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On Whose Authority?

Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D. |
Anglican & Episcopalian, Conversion Stories, Uncategorized | 18 Comments

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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A Bible-Believer Becomes Catholic by Believing the Bible

Wesley Vincent Ph.D. |
Baptist, Conversion Stories, Evangelical, Fundamentalist | 86 Comments

“Living with many mutually contradictory doctrines made understanding the faith similar to trying to complete a complex puzzle from a combination of different jigsaw puzzles stirred together.” Evangelical Wesley Vincent noticed that every pastor who preached the Bible seemed to have a different understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Christ.

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How Being a Baptist Prepared Me to be a Good Catholic

Paul McCusker |
Baptist, Conversion Stories | 27 Comments

by Paul McCusker. Frankly, I doubt I would be much of a Catholic now without the benefit of all I’d been taught by Protestants as I travelled this way. I know that had I followed my father’s lead as a Catholic I wouldn’t be Catholic at all. (For him, it was a cultural identity, something handed down to him like an old coat he didn’t really want – if even that.) Any spark of faith in my life was fanned by my very-Protestant mother, faithful relatives and, in my formative years, the good people at Grace Baptist Church in my hometown.

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Toward the Celestial City

Dr. Frank Hermann |
Calvinist, Conversion Stories | One Comment

Browsing the religion section of the local used bookstore, I caught sight of a peculiar volume, the black and red ink on the spine contrasting sharply against the drab surroundings. “Now, there’s an oxymoron!” I thought to myself as I reflected on the book’s title, which read Catholic and Christian. Intrigued by the apparent paradox, I reluctantly grasped the book from the shelf and began reading, beginning with the ornate back cover. The author was a certain Dr. Alan Schreck, a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. His objective was simple—to clarify Catholic doctrine for the many Catholic and non-Catholic Christians who misunderstand it. At $4.50 the paperback seemed a bargain I couldn’t afford to ignore. Little did I know that this meager investment would pave the foundation for my journey home to the Catholic Church.

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How Not to Become a Catholic Part 3: Unity & Schism

James Tonkowich |
Articles | 4 Comments

One thing many people can’t quite get their heads around is the Catholic Church’s claim that there is one Church founded by Jesus and that one this Church, according to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), “constituted and organized as a society in this present, world, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.” Or as Richard John Neuhaus liked to put it, “The Catholic Church is the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time.”

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How Not to Become a Catholic Part 2: History, Tradition, Early Church Fathers

James Tonkowich |
Articles | One Comment

In the first installment of my advice as to how to avoid becoming a Catholic, I suggested two rules. First, assume that all Catholics are idiots. Second, get all your information about the Catholic Church second-hand. Steer clear of Catholic intellectuals, well-catechized laypeople, and young, zealous, orthodox priests and nuns. Look for leftover aging, hippy priests and nuns, poorly catechized Catholics, and ex-Catholics evangelicals who have it in for the Church. And above all, don’t read the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

With those preliminaries out of the way, the next three rules have to do with history.

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Hauled Aboard the Ark

Peter Kreeft |
Calvinist, Conversion Stories, Presbyterian & Reformed, Reformed Presbyterian | 26 Comments

I was born into a loving, believing community, a Protestant “mother church” (the Reformed Church) which, though it had not for me the fullness of the faith, had strong and genuine piety. I believed, mainly because of the good example of my parents and my church. The faith of my parents, Sunday School teachers, ministers, and relatives made a real difference to their lives, a difference big enough to compensate for many shortcomings. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

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