A study of the faith of America’s Founding Fathers led Christy Kellner on a quest to find the true, original Church that Christ established.
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What finally pushed me over the threshold to Catholicism, and into the Church at the Vigil of 2011, was not any theological argument, but a longing for the grace found in the Eucharist.
I was baptized and confirmed in a nominally Catholic home. My dad’s 30-year career in the U.S. military and the diplomatic service led us overseas among many moves as our 6-child family grew up, spending years in Panama, Cuba, and Colombia. Despite a Jesuit education into high school, by the time we returned to Washington, D.C. in the late 1960s, I was a high school student growing rapidly disillusioned with my faith and with the Catholic Church.
I chose to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church when it became apparent to me that I no longer could confess the Creed, in which I made the claim to believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and not be in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter, and Pastor of the universal Church.
After bad experiences with Pentecostal “revivals” and living a young adulthood of drugs, violence, and suffering, Lisa Campbell sought refuge in an Assembly of God church. Lisa was introduced to Catholicism after she married a cradle-Catholic.
As a cradle Catholic who followed his wife into the Episcopal Church, Francis Jacobs realized he was “a Roman Catholic who happened to attend an Episcopal church.”
I have to begin my conversion story by relating something of my family life. My father worked for the government as an air traffic controller. They transferred him wherever they wished even though he had a family. So, we moved from state to state when I was a little girl. My youngest brother and I were born in Minnesota, our home state. I was born in 1948 in Minnesota and baptized October 31 that same year in Selma, Alabama, which tells how often we moved. My other brother and sister were each born in a different Southern state. Because of our constant moving, establishing a stable spiritual home was quite difficult for us.
At this very moment in our lives a long-time Evangelical friend and pastor announced to us, “Steve, my wife and I have decided to join the Catholic Church.” Janet and I were stunned. I immediately blurted out, “Al, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard; you are way too smart to be a Catholic!”
“Learning about Catholicism, after being schooled by Protestants, I felt like I had only been allowed to view little random pieces of incredible artwork. It is only now that I understand the pieces were a single, beautiful masterpiece.” After a rocky childhood, Alicia joined the US Navy, which brought about stability and order in her life. Life in the Navy prepared her for life in an unexpected place: the Catholic Church.
Tania was raised in a devout Seventh-day Adventist home and persevered in her faith through college. She was certain she “knew” her Christianity until her nominally Catholic husband insisted their kids complete the Sacraments in the Catholic Church. Tania was in for a life-changing surprise!
“My longing for truth was a single prayer.” – St. Edith Stein As a thirteen-year-old Evangelical Protestant, I spent a day in a sporting good store asking people, “If you
Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D., is a former minister of the Episcopal Church. In 1963 he was received with his wife, Ruth, and their five children into the Catholic Church. Twenty years later, he was ordained to the priesthood of the Catholic Church, with a dispensation from the rule of celibacy. Currently, he serves as chaplain for Catholics United for the Faith and on the boards of both that apostolate and The Coming Home Network. He is also a regular columnist for The Catholic Answer Magazine, and he serves as an assistant at St. Peter’s Church in Steubenville, Ohio.
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