Why Did You Choose “Catholic? (Why do adults become Catholics?)

CE.com ^ | January 27th, 2012 | George Weigel

[Salvation]

Why Did You Choose “Catholic?”

January 27th, 2012 by George Weigel

Why do adults become Catholics?

There are as many reasons for “converting” as there are converts. Evelyn Waugh became a Catholic with, by his own admission, “little emotion but clear conviction”: this was the truth; one ought to adhere to it. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote that his journey into the Catholic Church began when, as an unbelieving Harvard undergraduate detached from his family’s staunch Presbyterianism, he noticed a leaf shimmering with raindrops while taking a walk along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass.; such beauty could not be accidental, he thought—there must be a Creator. Thomas Merton found Catholicism aesthetically, as well as intellectually, attractive: once the former Columbia free-thinker and dabbler in communism and Hinduism found his way into a Trappist monastery and became a priest, he explained the Mass to his unconverted friend, poet Robert Lax, by analogy to a ballet. Until his death in 2007, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger insisted that his conversion to Catholicism was not a rejection of, but a fulfillment of, the Judaism into which he was born; the cardinal could often be found at Holocaust memorial services reciting the names of the martyrs, including “Gisèle Lustiger, ma maman” (“my mother”).

Two of the great nineteenth-century converts were geniuses of the English language: theologian John Henry Newman and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. This tradition of literary converts continued in the twentieth century, and included Waugh, Graham Greene, Edith Sitwell, Ronald Knox, and Walker Percy. Their heritage lives today at Our Savior’s Church on Park Avenue in New York, where convert author, wit, raconteur and amateur pugilist George William Rutler presides as pastor.

In early American Catholicism, the fifth archbishop of Baltimore (and de facto primate of the United States), Samuel Eccleston, was a convert from Anglicanism, as was the first native-born American saint and the precursor of the Catholic school system, Elizabeth Ann Seton. Mother Seton’s portrait in the offices of the archbishop of New York is somewhat incongruous, as the young widow Seton, with her children, was run out of New York by her unforgiving Anglican in-laws when she became a Catholic. On his deathbed, another great nineteenth-century convert, Henry Edward Manning of England, who might have become the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury but became the Catholic archbishop of Westminster instead, took his long-deceased wife’s prayer book from beneath his pillow and gave it to a friend, saying that it had been his spiritual inspiration throughout his life.

If there is a thread running through these diverse personalities, it may be this: that men and women of intellect, culture and accomplishment have found in Catholicism what Blessed John Paul II called the “symphony of truth.” That rich and complex symphony, and the harmonies it offers, is an attractive, compelling and persuasive alternative to the fragmentation of modern and post-modern intellectual and cultural life, where little fits together and much is cacophony. Catholicism, however, is not an accidental assembly of random truth-claims; the creed is not an arbitrary catalogue of propositions and neither is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It all fits together, and in proposing that symphonic harmony, Catholicism helps fit all the aspects of our lives together, as it orders our loves and loyalties in the right direction.

You don’t have to be an intellectual to appreciate this “symphony of truth,” however. For Catholicism is, first of all, an encounter with a person, Jesus Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And to meet that person is to meet the truth that makes all the other truths of our lives make sense. Indeed, the embrace of Catholic truth in full, as lives like Blessed John Henry Newman’s demonstrate, opens one up to the broadest possible range of intellectual encounters.

Viewed from outside, Catholicism can seem closed and unwelcoming. As Evelyn Waugh noted, though, it all seems so much more spacious and open from the inside. The Gothic, with its soaring vaults and buttresses and its luminous stained glass, is not a classic Catholic architectural form by accident. The full beauty of the light, however, washes over you when you come in.

 

George Weigel is author of the bestselling books The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church and Letters to a Young Catholic.

This column has been made available to Catholic Exchange courtesy of the Denver Catholic Register.

 

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“That’s the other thing, you have no sense of humor, either.”

