have learned the importance of silence; to stop all the noise, both internal and external, and to listen for His voice in the silence.

F) Supernatural Phenomenon - I have experienced a few events that would appear to me to have been signal graces, and the consideration and following of them has led to wonderful fruits in my life. I developed a devotion to Mary because of such an event, and am now working as a Youth Minister, which is something I NEVER thought I would do in my entire life. I look back at my life and see moments all throughout it that point me back towards an undeniable fact: that our Creator is an active part of our lives, and desires for us to have a relationship with Him.

g) other (feel free to explain) - I think overall, this quote from C.S. Lewis sums up things well:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
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EricF said:
What I witnessed that day was a unity, a body, a body of Christ if you will. The people there were doing all those “silly little things” that we had seen Catholics do for years, the rosary, the sign of the cross, the holy water, the genuflecting…but they were not doing them to put on some show for each other. They weren’t there to socialize and visit with one another, and they certainly weren’t there to see me. It was immediately evident that they were there, with one mind and accord, to do one thing only, and that was to worship Jesus. The awe and respect they showed during the Eucharist sent chills up my spine.
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Thanks for sharing your perspective. It now makes a lot of sense what my husband and I experienced coming out of a Lutheran bubble of love an unity to a stoic, blinders on Roman mass. We wandered east a bit after that.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Two questions, which doctrines do you take issue with, and what do you mean by a positive spiritual life?
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Papal infallibility and primacy, the notion of the apostolic succession, the concept that any one organisation can claim to be the sole church founded by Christ, the system of accumulating merit and gaining indulgences, the level of importance given to tradition over scripture, the concept of the church having some sort of supreme God given authority on certain matters.

What do I mean by a positive spiritual life? I mean I want to focus on my relationship with God and I feel stifled by thousands of doctrines and dogmas and positions many of which make little sense to me.
 
peter26 said:
Papal infallibility and primacy, the notion of the apostolic succession, the concept that any one organisation can claim to be the sole church founded by Christ, the system of accumulating merit and gaining indulgences, the level of importance given to tradition over scripture, the concept of the church having some sort of supreme God given authority on certain matters.

What do I mean by a positive spiritual life? I mean I want to focus on my relationship with God and I feel stifled by thousands of doctrines and dogmas and positions many of which make little sense to me.
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First, I’m sorry that you are having a hard time. I know that can be a horrible, soul rending time. Wherever you are or end up spiritually, you have my prayers.

I’m curious, though, you said you became Catholic; what from? I’m just wondering because as a cradle Catholic, someone who has been immersed in all that, I find it hard to imagine coming into the Catholic church and not knowing of those things? Or were you convinced of them prior and have now just lost faith in them?

I myself have looked into more protestant and evangelical faiths in the past, but I’m the opposite. I can’t wrap my mind around the level of importance given to scripture over the Church which predated the scripture; the idea that Christ didn’t leave an organization with decisive authority, or the lack of personal Presence and relationship without the Eucharist. But I realize I’m coming from a different place.
 
Logic. Obviously there are a few things you have to accept on faith, but once you do, it’s internally logical.

I have been interested in why people convert–to any religion–for several years. After watching literally hundreds of conversion videos on youtube and reading various articles and books, I attended an RCIA class last year to see if reality matched theory. It did.

The vast majority of people seem to convert for two main reasons: 1) they want some authority to tell them what to do. These are the same types of people who join the military to put some discipline into their lives. 2) they have some emotional experience. It could be a dream, a “sign,” or some coincidence they imbue with some mystical content.

To someone like me who sees religion as more of an intellectual activity, these reasons are scary. Very scary. I understand not everyone thinks alike, but it’s still scary to me.

A true story about a friend: This person was a Methodist. One day at the Sunday service, the minister, choir, and eventually the congregation basically freaked out. A lot of crying, shouting, etc. He decided not to go back. There were both an Evangelical Lutheran church and an Episcopal church nearby. He thought he would choose one of those…but which one? He flipped a coin. The Lutherans won. (This falls under emotional experience–the coin flip was seen as being a sign from God.) Not only did he attend the Lutheran church, he became a minister!!! Too much for my logical brain.
 
I was raised in a mainline Protestant church. As a young adult I fell away from church attendance. I never denied the existence of God and never stopped believing Christianity was true. I tried at different times to find a church where I could feel at home and all left me wanting. This had nothing to do with the people in the various churches, just the whole service.

I can remember thinking as kid that there had to be more to God, that we weren’t getting the whole story, there was something missing. This is the feeling I would get when attending various churches as an adult. Where is the rest of it?

Then I went to Mass for the first time. I can’t explain why but I knew I was finally home. I had no idea what was happening during the Mass, I didn’t know about the real presence, most of it I couldn’t understand, but I did understand this is where God wanted me to be.

It took a little while for me to take the step to convert. I did a great deal of research about the Catholic Church and decided to started RCIA. Everything I learned only convinced me I was on the right path. I was confirmed and received my first communion. Since that time I have been a devout practicing Catholic.

I stay Catholic because I can’t imagine a life without the Eucharist. I have it all now, the whole story, and there is nothing missing.
 
The Virgin Mary is probably the biggest reason I left a Protestant church I was attending and reverted back to the Catholic Church!
 
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