The Apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; and Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ, therefore, is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ. Both of these orderly arrangements, then, are by God’s will. Receiving their instructions and being full of confidence on the account of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and confirmed in faith by the Word of God, they went forth in the complete assurance of the Holy Spirit, preaching the Good News that the kingdom of God is coming. Through countryside and city they preached; and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty: for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. Indeed, Scripture somewhere says: “I will set up their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith (Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians 42:1-5 [ca. A.D. 80]).
Another patristic quote that helped breach the wall of my Protestant presuppositions was this one from Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons:
When, therefore, we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek among others the truth which is easily obtained from the Church. For the apostles, like a rich man in a bank, deposited with her most copiously everything that pertains to the truth; and everyone whosoever wishes draws from her the drink of life. For she is the entrance to life, while all the rest are thieves and robbers. That is why it is surely necessary to avoid them, while cherishing with the utmost diligence the things pertaining to the Church, and to lay hold of the tradition of truth. What then? If there should be a dispute over some kind of question, ought we not have recourse to the most ancient churches in which the apostles were familiar, and draw from them what is clear and certain in regard to that question? What if the apostles had not in fact left writings for us? Would it not be necessary to follow the order of tradition, which was handed down to those to whom they entrusted the Churches? (Against Heresies 3,4,1 [ca. A.D. 180]).
I studied the causes for the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church of that day was desperately in need of renewal but Martin Luther and the other Reformers chose the wrong, the unbiblical, method for dealing with the problems they saw in the Church. The correct route was and still is just what my Presbyterian friend had told me: Don’t leave the Church; don’t break the unity of faith. Work for genuine reform based on God’s plan, not man’s, achieving it through prayer, penance, and good example.
I could no longer remain Protestant. To do so meant I must deny Christ’s promise to guide and protect his Church and to send the Holy Spirit to lead it into all truth (cf. Matt. 16:18-19, 18:18, 28:20; John 14:16, 25, 16:13). But I couldn’t bear the thought of becoming a Catholic. I’d been taught for so long to despise “Romanism” that, even though intellectually I had discovered Catholicism to be true, I had a hard time shaking my emotional prejudice against the Church.
One key difficulty was the psychological adjustment to the complexity of Catholic theology. By contrast Protestantism is simple: admit you’re a sinner, repent of your sins, accept Jesus as your personal Savior, trust in him to forgive you, and you’re saved.
I continued studying Scripture and Catholic books and spent many hours debating with Protestant friends and colleagues over difficult issues like Mary, praying to the saints, indulgences, purgatory, priestly celibacy, and the Eucharist. Eventually I realized that the single most important issue was authority. All of this wrangling over how to interpret Scripture gets one nowhere if there is no way to know with infallible certitude that one’s interpretation is the right one. The teaching authority of the Church in the magisterium centered around the seat of Peter. If I could accept this doctrine, I knew I could trust the Church on everything else.
I read Fr. Stanley Jaki’s The Keys to the Kingdom and Upon This Rock, and the Documents of Vatican II and earlier councils, especially Trent. I carefully studied Scripture and the writings of Calvin, Luther, and the other Reformers to test the Catholic argument. Time after time I found the Protestant arguments against the primacy of Peter simply weren’t biblical or historical. It became clear that the Catholic position was the biblical one.
The Holy Spirit delivered a literal coup de grace to my remaining anti-Catholic biases when I read John Henry Cardinal Newman’s landmark book, An Essay on the Development of the Christian Doctrine. In fact, my objections evaporated when I read 12 pages in the middle of the book in which Newman explains the gradual development of papal authority. “It is less difficulty that the papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, then that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till violated.”
My study of Catholic claims took about a year and a half. During this period, Marilyn and I studied together, sharing together as a couple the fears, hopes, and challenges that accompanied us along the path to Rome. We attended Mass together weekly, making the drive to a parish far enough away from our home town (my former Presbyterian Church was less then a mile from our home) to avoid the controversy and confusion that would undoubtedly arise if my former parishioners knew that I was investigating Rome.
We gradually began to feel comfortable doing all the things Catholics did at Mass (except receiving Communion, of course). Doctrinally, emotionally, and spiritually, we felt ready to formally enter the Church, but there remained one barrier for us to surmount.
Before Marilyn and I met and had fallen in love, she had been divorced after a brief marriage. Since we were Protestants when we met and married, this posed no problem, as far as we and our denomination were concerned. It wasn’t until we felt we were ready to enter the Catholic Church that we were informed that we couldn’t do so unless Marilyn could receive an annulment of her first marriage. At first, we felt like God was playing a joke on us! Then we moved from shock to anger. It seemed so unfair and ridiculously hypocritical: we could have committed almost any other sin, no matter how heinous, and with one confession been adequately cleansed for Church admission, yet because of this one mistake our entry into the Catholic Church had been stopped dead in the water.
But then we remembered what had brought us to this point in our spiritual pilgrimage: we were to trust God with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding. We were to acknowledge him and trust that he would direct our paths. It became evident to us that this was a final test of perseverance sent by God.
So Marilyn began the difficult annulment investigation process, and we waited. We continued attending Mass, remaining seated in the pew, our hearts aching while those around us went forward to receive the Lord in the Holy Eucharist and we could not. It was by not being able to receive the Eucharist that we learned to appreciate the awesome privilege that Jesus bestows on his beloved of receiving him Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament. The Lord’s promise in Scripture became real to us during those Masses: “The Lord chastises the son whom he loves” (Heb. 12:6).
After a nine-month wait, we learned that Marilyn’s annulment had been granted. Without further delay our marriage was blessed, and we were received with great excitement and celebration into the Catholic Church. It felt so incredibly good to finally be home where we belonged. I wept quiet tears of joy and gratitude that first Mass when I was able to walk forward with the rest of my Catholic brothers and sisters and receive Jesus in Holy Communion.
I asked the Lord many times in prayer, “What is truth?” He answered me in Scripture by saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” I rejoice that now as a Catholic I can not only know the Truth but receive him in the Eucharist.
Apologia pro a final few words sua
I think that it is important that I mention one more of John Henry Cardinal Newman’s insights that made a crucial difference in the process of my conversion to the Catholic Church. He wrote: “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” This one line summarizes a key reason why I abandoned Protestantism, bypassed the Orthodox Church, and became a Catholic.
Newman was right. The more I read Church history and Scripture the less I could comfortably remain Protestant. I saw that it was the Catholic Church that was established by Jesus Christ, and all the other claimants to the title “true church” had to step aside. It was the Bible and Church history that made a Catholic out of me, against my will (at least at first) and to my immense surprise. I also learned that the flip side of Newman’s adage is equally true: To cease to be deep in history is to become a Protestant.
That’s why we Catholics must know why we believe what the Church teaches as well as the history behind these truths of our salvation. We must prepare ourselves and our children to “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks for a reason for your hope” (1 Peter 3:15). By boldly living and proclaiming our faith many will hear Christ speaking through us and will be brought to a knowledge of the truth in all its fullness in the Catholic Church. God bless you!
Wonderful post! (Besides nobody really like paragraphs anyhow!)
great post and great TV show Mondays 8 pm on EWTN for any who care to watch him and a convert guest
Newman is wonderful and I think he has answered questions for many sincere seekers. Good article!
Thank you so much for posting this article, NYer.
Exceptional article and sharing. God bless all our converts entering the Church this Easter Vigil.