Why would anyone become Catholic?

https://www.indiegogo.com ^ | October 2, 2014 | Indiegogo

[NKP_Vet]

Why would intelligent, successful people give up their careers, alienate their friends, and cause havoc in their families...to become Catholic? Indeed, why would anyone become Catholic?

As an evangelist and author who recently threw my own life into some turmoil by deciding to enter the Catholic Church, I've faced this question a lot lately. That is one reason I decided to make this documentary; it's part of my attempt to try to explain to those closest to me why I would do such a crazy thing.

Convinced isn't just about me, though. The film is built around interviews with some of the most articulate and compelling Catholic converts in our culture today, including Scott Hahn, Francis Beckwith, Taylor Marshall, Holly Ordway, Abby Johnson, Jeff Cavins, Devin Rose, Matthew Leonard, Mark Regnerus, Jason Stellman, John Bergsma, Christian Smith, Kevin Vost, David Currie, Richard Cole, and Kenneth Howell. It also contains special appearances by experts in the field of conversion such as Patrick Madrid and Donald Asci.

Ultimately, this is a story about finding truth, beauty, and fulfillment in an unexpected place, and then sacrificing to grab on to it. I think it will entertain and inspire you, and perhaps even give you a fresh perspective on an old faith.

[FourtySeven]

What kind of proof are you looking for here?

[Elsie]

...but ANYTHING to do with sex outside of marriage is an automatic Mortal Sin!

How about stuff INSIDE of marriage??

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"All of this should be conveyed without having priesthood leaders focus upon intimate matters which are a part of husband and wife relationships. Skillful interviewing and counseling can occur without discussion of clinical details by placing firm responsibility on individual members of the Church to put their lives in order before exercising the privilege of entering a house of the Lord. The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure, or unholy practice. If a person is engaged in a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it."
- Official Declaration of the First Presidency of the Church, January 5th, 1982

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"Prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. It is detrimental to spirituality. It indicates slavery to the flesh, not that mastery of it and the growth toward godhood which is the object of our mortal life. Our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation-practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality...."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Pages 77-79, 81-82

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"Among the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, [unwed] pregnancy, and abortions - all ugly sins - but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins. They awaken lust and stir evil thoughts and sex desires. They are but parts of the whole family of related sins and indiscretions. Almost like twins, 'petting' and fornication are alike."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, page 65

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"Also far-reaching is the effect of the loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, page 196

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"And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth." (Genesis 4:9-14.) That was true of murder. It is also true of illicit sex, which, of course, includes all petting, fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and all other perversions. The Lord may say to offenders, as He did to Cain, "What hast thou done?" The children thus conceived make damning charges against you; the companions who have been frustrated and violated condemn you; the body that has been defiled cries out against you; the spirit which has been dwarfed convicts you. You will have difficulty throughout the ages in totally forgiving yourself."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965. Often-used quote still used today in LDS seminary classes.

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"I do not find in the Bible the modern terms "petting" nor "homosexuality," yet I found numerous scriptures which forbade such acts under by whatever names they might be called. I could not find the term "homosexuality," but I did find numerous places where the Lord condemned such a practice with such vigor that even the death penalty was assessed."
- Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965

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"If adultery or fornication justified the death penalty in the old days, and still in Christ's day, is the sin any less today because the laws of the land do not assess the death penalty for it? Is the act less grievous? There must be a washing, a purging, a changing of attitudes, a correcting of appraisals, a strengthening toward self-mastery. There must be many prayers, and volumes of tears. There must be an inner conviction giving to the sin its full diabolical weight. There must be increased devotion and much thought and study. And this takes energy and time and often is accompanied with sore embarrassment, heavy deprivations and deep trials, even if indeed one is not excommunicated from the Church, losing all spiritual blessings."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Page 155

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"How like the mistletoe is immorality. The killer plant starts with a sticky sweet berry. Little indiscretions are the berries -- indiscretions like sex thoughts sex discussions, passionate kissing, pornography. The leaves and little twigs are masturbation and necking and such, growing with every exercise. The full-grown plant is petting and sex looseness. It confounds, frustrates, and destroys like the parasite if it is not cut out and destroyed, for, in time it robs the tree, bleeds its life, and leaves it barren and dry; and, strangely enough, the parasite dies with its host."
- Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference Address, April 1, 1967.

