I hope to tell my story simply, because it is genuinely uncomplicated. Complex, yes. Multi-layered, sure. Who’s journey in the Christian faith isn’t? But I do promise to keep the telling of it simple by concentrating on the main catalysts that gave my wife Cindy and me the courage to approach the doors of the Catholic Church and with confidence begin to knock.

Jason and Cindy Stewart, after entering the Catholic Church

With that said, let me start this introduction by beginning at the ending. Cindy and I became Catholic because we came to see that the Catholic Church is the Church established by Jesus Christ. That is the reason. In truth, this reason should be the basic motivation for anyone seeking full communion with or remaining within the Catholic Church. All the thousands of otherwise good and important reasons for being Catholic pale in comparison with this fundamental truth of her divine origin. You see, if she is that City whose founder and builder is God, then we must live within her walls. Now I realize what I’ve written to this point does not satisfy the many, many questions — and objections — Protestant Christians may have in reading a story like mine. Most certainly not. But staying true to my promise not to complicate things, I’ve begun with the ending so as to make plain the reason from the beginning.

Because this is a ”conversion” piece you have the advantage of knowing that we didn’t always accept this profound claim about the divine origin of the Catholic Church. And therein lies the curiosity of our story. I was a Presbyterian minister and pastor in a conservative denomination. My theology was solidly Reformed, having been educated at a reputable Reformed institution known both for its orthodoxy and pastoral emphasis. As a pastor I was committed in my ministry to classical Reformed belief and practice. Even now I remain grateful for the Reformed faith, as you’ll see. So the question naturally is, what happened? What instigated our study of Catholicism? What moved us to have a change of heart about the Catholic faith?

Our decision to leave Presbyterianism for the Catholic Church surprised many. We can sympathize given that in the past we’d have been incredulous if told we’d be Catholic one day. And yet looking back now from our vantage point we can trace the trajectory that led us to full communion with the Catholic Church, and it’s a trajectory that progressed naturally and imperceptibly over time - a growing appreciation for the necessity and role of the visible Church; a deepening understanding of the sacramental nature of the Christian faith; the apostolic quality intrinsic to Church authority; the unique function of the Minister of the Gospel in the liturgy and life of the Church; the inescapable dynamic of tradition within the Christian Faith; and an increasing awareness of the implications of the adjectives “one” and ”catholic” as used by the Nicene Creed to identify the Church of Jesus Christ. Each of these areas of faith track back from where we are now as Catholics to where we were when Reformed. They prepared the way for us to give serious consideration to the Catholic faith when the time came.

It would be helpful here for me to begin listing the main catalysts that prompted us to engage the claims of the Catholic Church. After noting them, I’ll present each one on its own in order to explain how it contributed to effect our change of heart concerning Catholicism.

1. The positive principles of the Protestant Reformation.
2. The writings of the Church Fathers.
3. The nature of Church authority.

Having these three areas of study laid out before us, let me emphasize here the importance of the present website in prompting our journey toward the Catholic Church. Called To Communion was at first merely a pebble in my apparently well-tied Presbyterian church shoes. For the life of me I could not fathom how these men (most seminary trained) could leave the Reformed faith for Rome. A blend of curiosity, skepticism and concern (I knew one of the men personally) inclined me to try to understand what turned them Catholic. Over time CTC became for me a mountain that permitted no clearly designated detour around it to Geneva. Facing and answering these issues on a personal level were important to me as a pastor. I had to admit that the well-reasoned arguments from the contributors of the site were substantial enough that they could not be brushed off and ignored. So I began to investigate, assured that there were biblically, theologically, philosophically, historically satisfying Reformed answers to the challenges presented by CTC.

1. The positive principles of the Protestant Reformation.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that the Protestant Reformation was a tragic necessity, something that needed to happen, painful as the consequences may have been. This was my view. My understanding was that the fundamental spirit of the solas of the Reformation were incompatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church. This incompatibility is what I believed compelled the Protestant reformers to dedicate all their energies to unburdening the Church of Jesus Christ from what they believed to be the weight of man-made, extra- or un-Scriptural traditions that had sapped the strength of apostolic Christianity to the point of near collapse. God’s glory and the true way of salvation had been effectively smothered in the Church by the theological inventions of Catholicism, so my thinking went.

