Illuminator
Junior
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As a Protestant convert to Catholicism whose journey culminated at the Easter Vigil earlier this year, I have some experience, oddly enough, in how to become a Catholic. For me, it was a particular, miraculous journey that I’ve been writing about for a few months now. For me, I can trace certain lines—a certain narrative—through nearly a decade’s long journey. In my own journey, I can check off certain boxes and say, definitively, yes, that made me become a Catholic.
So, naturally, I wanted to help others to avoid a similar fate.
For me, it’s too late, but there’s hope for you. If you can, with the help of our Lord and your closest friends and family, avoid these certain pitfalls, while I can’t promise, I can assure you that you’ll have a much easier time avoiding the trap that I fell into.
Friends, I offer some unsolicited advice: here’s how to not become a Catholic.
Dr. Scott Hahn is a renown bible scholar, and Catholic convert. In the 80’s Scott and his wife Kimberly were part of a wave of famous Catholic converts from Protestantism. Dr. Hahn, a evangelical pastor, was radically converted to Catholicism and soon after his “conversion story,” recorded onto cassette tapes, started being passed around. The popularity of Scott, and then Kimberly’s, stories touched off a massive wave of Catholic conversions and encouraged the pair to write a book based on their experience called Rome Sweet Home.
Do not read Rome Sweet Home.
What you’ll discover is that Scott and Kimberly are intelligent, well-read, and well-meaning people. Dr. Hahn is now a highly renown biblical theologian, a prolific author, and a voice of authority, compassion, and expertise in the Catholic Church. He’s brought his evangelical fervor to Catholicism and hasn’t slowed down. And you, poor evangelical, thought that Catholics didn’t know their Bibles—and certainly weren’t charismatic.
Reading a conversion story as fulsome as Rome Sweet Home is dangerous. In the story of Scott and Kimberley, and the stories of other converts to Catholicism, you’ll see echoes of your own faith journey. You’ll encounter questions you may have asked, or may not have, but you’ll sure be asking them now.
And, if you’re not careful, your road may begin to take a slight jog to the left and you may find yourself at the very beginnings of a Rome bound journey.
I did my best. I tried to select a truly academic, historical overview from as secular a source as possible. I didn’t want history tainted by an overly Catholic perspective, a heavily Protestant point-of-view, or a work of pseudo-historical merit. I wanted the real, scholarly deal. I’m a History major, after all, so I figured I could hack it. I chose the 800-page Reformationby Diarmaid MacCulloch (among other sources I’ve read since).
Do not read The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch.
MacCulloch, a self-described lapsed Anglican, describes the time of the Reformation with sometimes mind-numbingly minute detail. It’s, truly, a thick slog and you could begin thesis work based on any of the small sub-sections MacCulloch includes. Suffice to say, however, his giant tome gives you a pretty intense overview of why the Protestant Reformers split from the Catholic Church in the 16th century and what was happening in culture and society in such a seminal time and place.
But reading Church History is dangerous.
From a fulsome reading it’s clear just how tenuous some of the decisions and attitudes of the Early Reformers were. How much of Martin Luther’s personal story of enlightenment is exaggerated. How much of his doctrine of justification and the very things he split from the Church over are driven directly by a manic personality. How so much of the Reformation was thrust forward by cultural, not religious, details. How politics, war, and the European dynasties proliferated and exacerbated tensions.
And, if you’re not careful, you might realize, like I did, just how shaky the foundation—the origin—of my Protestant faith truly was. And how adequate and immediate the response of the Catholic Counter-Reformation truly was in cleaning up places the Church of 1,500 years had gone awry.
Understand, these are the apostles of the apostles, the Christians who were taught by the very first Christians that Jesus taught. These are giants of Christianity who had direct access to those who heard Jesus’s very words, and touched his flesh. As an evangelical I didn’t even realize that this material exists and when I did, I began to devour it.
Do not read the Early Church Fathers.
As a naive, curious Christian I began to read the Early Church Fathers only to find out that they were startlingly Catholic. The Fathers wrote about Jesus being really present in Holy Communion—not simply as a symbol. They wrote, endlessly, about the importance of submitting to Bishops and respecting the authority of the Church—a Church which, in their minds, Jesus began, the apostles continued, and then passed on to them, by appointing them into places of authority.
When I began to realize that the Early Church didn’t look like the evangelical tradition I had grown up in I was shocked, and then affronted. I was always told, as an evangelical, that “house churches” were biblical—that independent, small groups of Christians meeting in an “upper room” was what happened in the first centuries of Christianity.
Instead, the Early Church is decidedly Catholic in its doctrine and its hierarchical structure, and if you’re not careful, you may come to a similarly shocking conclusion as I did. And then what?