Actually I have a great sense of humor as anyone who knows me well would tell you. You will never know me well.

[RFEngineer]

“You will never know me well.”

So I guess our fishing trip this weekend is off?

[alnick]

I am a Protestant. I’ve never said that. I have said “In Christ alone...”

So no Bible, No church, no minister, no hymnals, Jesus Himself came down and taught you to be Christian.

Is that really what you meant to say, because that is exactly what you did say.....

Read John 1. Jesus is the Word.

[rwilson99]

You realize the Deuterocanonical is included in both the Septuagint and every single edition of the Christian Bible prior to the 16th Century.

Why wouldn’t the admonition to ‘neither shall ye diminish ought from it?

Also, if you accept chapter 6... how do you deal with the protestant grumbling present throughout John 6:52-59?

[verga]

No more than the Council of Trent did, in declaring the Deuterocanonical books canonical. They were not regarded as inspired scripture before.

Serious question here: Is the second book of your Bible Titled "We'elleh shemot" sometimes shortened to "Shemot", or is it titled Exodus. You see if it titled Exodus then your Bible came originally from the Greek translation which was the Septuagint. This later had 7 books removed from it AFTER the time of Christs death and Resurrection.

In other words they were canonical long before the council of Trent. Trent simply reaffirmed their place in the canon, which had been unchallenged for 1500, until Luther.

Pesky things these facts.

[verga]

Please accept my apologies.

Posting while exhausted is a bad practice.

I have read your posts with great interest and enthusiasm, you have the makings of a great apologist and great debtor, Apology accepted with vigor To quote one of my favorite movies "No autopsy no foul."

[BlackElk]

If you are only concerned with the politics of the matter (and who am I to disagree with your self-assessment?):

1. We have four GOP candidates left: Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul;

2. Paul gives every indication of being a refugee from the planet Neptune and will never be nominated in any event by the GOP;

3. Rick Santorum is an outstanding man, husband, father, pro-life and pro-family champion in his public life and in his private life. He is a well-catechized Roman Catholic and I am personally more comfortable with Santorum than with any other candidate. Unfortunately, he appears not to have a viable path to nomination;

4. Mitt Romney is a liberal Democrat in GOP drag who has a lengthy track record of being pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, pro-perversion posing as marriage, a gun grabber, a tax hiker on folks of modest means, a nominator of social revolutionary judges, a man who cares not a whit about foreign policy or human rights unless it somehow facilitates opportunities to augment his elite level of income and that of his fellow trust fund babies,a man who governed Massachusetts as a grotesque liberal and left the GOP there in total wreckage far worse than he found it. He did not get defeated for re-election because he shared the obvious knowledge of his pollster that even Massachusetts was thoroughly disgusted with his act. He either got his agenda enacted as governor (in which case his agenda was an unrelenting litany of leftist idiocy thereby disqualifying himself as a GOP POTUS candidate) OR the legislature and judiciary were the actual governors of Taxachusetts during his term (in which case his gross incompetence as a public official disqualifies him as a GOP POTUS candidate).

5. Newt Gingrich is a flawed man as are we all and his flaws are probably more soap opera and titillating than the flaws of many of us. His critics' nonsense notwithstanding, he was a very good Congressman who led the GOP to majority status in 1994. He was felled as Speaker by the propaganda skills of Slick Willie (himself no paragon of marital virtue and an apparent rapist of Juanita Broderick, attempted rapist of Paula Jones, molester of Kathleen Willie, etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseam), the relentless opposition of the LSM that was SHOCKED to find the House run by Republicans, and by a cabal of generally corrupt GOP leaders panting for lobbyists' checks with lots of zeroes uber alles. Dennis Hastert and John Boehner are not my ideal as public officials. Gingrich has a legitimate shot at the nomination and to finish off Romney. No one else in the GOP does among those presently running. Newt is pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, firm as to foreign policy and stands ready to punish the courts;

6. If many Catholics have legitimate concerns over Newt, that is business and politics as usual. Many ostensible Catholics voted for Obozo. I might question their Catholicism, but it is what it is. We Catholics do not take orders from the hierarchy as to whom we will elect, whatever some folks may fear. I do think that the long term trend of Catholic voting (including Latino immigrants "legal" or otherwise) is to the right and towards the conservative wing of the GOP. We are not electing a new Mother Teresa but a POTUS.