As I began to dig down to the most foundational differences dividing Protestants and Catholic, the book The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism by Louis Bouyer was recommended to me. Bouyer was a Lutheran minister who converted to Catholicism mid-last century. I was already familiar with him and appreciated his work and insights on Christian liturgy but had paid little attention to his discussions on Catholicism. What piqued my interest now was the peculiar thesis of this one book. Bouyer claimed that the Catholic Church is necessary for the full flowering of the principles of the Reformation. Put differently – Protestantism needs Catholicism in order to become all it aspires to be, which, of course, if true means the Protestant Reformation was completely unnecessary. Worse, it means that the Reformation was impossible from the outset because the reformers had unwittingly cut themselves off from the only source that could make their vision fruitful. To my Reformed and Presbyterian ears this sounded more than strange. Given my understanding of Catholic teaching, Bouyer’s idea was akin to saying a terminal illness is integral to the full flowering of bodily health. Or a fire is best fueled by depriving it of oxygen. Or the growth of a plant is impossible without rooting it in infertile soil. In my mind, Bouyer’s absurdity had to be explained, so I picked up the book and read.

What I discovered in reading the work was that the author’s claim was well founded. He demonstrates this repeatedly chapter by chapter. He enthusiastically affirms the positive principles of the Reformation showing the reader that, understood properly, each principle has its natural home in the Catholic faith. He then proceeds to critique the more negative aspects of Reformation doctrine (e.g. sola scriptura) contending that these negatives in the course of time undermined Protestantism’s positive principles, eventually giving birth to the reality known as Protestant Liberalism. Without question, I cannot do justice to the potency of Bouyer’s work in just a paragraph or two. A reflex for Reformed Christians reading this would be merely to dismiss the argument of Bouyer’s work as absurd. Recall that such was my initial reaction too, which is why I encourage you to read the book for yourself and take seriously the thesis present in its pages. Suffice it to say, he is persuasive in arguing that the positive principles of the Protestant Reformation are not antithetical to the Catholic Church but rather draw their strength and vitality from her existence.

The material found in The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism suggested a possibility I had never explored. What if the beauty of my Reformed faith was in fact the reflection of an original beauty? Could it be that I as a Protestant was seeing the Christian faith through a glass darkly? I had to find out.

2. The writings of the Church Fathers.

Another subject for study in engaging Catholicism was the Church Fathers. Catholics regularly make the claim that these leaders of the early Church are Catholic. I had a renewed interest to test this claim. My sense was that it would be easily disproved. After all, the reformers themselves had been avid students of the Fathers, quoting them in their theological works with ease and without contradiction over against Catholic teaching, right?

Going into this I had to admit that my familiarity with the actual works of the Fathers was limited. Thumbing curiously through a random volume from Schaff’s Patristics collection or culling a quote from Ignatius or Augustine or reading a history of early doctrine text for seminary coursework exhausted my contact with these ancient Christian authors. I had known for a long time that the Church Fathers did not share my Reformed theological vocabulary. But such was to be expected, I guessed. The Protestant Reformation with its precise theological formulations was many centuries away when these men wrote. So what (my thinking went) if Irenaeus or Justin or Augustine didn’t sound exactly like our Reformed creeds and catechisms? Yet now in examining their writings I began to sense that indeed there was something more profound at work than a mere difference in expression or emphasis. Was the Catholic claim right? Continued reading suggested that the actual theological substance of the Fathers was different. Certainly the Fathers didn’t seem at odds with the positive elements of the Reformation. But I noticed in my reading that they thought differently than did the reformers. Their approach to the Christian faith took another route. They seemed to cut an early theological path that when traced did not exactly connect to the one blazed by the reformers in the 16th century. I began to consider whether a person would naturally pick up the distinctive trail of the Protestant Reformation if one started with the writings of the early Church? The answer increasingly seemed to be no.

