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Chesterton, COVID, and the Catholic Church

After playing guitar in front of a crowd of nearly 10,000 people during an Evangelical missions crusade in March of 2019 at the Palacio de los Deportes in the heart of Mexico City, it’s unfathomable that, almost exactly one year later, in March of 2020, a global pandemic and its resulting shutdown orders would act as the catalyst that would eventually lead my family and me to the fullness of the Christian faith in the Catholic Church. You might consider us “COVID converts.” Looking back on all that led to us leaving our deep-rooted Pentecostal heritage for something we knew absolutely nothing about can only be described as a gift— an outpouring of grace during one of the most troubling and isolating years most of us will ever experience. During the pandemic, people were scared and living in hopelessness; yet God was at work within our lives.

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May 03 2013
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A Catholic Seed Sewn

Vicki Hassessian | Baptist, Calvary Chapel, Congregationalist, Conversion Stories, Evangelical, Methodist, Nazarene | 15 Comments

My story begins in a naval hospital in Pittsburgh, California, where I was born to an 18-year-old girl and her 19-year-old husband. My parents were believers and we attended the Nazarene church close to our house.. I do remember that my mother used to turn on the TV to do her daily workouts with Jack LaLanne, and just before he came on, there was a show with a man wearing a cap, a large cross on a chain, and he wore a cape that he threw around as he talked. His eyes burned into the camera! Later I would learn that his name was Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

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Apr 03 2013
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The Corpus & the Cross: My Conversion to the Catholic Faith

Jackford Kolk | Calvinist, Christian Reformed, Conversion Stories, Presbyterian & Reformed | 2 Comments

Over the next few years of talking to [my friend] about what he was studying, I slowly began to understand the TULIP doctrines and I realized that I didn’t actually agree with any of them. As a good Protestant, I knew that I could question every tenet of the faith that I had been brought up in and still be a good Christian, so as I gradually began to doubt Calvinism, I never questioned my relationship with God, nor His love for me.

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Mar 02 2013
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My Pearl of Great Price

Sissi L. Baker | Baptist, Conversion Stories, Pentecostal | 10 Comments

My father was the pastor of a few different churches throughout Ohio and West Virginia during this time. He began as a Pentecostal minister, and would later go on to pastor a Baptist church. My father never attended a seminary, although he received his preaching credentials under the teaching of another Evangelist via postal-mail. I remember as a young girl, my father worked hard at his biblical studies. He continued to work full-time as a carpenter to provide a decent living for his family, but on many evenings, he would slave over a stack of books for long hours.

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Feb 25 2013
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A Change of Faith

Joan Thomas | Anglican & Episcopalian, Conversion Stories | One Comment

I grew up in Trinidad, in the West Indies, of British parentage. My parents were delightful people, loved by me and by everyone else who knew them. They were baptized Christians and lived as Christians should: helping others when necessary and sharing with those who needed it; but like many non-Catholics in those days, attending church regularly was not considered necessary. My two sisters and myself were baptized Anglicans, confirmed when we reached the proper age and as younger children were sent to Sunday school. Our parents attended church services on Easter Sunday, Christmas morning, and perhaps twice otherwise during the year. As we grew older, we stopped attending Sunday school, and only went to church when our parents did. We were believers but religion did not play an important role in our lives.

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Jan 28 2013
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Hope that the World Cannot Give

John Nahrgang | Agnostic, Atheist/Agnostic, Conversion Stories | No Comments

Even as a sophomore I knew that I wanted to attend Notre Dame. Its Catholic identity wasn’t really a factor at all; its academic reputation, quality of student life (as reported by Princeton Review), and the memories of my first visit there drove my decision. I didn’t know what to make of Catholicism at all. One of the essays on the Notre Dame application dealt with a “spiritual topic” of our choosing. I chose to write about my impressions of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

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Dec 10 2012
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The Long Hike from Geneva to Rome

David R. Gillespie | Conversion Stories, Presbyterian & Reformed | 2 Comments

On November 6, 2011, on the book of the Gospels, I signed the Nicene Creed and a statement in which I professed to “believe in and hold firm all that the Holy Catholic church believes in, teaches and professes as handed down by the Fathers of the Church and Ancient Tradition.” By doing so, I effectively hung up my pulpit gown and stole: items I had received on the occasion of my ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church in America.

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Nov 26 2012
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Highway to Heaven

Dr. Jean M. Lee | Conversion Stories, New Age/Occult, Pentecostal, Reverts to the Catholic Faith | One Comment

“I was fighting so many demons that I lost track of where they came from and how they were manifested. I became enslaved to spiritual poverty, sexual depravity, and a greed for money that would take its toll on my emotions and psyche for years to come. Everything in life seemed easily disposable, especially my money, which I spent lavishly to maintain my steady diet of alcohol and drugs that would salve my emotional pain.”

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