Former Protestant Minister Pursues Priesthood

When Steve Olmstead served as a Presbyterian minister in Juneau, he would often finish his duties on Sunday, close up the church and head to Mass with his devout Catholic wife and their children.

“I had a place to worship, which a lot of pastors don’t,” Olmstead said in an interview with the Anchor. “It was nice to go to a place and worship where I wasn’t the minister.”

The Anchorage Archdiocese’s newest seminarian grew up in a Presbyterian home and always had a strong spiritual life. When Olmstead entered adulthood, he felt called to serve as a youth minister, and was later ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church.

Throughout his life, he said he had many positive contacts with people who were strong in the practice of their Catholic faith, including his wife of 22 years, Janet.

“I married the most devout and most amazing Christian I’ve ever met in my life,” Olmstead said, crediting her with his conversion to Catholicism. Before the two wed, he agreed to raise the children in the Catholic faith. Steve and Janet Olmstead were married in Juneau by then Bishop Michael Kenny.

He continued to serve in a Presbyterian church in Juneau, but over the years grew enamored with Catholicism.

“I love the devotional practices of the Catholic church, its prayers and devotions,” Olmstead said.

He says he was especially drawn to some core beliefs that are often points of contention between Protestants and Catholics; matters of faith like belief in the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and devotion to Mary.

“Ultimately those core beliefs created this tug that led me to the (Catholic) Church so that I would be more congruent with myself,” Olmstead said.

His family’s faith helped with that tug. In addition to Janet’s steady faith, the Olmsteads’ seven children, ages 2-18 years, helped play a part.

The Olmsteads have three older biological children, another three they adopted, and one foster child, which they hope to adopt soon.

“My older kids started asking me questions (like), ‘How come you believe this, but you aren’t teaching it,’” Olmstead recalled. “I had this inner conflict and I had to make that decision.”

Ultimately he did, and left his position at the local Presbyterian church in Juneau to officially enter the Catholic Church in 2006, a decision that brought Olmstead much peace.

“A huge thing for me is mystery,” he said. “I really need mystery and mystery in my faith. The Catholic Church (allows) me to have that mystery — Christ held that for me.”

Having served as full-time Protestant minister, Olmstead still felt a strong call to a minsterial or religious vocation.

Last year he participated in a 30-day Ignatian Spiritual Exercises retreat to investigate how God wanted him to serve in his new church, and he felt called to serve as a priest.

“At the end of that retreat, I realized that this is where God was calling me,” he said.

While celibacy is the rule for Latin rite Catholic priests, there are approximately 100 married former Protestant clergymen in the United States who have joined the Catholic Church and received Vatican permission to become priests.

No, that is your misapprehension, apparently universal ("every").

You're right. I was over-reaching. It is more like 99.9999999%.

Honestly, tell me: what Catholic-hating organization taught you that?

You would love for me to name a church, but it is Scripture that has brought me to see the RC organization as just that. There are surely lots of Christians in it, but that does not make it the only true church. That one belongs to Jesus, not Rome. Let's hear His words...

******

John 3: 5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You[c] must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

9"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

10"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[d] 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.[e] ...

******

...John 20: 17Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her...

It would be helpful to know where to lay blame for such lies.

Show me with Scripture, where I have "lied". Kindly leave out a Pope's interpretation, and just give it to me straight. I will not accept the Apocrypha, as much of it is not recognized by scholars, nor by the Council at Nicea.

*********

Not my church, but I agree with this history lesson...

********

Emperor Constantine's Nicene council is usually pointed to as the source for the doctrine of the Trinity, yet the Trinity was present in the church long before Constantine. Most Jehovah Witnesses and other anti- trinitarians have never had a true presentation of Church history. If they knew history they may not point to Constantine. They have created this misrepresentation to do battle against a lie. They portray Church history as proof that the doctrine of the Trinity is of a pagan source from the Emperor Constantine. The truth will astound you.

The term Trinitas was popularized by Tertullian almost 100 years before the Nicene council in his debate against Praxeas. However, he was not the first to use the term, a man Theophilus Bishop of Antioch in 160 was the first to use the term (that we have in writing), many years before in his epistle to Autolycus The 2nd,xv..We can assume it was used prior to Theophilus and was held as a common church belief with the many quotes that are left to us in history by the early church pastors. Athenagoras representing the whole Churches belief wrote, that, "they hold the Father to be God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit, and declare their union and their distinction in order."(A plea for the Christians.10.3) The term was used to simply describe the three that simultaneously exist as the one God. A man named Praxeas promoted what is called Monarchianism, which held a strict form of monotheistic progression. That the Father became the Son, and the Son became the Spirit. This is what is called modalism in it's simplest form, What is better termed Oneness today. Despite the accusation's of the Church inventing and promoting the Trinity. We find the Church in Rome and elsewhere falling prey to numerous heresies that they tried to keep out.

As we see from history the doctrine of the Trinity did not depend on any council as it was used by Tertullian and others long before a council was called on doctrinal teaching. The Catholic Church gets blamed for inventing the Trinity yet when we look through it's history it tells a different story. History shows that it was Trinitarians that first resisted a single church Government with a Pope as its head, they did not invent it. Zephyrinus (210 AD.) and Callistus (220 AD.) were the first bishops to claim Mt.16:18 to themselves, they were both modalistic in their view of God. Tertullian called him an usurper saying, "as if he was the Bishop of Bishop's." So it was Oneness believers who first wanted to be head of the whole Church, not Constantine. Adolf Harnack in his book the History of Dogma actually states that "Modalism…was for almost a generation the official theory in Rome." (3:53). Which certainly proposes a problem for those who claim a Roman origin of the Trinity. This occurred before Constantine and Arius' heresy won after Constantine which Rome promoted for yet another 50 years.

The truth is that there was no Roman Catholic Church ruling Christianity before Constantine, because Christianity was an illegal religion and an underground practice. It was not until hundred's of year's later, 5th cent. to the 7th cent., that the first vestiges of this church government rose where there was a Roman bishop as the head of the Church, making it an official Roman Church functioning similar to today's....

I can't imagine going through life being so full of pride and bitterness.

...their most dedicated adherents spew vile hatred against Christ's Church.

Vile hatred? Bitter? Yep, you have directed that at me.

My animosity is toward the lies and pride of those who think a man is in charge on earth. I recognize Jesus as head of His church. He lives within the hearts of believers. I am not alone in my thoughts. I hope He lives in yours...

Jesus is risen. I preach Christ, from Creation to Resurrection, and the hope to some. I do not recognize Rome, so I cannot be in agreement with it's philosophy, and will surely speak from truth.

Please have a nice day... and remember:

He is risen!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.