I knew the reformers had explicitly rejected much of what I was finding in the Church Fathers.

Page after page revealed a common faith during that early period in which bishops succeeded Apostles, baptismal waters regenerated, bread and wine transformed, penance was necessary and salutary, purgatorial fire cleansed, the Blessed Virgin was an active Mother to the faithful, departed saints prayed, Peter held the Keys, and the Eucharist was a sacrifice for the living and the dead. There appeared in their minds no awareness of or concern for the cardinal doctrines of the Reformation so painstakingly spelled out as essential to the gospel. Actually…the Fathers sounded Catholic.

This was unexpectedly unsettling for me because no external argument(s) in favor of a Catholic reading of the Fathers had been made in conjunction with my reading of them. The writings themselves served to give voice to the arguments. The words on the page became the witness or opponent (depending on one’s perspective). I began to ponder whether a person would naturally pick up the trail of the Catholic Church if one started with the writings of the early Church? The answer increasingly seemed to be yes.

At this point someone could object that the Church Fathers were not Catholic. My question would be, what then were they? Most certainly they did not share the peculiar faith of the Protestant Reformation. While it is possible to place a non-Catholic interpretation upon carefully selected sentences and paragraphs from the Fathers, a sustained reading makes such an interpretation impossible to maintain. In reading them one discovers that they appear to be natives of the Catholic Church. Wrenching them out of their natural Catholic context is detrimental to both the power of their witness and the proper understanding of the inquiring reader.

My suggestion here is to take up and read the Church Fathers. Read them in context. Read all of them. Allow them to define their terms. Take them at their word. Yes, this is a time investment. And it requires an open mind. But if you devote yourself to reading them, your perspective on the early Church will be forever changed and enriched. At the very least I’m hopeful you’ll come to acknowledge that these churchmen were Catholic. Better yet, you may become convinced that these Fathers are authentic witnesses to apostolic Christianity.

3. The question of Church authority.

As a Presbyterian I believed that Jesus personally appointed twelve men to the office of Apostle and sent them to proclaim the gospel (Mark 3:13-19). In giving them this office he endowed it with his own divine authority to guarantee that they would faithfully transmit his words and works to others (Matt. 28:18-20). The character of their authority is seen in any number of statements Jesus made concerning them:

“And he said to them….’The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me’” (Lk. 10:16).

“‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld’” (John 20:21-22).

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:17-18).

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18).

Clearly such a position runs contrary to the way so many Christians believe today: Men have no divine authority, right? And yet, Jesus tells them that he is received or rejected in direct proportion to whether his Apostles are received or rejected. No man can forgive sins, right? And yet, Jesus gives them his authority to forgive sins. No man’s decisions are binding on believers, right? And yet, Jesus tells them that their Apostolic decisions will accomplish God’s will and obligate believers in faith and practice.

With this divinely bestowed authority, the Apostles were called and equipped by God to be the leaders of Jesus’ Church. They were chosen by him to head up an identifiable, organized assembly/community of his followers. Given the character of their unique role in the Church, it was necessary to be in communion with the Apostles of Christ in order to be a Christian — submitting to them, worshiping under their governance, receiving their teaching, etc. (Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:1-3). Faith involved submitting to a living authority — the Apostles. These Apostles had received and submitted themselves to Jesus Christ and his teachings, and those who heard these Apostles received and submitted themselves to them and to their teachings. By receiving and submitting to the Apostles and their message the early believers were receiving and submitting to Christ and his message. To be in the Church one had to accept the living, teaching voice of the Apostles because they alone were the unique bearers of Jesus’ authority and message. An individual or group could not abandon this Church headed by the Apostles and establish its own a few blocks over. This was the nature of Church authority in the earliest period of apostolic Christianity.

So I believed, and still believe.

In light of my burgeoning study of Catholicism, I began to ponder with renewed interest this biblical portrait of Church authority and how it related to my present experience as a Presbyterian – What was the nature of Church authority today? How did it relate to the Apostles? What happened then when the Apostles died? Did the Church abruptly cease to have a living authority to guide her? Was there no longer a living teaching voice to which believers must listen? Revisiting these basic questions in light of the Catholic Church proved enlightening.

