“Not long after discovering my need for God, I noticed a handsome guy at work, Dane. I found out he was Catholic, and I was appalled. When Dane asked me what I was, I proudly proclaimed that I was Wiccan, but internally, I gagged. Even I didn’t believe what I said. To my surprise, Dane didn’t end the date or our friendship. He seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. That was the first moment my heart softened a tiny bit. As time went by, we hung out more and started dating. One night, the topic of religion came up again. Instead of telling him about Wicca, I started voicing all the things I had been contemplating about who I thought God might be. For every idea I shared, Dane would say, ‘That’s what the Catholic Church teaches.’ I was floored. ”
Written Story
Former Orthodox Presbyterian minister Gerald Tritle discusses his journey into the Catholic Church after seeking truth and desiring to be “deep in Scripture, deep in tradition, and deep in history.” Tritle tells the emotional story of his congregation’s reaction to his journey into the Catholic Church.
“From my Navy days fighting terrorism in the Middle East through my years debating politics at Oxford, Christ called me ever closer to His Church and finally into His priesthood.”
Former evangelical Protestant, Monsignor Stuart Swetland, discusses his struggle through many religious issues as he made his journey home to the Catholic Church.
Looking for answers, I sat down with the leader of an “interdenominational” Protestant organization on campus and asked, “Why must we be married in a church? Why can’t a couple just declare that they are married in their dorm room? Where in Scripture does one find the vows? Where in Scripture does it say that we need to exchange rings?”
The answer: Tradition! I couldn’t believe it. The ring on the finger of the Protestant pastor I so admired was not the product of “Bible alone” theology but of tradition, and a Catholic one at that!
Though none that I knew would ever acknowledge it, I had discovered that Protestants held to a tradition not found in the Bible. Starting here, I began to see the inconsistencies of Protestant faith and practice. My “Bible alone” theology had broken down.
So here my investigation began: at the Sacrament of Marriage.
“Within a year after the death of my grandmother, my mother stopped going to the Lutheran Church and started attending the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs). During this time, my father would periodically take us kids to Catholic Mass, where we would all fall fast asleep. There was no Catholic Sunday school, and I really didn’t understand what was happening there.”
In many of the Evangelical Protestant or fundamentalist churches of today, more than twenty percent of the members or regular worshipers can say, “I was raised Catholic.” At banquets or meetings, I recall many times sitting around a table, attempting to meet and learn about the other people sitting with me. Inevitably, someone would say those words. Heads would start nodding seemingly everywhere, and the smiles would begin. Additional words weren’t required, because each of us understood.
During our inquiry into the Catholic Church, we were looking for the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To our dismay, we discovered that Protestants have lost or purposely discarded several major benefits of the New Covenant. What the Catholic Church had recognized as truth was reevaluated by the protesters, who had to make things fit their new “each one is his own authority” belief system.
Who gave them the authority to overrule the Church Fathers? As I studied these, I could see no valid reasons for discarding these truths. Who should make decisions in the Church? Who can be trusted to do it right? Such questions had plagued me for a long time.
“I am a former Protestant minister.” The words sounded as if someone else had spoken them. I was in the office of the pastor of the local Catholic parish. At that moment, I realized that my whole life was defined in terms of what I used to be. A silent wave washed over me: I used to be employed; I used to be a homeowner; I used to be confident and focused.
I was like many teenagers: The Church’s proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ just did not seem relevant to my life. I never made a conscious choice to be an atheist; rather, I just assumed that the Church had nothing to say to me.
It was difficult to watch Mary receive the Eucharist while I remained behind in the pew. I imagined how hard it would be to watch my family go up for Communion without me. The words spoken by the congregation in Mass — “Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed” — both irritated me and gave me hope.
From my days at Princeton Theological Seminary, I believed in the authority of the early Church to speak definitively on the content of the Christian faith. I had no doubt that the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon spoke with the authority of the Holy Spirit. What I had not thought about much was what happened to that authority in the centuries since.
I wrote anti-Catholic tracts and opened a post office box with the intent of distributing them. I spent long hours in the library researching local Catholic history compiling a “spiritual map” of my community…I marked each Catholic church with an “X”.
I was born into a Muslim family in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. I was the 5th child of a large family. The Arab culture and the religion of Islam were the dominant influences, overshadowing the three other nations in Iraq, the largest of which are the Kurds.
Help us share the truth and beauty of the Church.
Help us share the truth and beauty of the Church.