7. As to Tony Blair, I like(d) him personally which is something I can say of no other Brit Labor Party leader. As a Catholic, he leaves much to be desired since he apparently supports legal abortion and "gay" everything. His admission to the RCC should have been postponed until he had actually converted and accepted the tenets of RCC doctrine. I hope he will continue to seek to be actually Catholic but he is not really there yet. Acceptance of Tony Blair into the Church was probably political opportunism not by him but by Brit Catholic bishops. It is the substance of the conversion that matters and nothing, but nothing, prevents accepting conversions just because the convert is an active politician. If the outside world does ot like that, toooooo bad. It is the RCC's business, the convert's business, God's business and no one else's business since others have no horse in the race. The "respect" of other humans is irrelevant. Foolish people care entirely too much for what we Catholics call "human respect," which is a prime source of sin in human society. Sinning to hide reality from public knowledge does not somehow sanitize such cowardly sins and turn them into virtues. How many abortions, for instance, result from a desire to avoid public notice? The baby is just as dead.

[Just mythoughts]

You realize the Deuterocanonical is included in both the Septuagint and every single edition of the Christian Bible prior to the 16th Century. Why wouldn’t the admonition to ‘neither shall ye diminish ought from it? Also, if you accept chapter 6... how do you deal with the protestant grumbling present throughout John 6:52-59?

Of course the first prophet Moses is and should be included in every Christian Bible. Christ had Moses and Elijah with Him on the mount of Transfiguration... ought to be a 'warning' to those that revised the Bible as to who Christ gave credibility.

I do not understand the question Why wouldn’t the admonition to ‘neither shall ye diminish ought from it?

Christ said warning even to us .... who would be sitting in the seat of Moses... Matthew 23: The 'religious' community.

I cannot worry about what other denominations grumble over. IITimothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

I know for a fact Catholic doctrine considers much of what Moses penned as allegories and not still in effect. But Moses laid out in Deuteronomy what is required to be blessed and what to expect IF anyone/church claims they have and hold ownership to the Written Word.

[RFEngineer]

I think a brokered convention with an energized conservative grass-roots to maximize influence on the final call is what I would hope for at this point.

Even if Gingrich or Romney eventually get the nomination anyway, it would have shaken things up a bit, and perhaps (just perhaps) they will take conservatives more seriously.

Who knows, we might get someone different and truly conservative (unlikely....but one can hope)

I didn’t know about Tony Blair’s views on obvious issues important to Catholics. Well, at least getting an annulment was not among his issues (was it?)

In case you can’t tell....I’m not a Newt-er. I’d have been equally skeptical if he had a “Jimmy Swaggart” moment, or if he had converted to Judaism. He picked Catholicism because it suited his purpose, in my opinion.

[gghd]

Please read my comment again & which one are you talking about? There was NO desire on my part to ‘judge’ as you may have meant it in any comment. We are all children of Adam & Eve. & We are Commanded to ‘Love God above all things & to love our neighbor as ourselves.’
The gift of Understanding allows all of us to appreciate how God’s Grace can work in everyone. >God desires the Salvation of ALL mankind.
& Yes, God is in control. But in a mysterious way God also gives us ‘freewill’ & we are capable of accepting or denying the Grace from God. God in control can mean = Without God, I can’t & without me, God won’t.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“So I guess our fishing trip this weekend is off?”

Sorry, gave up fishing when I was still a teenager. But have a good time anyway.

[Not gonna take it anymore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgYguIi7fMI

John Michael Talbot.