My answer to such things in the past had been that the Apostles committed and transmitted their authority in written form through the inspired documents of the New Testament. Everything necessary for salvation and the Christian life had been captured in their surviving letters and writings. Submission to the Apostles and their teachings was then measured by submission to the Bible and its teachings. Yes, as a Presbyterian I recognized there were leaders in the Church to whom obedience was due (Heb. 13:17) — being a pastor, I was one of them — but obedience to such leaders was dependent on whether or not they themselves were obeying the voice of the Apostles in the writings of the New Testament. Like the noble Bereans, each believer was to evaluate their leaders and their teachings by the Bible. To use the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, ”The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.” This is known as the principle of sola scriptura.

Putting this doctrine through the theological, philosophical and historical paces in the hope it would bear up under close scrutiny was uncomfortable for me. My assumption had always been that it was unquestionably true. I had believed it since a child. Now I was going to give my best effort to examine the familiar teaching from an outside perspective in order to ask its basis.

Coming at the doctrine from a different point of view, I had to admit certain weaknesses in it that ultimately changed my thinking. Here’s what I saw. First, the Bible doesn’t teach the principle of sola scriptura. The Scriptures are an incomparable guide for the moral life of the Christian, but they nowhere claim to be a comprehensive source for doctrine, worship, and the government of the Church. Second, the Church Fathers don’t teach sola scriptura. The Fathers did not promote anything resembling a “Scripture alone” position but instead recognized the necessity and authority of the traditions handed down from the Apostles. Third, the “Bible-based” fragmentation of Protestantism argues against the soundness of sola scriptura. All claim to be following the Bible. All arrive at different understandings of what it teaches. With such variety what standard shall we use to determine who is correct? The Bible? Fourth, the fact that the individual Protestant’s private judgment remains the final authority in evaluating faith claims undermines the principle of sola scriptura. Each person chooses the church group that agrees with his interpretation of the Bible. If disagreements arise within the group, a person then stays or leaves based on whether his interpretation is embraced or rejected. If rejected, the individual searches for a new church group that is in agreement with his interpretation of the Bible. Thus the individual remains the final arbiter of what the Bible teaches. Fifth, the fact that the Apostolic letters and writings give no divinely inspired indication what books are to be included in the canon of the New Testament makes impossible the principle of sola scriptura. How can the Bible be the ultimate authority when its very content is uncertain? Catholics believe the divinely guided Church was necessary to define what books belong to the New Testament.

Now I haven’t walked you through the details of the arguments for these five conclusions, but I hope you follow the links to the articles on CTC that provide clear reasons for what I’ve suggested above.

In contrast to this “Scripture alone” position, the Catholic Church teaches that the Church, not the Bible, is the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). That by divine design it is the Church that upholds and protects the truth of the gospel throughout the centuries. The doctrine of Apostolic succession means that Bishops as successors of the Apostles are enabled by the Holy Spirit in their sacred office to preserve the Apostolic deposit of faith against every kind of error, distortion and corruption. Jesus promised to guide and instruct the ordained leaders of the Church (Jn 14:25; 16:13). The Holy Spirit’s guidance is Christ’s guarantee that the shepherds of his Church will never tamper with, pervert, or misunderstand the gospel. This is known formally as the Catholic doctrine of magisterial infallibility — the pope alone or the pope and the bishops in union with him are divinely protected from teaching error when they define matters pertaining to faith and morals.

As I studied this subject of Church authority, I began to see that the Catholic doctrine of Apostolic succession naturally connected to the biblical portrait of Church authority as it existed in the days of the Apostles. The Church wasn’t bereft of a living teaching authority when the Apostles died because these Apostles appointed qualified men to succeed them in the office of bishop, transmitting by succession a full share in the Apostolic authority so essential to the preservation and proclamation of the Apostolic deposit of faith. It became clear to me that the Bible and Church history confirm and corroborate this important teaching of the Catholic Church. Jesus gave us a Church with a book, not a book with a Church.

