I selected “Because it’s true.” I am amazed at how God kept me Catholic by using the very things that might have driven me away.
I was baptized Catholic and went to a Catholic school, but unfortunately some of the teachers at the school either did not know or did not understand the official Church teaching, so I got some good and some bad instruction and was very confused (although I didn’t realize it at the time) about what the Church taught. I joined an Assemblies of God youth group in middle school, and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I knew it was different than Catholicism, but I didn’t know how. I was wondering if possibly I shouldn’t be Catholic (I was only in middle school and knew very little of the historical and scriptural evidence for Catholicism), but I wasn’t seriously thinking about it until I went to an Assemblies of God summer camp. The main speaker said point blank that there was no such thing as purgatory. It was the first time I had seen a concrete difference between what I knew the Catholic Church taught and what I heard from others (the youth group I went to tried to stick with the basics), and it disturbed me. It didn’t help that the description of purgatory I had heard at school was not a reflection of what the Church actually teaches about purgatory. I was disturbed for weeks about this before I finally talked to my mom. She gave me one of Scott Hahn’s tapes, and that was the start of my desire to know more.
I also feel like I am Catholic today because of suffering. I don’t claim to have experienced extreme suffering, but I have had enough difficulty in my life that I sometimes feel as though sorrow will be my constant companion. The pain I felt then (and still feel) prevented me from seeing Catholicism as just a small part of my life. It forced me to be introspective, and to begin to rely on God as one of the only friends I had. This allowed me to be concerned when I thought Catholicism might not be true rather than just shrugging it off and saying, “What difference does it make?”
I could go on, but those of you who were perseverant enough to get through this far are probably ready for it to end. To sum up, God used two things, doubt and suffering, that could easily have made me turn away, to bring me ever closer to Catholicism. Because of this, I have been able to reach a point where I could not live if I rejected the Church, because nothing would make sense anymore. It has been a long journey, but I hope it is just beginning!