[RFEngineer]

“Sorry, gave up fishing when I was still a teenager. But have a good time anyway.”

No, no.....see, this is where you make a clever quip about using me for bait, or something like that. That’s how jokes work - you play into the others absurdity by being more absurd.

My joke was how you and I were really fishing buddies - an absurdity, but kind of amusing considering the outrageous dialog of this thread.

I really wasn’t asking whether you fished, or when you stopped fishing.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“No, no.....see, this is where you make a clever quip about using me for bait, or something like that. That’s how jokes work - you play into the others absurdity by being more absurd.”

No, I leave all the absurdity to your posting.

“My joke was how you and I were really fishing buddies - an absurdity, but kind of amusing considering the outrageous dialog of this thread.”

I understood what you were saying and why.

“I really wasn’t asking whether you fished, or when you stopped fishing.”

I know - and that’s exactly why I answered the way I did.

[RFEngineer]

“I know - and that’s exactly why I answered the way I did.”

You’re one sharp cookie.

[lastchance]

Thanks for your well thought out reply.

[Alamo-Girl]

And thank you for your encouragements, dear lastchance!

[BlackElk]

Nowadays, converting to Catholicism can be an arduous process. There is something called RCIA which is a program of long form instruction in the Faith and a variety of ceremonies of often recent vintage (post Vatican II) for adults seeking admission to the Catholic Faith. To old school Traditionalists (like me), it seems likely to be so cumbersome as to deter conversions. Wikipedia explains the process. I believe it would still be possible for my pastor (at a Tridentine/Old Latin parish to dispense with all but necessary instruction to admit adults to Catholicism. I know of instances when, for example, Frank Meyer (National Review's Managing Editor) who had never been baptized decided in his last day or two at death's door from lung cancer to be baptized and the requested baptism occurred with Bill Buckley as his godfather.

It is reported that Gingrich actually spent a year or more (some claim five years) at weekly instructions one on one from the vicar of the National Catholic Cathedral in DC. Opus Dei has numerous notable conversions to its credit including Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, the late columnist Robert Novak and Lew Lehrman.

Certainly opinions differ among conservatives as to Gingrich. We are not a monolithic army. I don't mean to be rude to you in any way or to suggest that you need to fall in line with those who support Newt Gingrich.

I do believe in a technique I used to use when leading a substantial Congressional District delegation (40-50 delegates of sometimes differing opinions) to state Young Republican conventions that were sometimes hotly contested.

Every delegate from the CD was invited to a closed door caucus (not practical on FR to have closed caucuses but maybe something else will work). As chairman, I would explain that every single delegate was absolutely entitled to his/her opinion and to vote as he/she saw fit and that no one would be punished in any way for candor or for choice of candidates, that we would discuss at the caucus any position advanced by any delegate as to whom they would choose and why, that we owed it to one another to respectfully listen to each opinion and to ask only respectful questions. When that process was exhausted, we should TRY to reach a consensus because a solid wall of 50 delegates was more influential and lent more clout to the district than a divided vote of, say 32-18 which would be a net of only 14. We prevailed as a district at each convention we attended where this caucus was used and people really tried to reach a mutually respectful consensus. There were about 4 dissenting votes at one very tough convention out of about 50. We also made a point of making conservatism and effective leadership the primary criteria.

I honestly hope (probably in vain but who knows?) that conservatives will come up with an effective means to achieve that kind of mutually respectful unanimity this year against Romney.

Again, your vote and choice can NEVER be determined by demands from others. It is your vote and your choice and, however you cast it, we owe you respect as a fellow conservative. Without being pressured, it is fair to ask that you at least note that Gingrich has been sort of endorsed by Sarah Palin, and outright endorsed by Rick Perry and Herman Cain. Michelle Bachmann has so far refrained from endorsing anyone. Rick Santorum is still in the race and is, IMNSHO, a very fine man, was a very fine senator and is a worthy candidate. He is not gaining traction, however, and time grows short. I may be wrong but my gut is that he will pull out because of his little daughter's medical condition. He may not endorse anyone else. I regard Romney and Paul as beyond the pale and I suspect you agree on those two. I favor Gingrich at this point but I am not pushing you in that direction.