[Elsie]

You just keep on publicly mocking the words of Christ, which you think deserving of ridicule??

You can't tell the difference between mocking GOD and mocking your chosen religion?

You must think it's the same thing.

[ealgeone]

the traditional way to respond has to do with the picture in your wallet of your loved ones. you have it and carry it and look at it due to your love and affection for them. you - please - are not worshipping the thing.

Boy, that's weak, it fails on so many levels and is a false equivalence.

I don't pray to my departed mom.

I have not assigned false titles to her such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of the church, co-redemtrix, mediatrix.

I do not assign false attributes to her such as: perpetual virginity, immaculate conception.

I have not written prayers about her nor to her.

I do not offer false, unproven speculations regarding my mom as catholics do mary. See the assumption of mary.

I do not attribute any contribution to my mom's role in the salvation of mankind as does the catholic church.

"Mary is the intermediary through whom is distributed unto us this immense treasure of mercies gathered by God, for mercy and truth were created by Jesus Christ. Thus as no man goeth to the Father but by the Son, so no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother." (Vatican Website:  Encyclical of Pope Leo 13th on the Rosary, Octobri Mense, Pope Leo XIII, 1903-1914)

[ealgeone]

Here’s more of the TRUTH just for you. The Holy Bible is a CATHOLIC document. Catholics determined what books would be in the New Testament, and they were canonized by a CATHOLIC pope. So any protestant that accepts the NT and agrees and it’s 27 books accepts the authority of the Catholic Church, i.e., the Magisterium.

oh good grief. get off the catholic high horse.

the Bible was put together way before the "roman catholic" church was formed. if you're referring to Trent as making the canon official then your argument really falls apart.

[Elsie]

The comment about hell is not true for a believer.

It's TRUE for a Catholic believer!

They've been TAUGHT to somehow bypass THESE verses:

Matthew 12:31-32

And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

[Mrs. Don-o]

First of all, you didn't reference Catholicism per se in the comment which was taken down by the Admin Moderator. You referenced what Jesus said in John 6 about His Body and Blood, and you mocked it.

Second, mocking God and mocking the believing community which is His Body is indeed pretty much the same thing. When Saul had his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?"

I had once been pretty sure you were also a Christian, a fellow member of His Body. Now you give me cause to wonder.

[Elsie]

I follow that Catholic document called the Holy Bible and believe everything in it.

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Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

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John 6:28-29
Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?

 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

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1 John 3:21-23
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

[daniel1212]

It's all Jesus, all the time. Without the narrow confines of protestant hermeneutics, i.e., sola scriptura which is what is truly from Lucifer. Unless you'd like to explain how a protestant individual could derive scriptural warrant for homosexual relationships and all manner of gross moral evil. Unfortunately, having no authority the protestant can't say, "you're doing it wrong" and it be of any consequence. That's the world protestants have made for us. It's a demonic mess of protestants in league with the devil. They should be the ones to clean it up.

More propaganda and absurd Roman reasoning. The fact is that those who hold most strongly to Scripture being the supreme authority as the wholly inspired and assured word of God, accurate in all of the principles it teaches, are by far the most religious conservative group, and much more than the fruit of Rome.

And in reality, it is those Prot. churches that are most like Rome that are overall the most liberal, while the definition of "Protestant" includes those who deny core historical Prot. beliefs, even Protestants as a whole are more conservative than Catholics in America.

And talk about not having any consequences, Rome counts and treats even proabortion prosodomite pols as members in life and in death, sending a message to all others. And in the past she employed the sword of men in order to bring about conformity among members, which unScriptural means early Prots had to unlearn.

Moreover, holding Scripture as supreme sufficient and authoritative as literally being the word of God does not negate magisterial authority, but Scripture provides and establishes it, but not as the supreme infallible authority, which is never seen or promised in Scripture, despite RC extrapolative attempts to read it into Scripture.

And the fact is that it is abundantly evidenced that Scripture was the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.

And which testifies (Lk. 24:27,44, etc.) to writings of God being recognized and established as being so (essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation), and thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.)

