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.

 

[verga]

Do you actually have that edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia in front of you, or are you relying on the research of others?

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“I can’t believe you are still not satisfied with the answers to your challenge.”

None of the responses fit the criteria laid out in the challenge. Thus, there is no reason to be satisfied.

“Are you seriously doubting that Matthew the Apostle wrote the Gospel attributed to him?”

Nope, not one bit.

“If so, although there is ample evidence that the author was never in question to the early church, can you at least consider that:”

I can consider all of your points - and some are very interesting - but none actually answer the challenge properly. Take this for instance:

“1. No other author’s name was attached to this writing out of all the extant copies that existed then or still do today.”

That is not from scripture alone. Hence, it doesn’t fit the criteria of the challenge.

Or this one:

“- Matthew also shows through his writing that he is a Hellenized Jew: he has good Greek style, and would appear to be “at home” in the Roman world. Again, this fits right in with the idea of Matthew as a tax collector.”

Well, it might suggest that the author COULD BE a tax collector. It is not proof that he is a tax collector, nor does it prove he is a hellenized Jew.

And so on.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“I’ll salute you if you can write 17 verses that come up with these same statistics. The Gospel of Mathew was written word by word by The Holy Spirit just like the rest of scripture was.”

Whether I could write something with such statistics or not none of this in itself proves from scripture alone that Matthew wrote the Gospel, or that the Gospel is inspired. The information you provided is very interesting, but is not proof in itself.

[RFEngineer]

“I never posted what you falsely claim I did”

Why do you feel the need to interpret what you meant for everyone?

Since you repeatedly stand by what you said as “100% accurate”, and refuse to modify/clarify/correct the post, I only ask folks to read your post #253 and decide for themselves what it means.

If they want, they can peruse this entire thread and decide the complete context.

It’s really simple. You don’t need to be involved further, unless someone posts to you what they think - then you can explain yourself to them. I have already told you what I think it means, and why.

That you are uncomfortable with someone simply reading and deciding what you post speaks volumes.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Why do you feel the need to interpret what you meant for everyone?”

Once again you are violating the board rules. “Mind reading” is “making it personal” according to the mods. Also, you posted something that was factually incorrect. Pointing that out has nothing to do with feelings and little or nothing to do with interpretation.

“Since you repeatedly stand by what you said as “100% accurate”, and refuse to modify/clarify/correct the post, I only ask folks to read your post #253 and decide for themselves what it means.”

You may be asking that now, but in post after post what you did was falsely claim I said something I NEVER SAID.

“If they want, they can peruse this entire thread and decide the complete context.”

And it will show you to be wrong.

“It’s really simple. You don’t need to be involved further, unless someone posts to you what they think - then you can explain yourself to them. I have already told you what I think it means, and why.”

And you were wrong. And I will post as I wish in this thread unless told otherwise by a mod. And note, unlike you, I will not be claiming you said something you never said.

“That you are uncomfortable with someone simply reading and deciding what you post speaks volumes.”

Again, “mind reading” is a violation of the board rules.
I expressed no discomfort nor do I feel any. You repeatedly make things up out of thin air and ascribe them to me. I don’t know why you do this, but your actions - in which you make things up out of thin air - says much more about you than about me.

[metmom]

Wait a minute......

Doesn't the Catholic church claim to have written Scripture?

And don't Catholics claim that the RCC is what established canon?

In questioning the authorship of the gospels, isn't one then by default, then questioning the decisions of the ECF's in their assigning authorship to the writings of Scripture?

I though that sort of thing was not allowed in Catholicism, that is questioning the church on spiritual matters.

[verga]

The source did not say that those books were not in the Bibles, but that they were placed in separate sections apart from the other Scriptures.

the source is simply wrong. Luther put them in a separate section, but they were always in their correct places in Catholic Editions from 400 up to the time of Luther.

Like I said check out the Gutenberg Bible.

http://molcat1.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/search.asp

This is from a Britsh site, with no connection tothe Catholic Church. You will see all of the Deutrocanonicals (Several have different names, but the tezxt is all there. 100 years before Trent.Your source is simply wrong.

[RFEngineer]

Mmmm-hmmmm.

[marbren]

If someone gets saved in those three seconds, they probably would qualify as Tribulation saints.

I do not know if that is possible anymore. When we say we believe in the rapture what we are actually saying is:

WE BELIVE IN GOD'S GRACE AND PROMISES THROUGH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!

After the age of grace ends with the rapture all bets are off. God's focus is then on Israel again:

Ephesians 2:12 ... remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

[marbren]

Maybe USA Catholics should move to Europe so they might have an opportunity to be tribulation saints since they seem to want to reject God’s Grace in The Lord Jesus Christ during this age of grace which may end today with the rapture?

