Pam,
I oppoloigize for not reading more into your post. I’m going to a difficult time right now for several reasons. But my feelings about how my life is going only partly related to what you’re going through now.
When I joined my wife’s Church of Christ church, I was Catholic and they had convinced me that I would perish if I didn’t covert. They were not really pushy, but definitely proselytized me like none other. My catechesis was very poor, even though I had attended a Catholic seminary. I saw Catholics doing and teaching all sorts of wrong things and falsely claimed it was what the Catholic Church teaches. When I met my wife’s family, they were quite humble…poor. But her father was an elder and 2 of her brothers were preachers. Two of my brother-in-laws were deacons at the time. Now one of the preachers is an elder now, not sure about the other. I watched them practice what they preaches in my life. But I found inconsistencies in emphasis among the 19 different congregations we attended. I found the important biblical questions ignored and when I asked for someone’s answer their bible expertise did not serve them well or at all. These questions dealt mainly with tradition.
I would gladly share with you anything in my experience. However, I’ve already given you a link to a website dedicated to former members of the Church of Christ who have converted to Catholicism or are thinking about converting to Catholicism. There are a few former preachers on there as well. Two of the most famous have appeared on The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi. I am a volunteer for The Coming Home Network and sponsored a former Presbyterian minister this past year. He went from preaching for 24 years to 17 years of atheism. His wife gradually began seeking on her own and he finally started attending a local non-denomination church. But he was determined like us to dig beneath the surface of what he thought he new. He was tired of the hypocracy, which was what I experienced in the Church of Christ. Only the surface looked right. But when you scratched beneath the surface of these well meaning Christians, serious flaws rose, dominating my thoughts with hypocracy. I was silently outraged because my wife was reared in that environment. I had realized I made a grave error and begged God to forgive me in my pride and ignorance. I asked him to lead me where He wanted me to be and if it were the Catholic Church to convert my wife first. I made it astoundingly clear that I did not know for sure that the Catholic Church was in fact real or some man made religion. I lived like this in absolute mizery. But I had made a promise to my mother-in-law that I would keep my wife going to the Church of Christ. However, once my wife saw that I had no choice in my conscience to convert she began studying Catholicism. She secretly read the Catachism of the Catholic Church, or most of it. The teachings that bothered me were clearly answered to her in her studies. I was amazed and asked her how she accepted the teachings on Mary. She explained it in a way I had never heard before. She answered with remarkable understanding. And for the first time in my life I felt like I truly understood the reasons for Mary’s place in salvation history and how she was/is truly special. The New Eve, finally made sense to me. My thoughts were drawn to scriptures that support this belief, which was without a doubt believed in the early church. And this is only one of many issues I had all my life. For those that don’t understand how a Catholic seminarian can be confused like this, you’d have to grow up in my shoes to understand. I moved around a lot and my Catholic father was non-practicing for many years. I never began first communion studies until I was 14, but then it was very short and one on one by a priest. He was not exactly the most interesting person I had ever spoke with. I was extremely shy and embarrassed to ask the deeply important questions that perplexed me. I had never let go of my bible only roots and didn’t understand how those around me could possibly believe the bible couldn’t lead us to the truth. You see, their misguided teaching or fear of bible study motivated me to study even harder. My Catholic family were the worst influence on me and lead me away from Catholic teachings, telling me “the Church no longer teaches that”. The confusion was worst since I move to predominantly Protestant territory, an hours drive from a Catholic church. CCD was not likely and I didn’t see why I needed to attend. My father wasn’t around, since he was beginning the end of his second civil marriage with my stepmother, whom I dearly love.
My story is really very long and I just wanted to give you a taste of it. My journey continues. Leaving our Church of Christ congregation was very disturbing to us. Telling our family was even harder. That in itself could fill a novel.
