My Catholic Conversion Story

I was agnostic for much of my life, even though I’d say I was a non-denominational evangelical protestant Christian if someone asked me. I wanted to “believe,” but I always had doubts.

Every new bit of knowledge about God that I gathered seemed to conflict with some other bit of knowledge I already thought I knew. What was I supposed to believe? Well, apparently that was up to me and the Holy Spirit to figure out on our own. Eventually, I stopped trying to understand what everyone around me believed and began trying to figure out what I believed about God, if anything.

I began to read comparative religion textbooks: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, even non-Abrahamic religions. For a while, I started to think religions were like operating systems: some people like Windows, others Apple, others Android. Perhaps I could pick whichever I liked!

For a while, I thought about practical matters like how nice it would be to have one religion in our household, but then realized that would be no better than choosing a religion based on the physical proximity of a particular church to my house. If God is real, there must be Truth.

Then, I happened to catch a commercial on television which mentioned that the Catholic Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit had “compiled the bible.” What!? Catholics don’t even read bibles!! I knew that the King James Version was the real bible, but my phone’s app had several versions. Then I realized something: how did I know the King James Version is the real bible?

I went to the website mentioned on that commercial, www.catholicscomehome.org, and began to read. Apparently, there were seven extra books in the Catholic bible. The Pope and something called the Magisterium just tells all the Catholics what to believe and they believe it! The Lord’s Supper actually changes bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus! Weirdos!!!

So where did the Bible come from? I had been told that God wrote it, but wasn’t quite sure how. Turns out Jesus didn’t walk around handing out Bibles. People physically wrote it. The Catholic Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, decided which books to include in the 300s.
Reading about the history of the Bible led me to the concept of what the Catholics call Authority. If a council in the 300s decided which books should be in the Bible and some other people decided a different set of books should be in the Bible in the 1500s, which group was right?

The Catholic Church claims that Peter was the first Pope. That seemed pretty hard to believe, but the Catholic Church documented the Popes from Peter to Francis, just like the United States documented the Presidents from Washington to Obama. It’s an unbroken line of leadership. Just like I know I’m in the same country as my forefathers since we’ve all been under one unbroken line of Presidents, I can believe that I’m in the same church as the Apostles since there’s been one unbroken line of Popes.

Even though I’m an American who loves democracy, the idea of holding a debate or a vote to identify who is in charge or who gets to decide what is true seems ridiculous. If God is real, there must be absolute Truth. My opinion about absolute Truth is irrelevant. Authority makes sense.

The last step in my journey to faith in Catholicism came from none other than Jesus himself. The Catholics believe that the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of Jesus. Sounds crazy, right? But, when I looked in the Bible, I found that Jesus explained this – twice. The first time he told a group of people about this idea, most of them left him. Jesus could have told them that they misunderstood him and that his language was symbolic, but he didn’t. Instead, he confirmed that this idea was hard to believe. Then, the night before he died, he said the same thing all over again.

At this point, I had already accepted that the Bible couldn’t be the sole source of Truth and, at the very least, there must be a source of Authority to help clear up matters of Scriptural interpretation or else nobody could be certain their faith was accurate. Christianity without the Magisterium would be like the United States without a Supreme Court. I learned that the Catholic Church publishes a book every couple hundred years where they document what they believe. I read through it and found that Catholics do believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. There was no debate. Everyone knows what they are supposed to believe. Some people may not know everything they are supposed to believe and some may not like or understand every belief – but there’s no debate.

That’s when everything clicked. I realized that I hadn’t ever really been a Christian until I became Catholic. I finally believed. I’m not saying that Protestants aren’t Christians - they are. All properly informed Catholics believe this. My journey created a new truth: I am Catholic.

Видео My Catholic Conversion Story канала Tom Henderson