I didn't convert to Protestantism. I accepted Christ's finished work on the cross for the payment of my sins and have been born again. That makes me a Christ follower, a new creation in Christ, adopted into His family, transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
Colossians 1:13-14 13He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
I am not a Baptist, Lutheran, Calvinist, or whatever label you wish to slap on me. That is not my identity in Christ. My identity in Christ is Christ. In Him I live and move and have my being.
Protestant converts to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy start with a desire to know more and do it for intellectual reasons.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 18For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 2:11-16 11For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
You can call yourself whatever you want, but my observation stands. If you were like most Catholics who left the Church since the 1960s, you likely were poorly catechized and had a shallow understanding of your faith.
You didn’t understand Catholicism when you were a Catholic, and it is obvious that is still the case.
My father left the Catholic Church after the changes disillusioned him with Catholicism. But unlike him, I place my faith in God and Christ’s command that we all be one instead of bishops when they go off the reservation.
St. John Chrysostom said the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of reprobate priests and bishops.
Colossians 1:13-14
Haydock:
Ver. 10. Worthy of God: axios tou kuriou. So St. Ambrose and the Greek doctors; or thus, worthily, pleasing God, and this not by faith only, but fruitful in every good work. (Ibid.) -— God, in[1] all things pleasing him. This is the construction of the Latin by the Greek. (Witham)
Ver. 14. It is through the blood of Christ, and not by the law of Moses, that we are freed from the power of death. If the law could have saved us, the coming of Christ would have been useless. See then, he says, if it be proper to engage under a law which is so inefficacious. (Calmet) -— From this verse and from ver. 12, et alibi passim, we are taught that we are not only by imputation made partakers of Christ’s benefits, but are by his grace made worthy thereof, and deserve our salvation condignly, ex condigno. (Bristow)
1 Corinthians 1:19
Ver. 19-20. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will confound the false and mistaken wisdom of the great and wise philosophers, of the learned doctors or scribes, of the curious searchers of the secrets of nature. -— Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world, by the means he hath made use of to convert, and save the world, particularly by sending his only Son to die upon a cross? the preaching of which seems a folly, &c. only they who are called, believe Christ, though crucified, to be the power and wisdom of God. (Witham)
2 Corinthians 2:11-16
Ver. 11. In the name and in the person of Christ, I ordered him to be excommunicated; in the same, I order him now to be re-admitted into your communion, and this for your sake. We ought to take care that the remedies we employ, do not give occasion to the triumphs of Satan, by throwing the patient into despair, on account of our too great severity. (St. Ambrose) -— The Greek may be translated: that we may not fall into the power of Satan, on account of our too great severity. (Calmet)
Ver. 12, &c. When I was come to Troas....and a door was opened to me, towards promoting the gospel, which I never neglect, yet I had no rest in my spirit; I remained still in a great concern for you, not meeting with Titus, from whom I expected with impatience to hear how all things went with you at Corinth: I went on, therefore, bidding them farewell at that time, and deferred the good I might do by a longer stay with them till another time. (Witham) -— Troas is the same town as the ancient Troy or Ilium, famous for its ten years’ siege, when it was destroyed by the Greeks in the year 1184, B. Christ [1184 B.C.]. (Estius) -— Here, though there was a great promise of abundant fruit, St. Paul’s solicitude to meet Titus, that he might learn from him the effect of his letter, made him depart from Macedonia, where he had much to suffer. (Bible de Vence)
Ver. 14. Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph by his grace, so that we every where make manifest the odour of his knowledge, making God known and worshipped, and instructing the people in the faith of Christ, to the advantage and eternal good of those who hearken to us, and are saved; but to the greater condemnation of those, who after they have heard of the truth, by their own fault remain obstinate: so that the preaching of the gospel is to some the odour of death unto death, when they remain dead in their sins, they incur an eternal death: and to them who are converted, the odour of life unto life; they receive the spiritual life of grace in their souls in this world, and an eternal life in the next. (Witham)
Ver. 16. The odour of death, &c. The preaching of the apostle, which by its fragrant odour brought many to life, was to others, through their own fault, the occasion of death; by their wilfully opposing and resisting that divine call. (Challoner) -— And for these things who is so sufficient,[3] as we whom Christ hath chosen to be the ministers of his gospel? In the Greek copies and in St. Chrysostom, we only read, who is fit? as if he said, who is fit to discharge this great duty, without the continual assistance of God’s grace? The reading of the Latin Vulgate seems to agree better with the following verse of the next chapter, when he answers their objection, Do we then begin again to commend ourselves? (Witham) -— Who are so fit as we who are chosen by God to fulfil his ministry? If God had not chosen us, how should we have been able to acquit ourselves of so arduous an undertaking? for we did not intrude or thrust ourselves into this ministry. (Calmet) -—Though it is not so difficult for those to preach the gospel who corrupt its doctrines, who weaken its truths, who disguise its obligations, and who mix the word of God with human inventions in order to be more esteemed, or for the sake of filthy lucre, like those who mix and adulterate their wines, in order to be the greater gainers. (St. Chrysostom) -— But we preach the word in all sincerity, as on the part of God, in the presence of God, and in the Spirit and person of Jesus Christ. (Bible de Vence) -— In this grand work all may justly tremble, for who is fit? as we read in the Greek.