Meanwhile, under the alternative to SS, that of church leadership being supreme (sola ecclesia) is seen the most critical heresies, that of cults, which fundamental evangelicals have historically contended against due to commitment to core truths cults deny, while also contending against inventions of Rome.

It is thus no wonder that both liberals and Rome have treated such evangelicals as their greatest threats.

And in contrast to the false dilemma of no centralized authority meaning moral anarchy, it is the failure to uphold the authority of unchanging Scripture as the assured word of God that is the problem, while the problem of a centralized autocratic authority being supreme is that when it becomes liberal in what it effectually teaches, then so do her subjects overall.

Evangelical Protestants are the most politically conservative Christian tradition. Within each tradition, those with literal views of the Bible are more politically conservative than is their tradition overall. Catholics that are Biblical literalists (11.8%) hold more conservative political views than the Catholic population in general does. The Biblical literalist Catholic is as politically conservative as the Biblical literalist who is Evangelical (47.8%) or Mainline Protestant. (11.2%) American Piety in the 21st Century, Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/33304.pdf

Meanwhile this country was not founded with Catholic religion primarily being its basis, but Protestant.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859. French Catholic political thinker and historian; best known for his two volume, “Democracy in America”) — The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same...

In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth...

There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated, In Europe almost all the disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of home is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions that frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image of order and of peace...

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live...

Thus religious zeal is perpetually warmed in the United States by the fires of patriotism. These men do not act exclusively from a consideration of a future life; eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause. If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to hear them speak so often of the goods of this world, and to meet a politician where you expected to find a priest.

They will tell you that "all the American republics are collectively involved with each other; if the republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot, the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our interest that the new states should be religious, in order that they may permit us to remain free." (Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII, 1835; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

• There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religion with fervor.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. (Democracy in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331, 332, 335, 336-7, 337; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country. (Benjamin Franklin, "Information to those who would Remove to America" In Franklin, Benjamin. The Bagatelles from Passy. Ed. Lopez, Claude A. New York: Eakins Press. 1967; http://mith.umd.edu//eada/html/display.php?docs=franklin_bagatelle4.xml. Also, John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries .... Volume 3, p. 26)

[Gamecock]

This may surprise you but I don't wait by the keyboard eagerly anticipating your next question. I am receiving a dozen pings an hour about the Ebola epidemic which frankly is important for me to keep up with. I receive professional updates though my email and to know what is happening on the streets is just as important.

I will say that you appeal to authority is weak on this. Bookstores, both brink and mortar and virtual are full of garbage written by people with various degrees. Any attempt to attack my professional credentials is a lame tactic.

[Elsie]

Christianity does not include worshiping a goddess/matriarch, committing grotesque descerations of human remains (kissing skulls) or praying to dead humans.

At LEAST they don't have any milk/? cartons to deal with!

[Elsie]

Their souls can still hear our requests to them.

And then what?

[Elsie]

Oooooh!

Appeal to scholarship!

[Elsie]

Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

Does that come in a chalice? or can you get it in a carton?

[Elsie]

The protestant does not rely on the bible. They rely upon themselves. Self-deification in violation of God's commandments.

Let's try some easy math:

There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;

If merely 1% of them  'ask' Mary for help just once each day;

that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.

Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)

...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!

Purty good fer someone NOT 'devine'!

[Elsie]

The Holy Spirit surely knows that these terms have different meaning and yet the Protestant does not. Which can only strengthen the idea that protestant exegesis is not of the Divine.

Logic 101

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Their souls can still hear our requests to them. And then what?

What does the Bible say?

"And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people."

And yet, you can't find Luther's doctrine of "the Bible ALONE as the sole rule of faith in the Bible."

Yet you adhere to it.

Why should we take your "where's that in the Bible?" seriously, when it's not in the Bible?

[verga]

I will say that you appeal to authority is weak on this. Bookstores, both brink and mortar and virtual are full of garbage written by people with various degrees. Any attempt to attack my professional credentials is a lame tactic.

You are wrong (no surprise there) I did not appeal to authority, I was countering your claim or Hahn's ability.

Second I was not attacking you or your credentials, get over yourself.

[JPX2011]

Let's try some easy math: There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide; If merely 1% of them 'ask' Mary for help just once each day; that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day. Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds) ...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!Purty good fer someone NOT 'devine'!

Thank you Mr. Hunkley.