[marbren]

The more God's grace is exalted the more the rapture makes sense. All that matters is THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! NOW is the time for us all to accept the gift of grace!

[PJ-Comix]

I was raised Protestant/Jewish - now there is a mix for you!

Does that mean you use summer sausage to replace salami as the meat choice for your bagel sandwiches?

[marbren]

Matthew 5:3 King James Version (KJV) Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[PJ-Comix]

And, let's not forget that they even declared the Pope and the Magesterium are infallible...

There was at least one pope who was not quite infallible. Pope-Peil. I lost my faith when his Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler once failed to remove a small trace of egg white.

[Lera]

Do you have any comprehension of statistics at all ?
MATHEW DID NOT WRITE THE GOSPEL OF MATHEW . THE GOSPEL OF MATHEW WAS DICTATED TO HIM WORD BY WORD BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Not only does this paper show(which BTW the team of Harvard’s Mathematical department could not even begin to duplicate with the aid of computers ) God’s hand is all over this text .It also shows you exactly which text God’s hand is all over - Textus receptus
It also shows us just who is behind all the false text - Did God really say? (BTW that question is what Satan asked Eve in the garden)

The entire Textus receptus manuscript is full of statistics like this and so are the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures (the ones the Jews say are scripture)

[Alamo-Girl]

Anyone who can hear God can ask of Holy Spirit what to say when He begins to highlight a person nearby. And we can step out in faith and offer such a statement or queary or encouragement. And we can offer the next sentence Holy Spirit provides. Or the next paragraph. And when the moment is through, we can trust Holy Spirit to continue to follow up on the 'coincidental contact.'

That is what I call "opening the door."

The difference between this type of witnessing and the kind which I call "evangelizing" or "preaching" is that God opens the door for us to a particular person or circumstance. And as you say, He gives us the words if we will only listen to Him and surrender to His leading.

Evangelists and preachers are gifted by the Spirit to speak to audiences where some have ears to hear and others do not. The hearers have not been "primed" by God. They are sowing the fields widely (Matthew 13 - Parable of the Sower.)

And they are gifted by the Spirit for the task of sowing. By contrast, we may be gifted for the task of clearing fields, tilling, watering, aerating, weeding, etc.

Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

[Are] all apostles? [are] all prophets? [are] all teachers? [are] all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? - I Cor 12:27-30

When a person who has not been so gifted of the Spirit attempts to evangelize or preach, his words are contrived, he is not following the Spirit. And the result will be failure if not disaster. I wonder how many people have been discouraged simply because the person was speaking on his power.

But the one who is following the Spirit has God's blessed assurance:

But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. - 2 Timothy 1:10-12

And again,

[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. - Romans 8:1

For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say. - Luke 12:12

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, - Acts 4:8

God's Name is I AM.

[Quix]

TRUE. TRUE.

AGREED.

THX THX.

[Quix]

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

!HALLELUJAH!
!HALLELUJAH!
!HALLELUJAH!

[Lera]

I love statistics

The fields of Ruth and Boaz that we know as Bethlehem are approximately 777 meters above sea level . I would love to have access to an interactive computerized topographical map of Israel to be able to pin point the exact spot .

The Temple mount we know today is approximately 740 meters above sea level . The spot where the Temple of Solomon/Herod stood overlooked a place on the Mount of Olives called Golgatha . We know that from scripture that the place where Jesus Christ was crucified looked down onto the Temple because the witnesses said that they saw the curtain to the Holy of Hollies tear in half . That means the exact spot had to sit higher so that they could look down on the Temple and into the Holy of Hollies . There is a place we know as Golgatha (not where the church of the Holy Sepuculre sits ) but the one known as Gordon’s Golgatha ... this one place sits 777 meters above sea level .

If you look at an areal photo of Jerusalem the city looks like the Hebrew letter Shin - that letter is the English equivalent of our pronoun who...so who does it point to? LOL
it is also equivalent to that and which in our language also.

If you take a map and mark out the boundaries given in the Old Testament for the Garden of Eden , Jerusalem is smack down in the middle of it. That city is the center point of the earth but we already knew that because the scriptures clearly tell us so.

Is it a wonder why the enemy wants to take Jerusalem away from the Jews ? Is it a wonder that the enemy specifically wants East Jerusalem ? Ask yourself what two groups are the most united in wanting to take Jerusalem away from the Jews
Why do they COVET this little piece of land so much ? Why do they want to sit there ? Do they want to be like the MOST HIGH?

[verga]

Folkas that is not statistics, it is numerology, a form of divination