So, naturally, I wanted to help others to avoid a similar fate.
For me, it’s too late, but there’s hope for you. If you can, with the help of our Lord and your closest friends and family, avoid these certain pitfalls, while I can’t promise, I can assure you that you’ll have a much easier time avoiding the trap that I fell into.
Friends, I offer some unsolicited advice: here’s how to not become a Catholic.
1) Don’t Read Scott Hahn
One of the first mistakes I made as a Protestant was to read Scott Hahn.Dr. Scott Hahn is a renown bible scholar, and Catholic convert. In the 80’s Scott and his wife Kimberly were part of a wave of famous Catholic converts from Protestantism. Dr. Hahn, a evangelical pastor, was radically converted to Catholicism and soon after his “conversion story,” recorded onto cassette tapes, started being passed around. The popularity of Scott, and then Kimberly’s, stories touched off a massive wave of Catholic conversions and encouraged the pair to write a book based on their experience called Rome Sweet Home.
Do not read Rome Sweet Home.
What you’ll discover is that Scott and Kimberly are intelligent, well-read, and well-meaning people. Dr. Hahn is now a highly renown biblical theologian, a prolific author, and a voice of authority, compassion, and expertise in the Catholic Church. He’s brought his evangelical fervor to Catholicism and hasn’t slowed down. And you, poor evangelical, thought that Catholics didn’t know their Bibles—and certainly weren’t charismatic.
Reading a conversion story as fulsome as Rome Sweet Home is dangerous. In the story of Scott and Kimberley, and the stories of other converts to Catholicism, you’ll see echoes of your own faith journey. You’ll encounter questions you may have asked, or may not have, but you’ll sure be asking them now.
And, if you’re not careful, your road may begin to take a slight jog to the left and you may find yourself at the very beginnings of a Rome bound journey.
2) Don’t Read Church History
A second, major mistake that I made was to read Church history—the history of Christianity.I did my best. I tried to select a truly academic, historical overview from as secular a source as possible. I didn’t want history tainted by an overly Catholic perspective, a heavily Protestant point-of-view, or a work of pseudo-historical merit. I wanted the real, scholarly deal. I’m a History major, after all, so I figured I could hack it. I chose the 800-page Reformationby Diarmaid MacCulloch (among other sources I’ve read since).
Do not read The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch.
MacCulloch, a self-described lapsed Anglican, describes the time of the Reformation with sometimes mind-numbingly minute detail. It’s, truly, a thick slog and you could begin thesis work based on any of the small sub-sections MacCulloch includes. Suffice to say, however, his giant tome gives you a pretty intense overview of why the Protestant Reformers split from the Catholic Church in the 16th century and what was happening in culture and society in such a seminal time and place.
But reading Church History is dangerous.
From a fulsome reading it’s clear just how tenuous some of the decisions and attitudes of the Early Reformers were. How much of Martin Luther’s personal story of enlightenment is exaggerated. How much of his doctrine of justification and the very things he split from the Church over are driven directly by a manic personality. How so much of the Reformation was thrust forward by cultural, not religious, details. How politics, war, and the European dynasties proliferated and exacerbated tensions.
And, if you’re not careful, you might realize, like I did, just how shaky the foundation—the origin—of my Protestant faith truly was. And how adequate and immediate the response of the Catholic Counter-Reformation truly was in cleaning up places the Church of 1,500 years had gone awry.
3) Don’t Read the Early Church Fathers
A third mistake that I made was nearly fatal: I began to read the Early Church Fathers.Understand, these are the apostles of the apostles, the Christians who were taught by the very first Christians that Jesus taught. These are giants of Christianity who had direct access to those who heard Jesus’s very words, and touched his flesh. As an evangelical I didn’t even realize that this material exists and when I did, I began to devour it.
Do not read the Early Church Fathers.
As a naive, curious Christian I began to read the Early Church Fathers only to find out that they were startlingly Catholic. The Fathers wrote about Jesus being really present in Holy Communion—not simply as a symbol. They wrote, endlessly, about the importance of submitting to Bishops and respecting the authority of the Church—a Church which, in their minds, Jesus began, the apostles continued, and then passed on to them, by appointing them into places of authority.
When I began to realize that the Early Church didn’t look like the evangelical tradition I had grown up in I was shocked, and then affronted. I was always told, as an evangelical, that “house churches” were biblical—that independent, small groups of Christians meeting in an “upper room” was what happened in the first centuries of Christianity.
Instead, the Early Church is decidedly Catholic in its doctrine and its hierarchical structure, and if you’re not careful, you may come to a similarly shocking conclusion as I did. And then what?