It may be that a brokered convention could work out well because it can bring forth the surprise and genuinely conservative nominee. In that event, the more conservative (i.e. not pro-Romney and probably not pro-Paul) the delegates the better for a goal of choosing a conservative newcomer. As to Paul, I recognize that he has some conservative views especialy on matters fiscal but it does not work if his delegates alienate everyone by babbling about "neocons" or globalists or war mongers or drugs or any number of other exotic stances that so many of them cherish. One thing to bear in mind is that a brokered convention could also produce an unpleasant surprise candidate. My primary concern at any convention is that neither Romney nor anyone like him be nominated. My second concern is that the nomination not be bought by deleterious back room deals or even the appearance of same. That is as much as I should say.

Tony Blair's wife Cherie is apparently, at best, a liberal borderline Catholic. His children have been brought up accordingly. It has apparently caused him some pain to be an Anglican when his entire immediate family is Catholic. Blessed Pope John Paul II (who had the authority to do such things) is believed to have given the Holy Eucharist to Tony Blair before his conversion (when he was Prime Minister on at least one occasion). This received only minor publicity lest any MP take umbrage and claim that Blair had already become Catholic and therefore under old archaic 16th century laws require his removal as Prime Minister. That was the pragmatic reason for delaying his conversion until his retirement from the PM job. Mr. Blair is a very liberal borderline Catholic. I wish him and his family well and hope that their Catholicism will deepen considerably. He is a very talented man whatever his flaws and, as PM, he was a great friend to our country.

You are skeptical of Gingrich's conversion. I cannot say that your skepticism is outside reasonable bounds. I will say (while probably violating the standard as to Romney but with good evidence) that charity requires us to give a reasonable benefit of the doubt to others on matters of character. Newt's behavior in his prior marriages was certainly abysmal and indefensible. When people react adversely to that behavior, he has only himself to blame.

I think (but you must decide for yourself) that Newt's conversion was sincere. I might have more credibility on this subject if he were converting to a religion which is not my own. I like Tony Blair and I like Newt Gingrich. I believe Newt is converting legitimately and also that Tony Blair should have waited until he was prepared to accept all of the teachings of the Church. In the case of either of these men, the conversion is no triumph unless it is complete and genuine.

All that having been said, may God bless you and yours.

[boatbums]

I hope you see the irony here: You are using Catholic Early Church Fathers to prove the validity of the gospel that Vlad asked you to prove the validity of by using that Gospel alone. In other words you are using Catholic historical references to prove that a Catholic book in a Catholic Bible is part of the Catholic Canon.

No irony at all. I was responding based on Alamo-girl's idea of how that question could be better phrased. The way it was asked shows a lack of understanding of what the term sola Scriptura means. But had you gone to the link I gave, rather than post a knee-jerk reaction in hope for a gotcha question, it actually does give some internal proof for the Apostle Matthew as the author of the Gospel by his name. Regardless, the Christian belief in the infallible and authoritative, Divinely-inspired Holy Bible is not refuted by appeal to early Christian theologians and writers who uphold the authenticity of each book that makes up our Holy Bible. That you call it "Catholic historical references to prove that a Catholic book in a Catholic Bible is part of the Catholic Canon", doesn't negate the fact that the Christian faith is universal and we are all members of the one Body of Christ, a "Spiritual House" of which we are living stones. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't own the copyright of Christianity.

[BlackElk]

I agree with your entire post but especially with the first sentence which contains a vital tenet often forgotten.

IIRC, you are in Connecticut, my home state until 2000 when we moved to Illinois which is sort of moving to America although Governor Quinnochio is as bad as Danell (couldn't his parents spell???) Malloy and half as bright (not very in either case).

God bless you and yours!