Conclusion

Let me begin this conclusion by ending at the beginning: My wife Cindy and I entered into full communion with the Catholic Church because we came to see that this Church is the Church established by Jesus Christ. We came to this realization in large measure by spending time in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, reading other positive presentations of Catholic teaching, and speaking with flesh and blood Catholics in all walks of life and vocations. The many misconceptions we had about what Catholics believed were cleared away as we dug deeply into the teaching resources of the Catholic Church and talked with actual Catholics. We began to recognize that all the Church taught and claimed was verified and confirmed in the Bible, by history, and in the lives of the saints. Over time we came to understand that the Catholic Church represents the fullness of what Christ wanted to reveal to his people; that it possesses all the gifts that our Lord wanted us to have; and that the Church in its liturgy, its apostolic teaching, the Eucharist, the sacraments, and its saints, serves as the definitive place where God’s grace is on full offer. The reason being — it is the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time. Yes, unquestionably a profound claim. But it is the one made by the Catholic Church in all ages, and it is the claim we have come to accept.

This is your invitation to test and see. I assure you that there is no lack of evidences for her divine origin. Such are openly verifiable and abundant. One need only the willingness to discern them. Whatever my personal story may be, the proof of the Catholic Church’s divine origin resides in the realm of history. The evidences are public, out there for you to examine. You are not at the mercy of my personal judgments concerning this claim about the Catholic Church. Instead you are free to investigate the facts of the Church’s perduring existence, her miraculous life, her divine teachings, the abiding fruit of her mission in the world from the time of Christ even down to our present day. The clues are all there; they await you. You need only begin to pursue them.

Lecture: Sufficient and Efficacious Grace (November 30, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

The question: What makes actual grace efficacious or inefficacious? (1′)

What is the meaning of ‘efficacious’? (1′ 50″)

What is the meaning of ‘sufficient’? (4′)

Is there an intrinsic difference between sufficient-but-inefficacious grace and sufficient-and-efficacious grace? (5′)

For Lutherans, Calvinists and Jansenists, all grace is intrinsically efficacious, and God does not give such grace to the reprobate. (6′)

The heresy of limited atonement (9′)

Does God command the impossible? (10′)

See Denzinger 2001, 2002, 2005 (here.)

The Controversy over Grace and Free Will Between the Dominican and Jesuit Schools (12′)

Molina — there is no intrinsic difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace.
Báñez — there is an intrinsic difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace.

Domingo Báñez

Position of Báñez (20′)
Description of the position of Báñez (20′)
Four problems with the Position of Báñez (22′)

1. Seems excessively close to Calvinism/Jansenism (22′ 38″)
2. Seems to annihilate free will, with respect to self-determination
3. Seems that ‘sufficient grace’ is not truly sufficient (24′)
4. Seeming incompatibility with God’s universal salvific will (25′)

Position of Molina and the Jesuit School (33′)

How sufficient grace is truly sufficient
How this position preserves the sovereignty of God (34′ 50″)
How this position differs from Calvinism (37′)
Role of St. Ignatius of Loyola (39′)

Luis Molina

Objections to the Jesuit position (40′)

The charge of Pelagianism (40′)
The principle of predilection (51′)

On the Concern about Boasting (58′)

Why boasting is excluded
Why, in Calvinism, the sinner could accuse God for not giving sufficient (irresistible) grace (60′)

Two Models of God’s Providence (64′)

(a) God moves all creatures with intrinsically efficacious movements.
(b) God infallibly governs free creatures by giving resistible graces, knowing infallibly our cooperation or refusal to cooperate.

Questions and Answers

1. What about vocational graces? Aren’t these specific, and are they operative or cooperative? (1′)

2. Could you comment on the enormous pressures against cooperating with grace in our very secularized culture? (10′)

3. If Christ died for us all, why does the change in the new liturgy say “died for many”? (13′ 54″)

4. God doesn’t waste anything. So why does He give graces that He knows will not be used? (16′)

5. What is it about the Báñezian position that avoided the label of heresy if it is so similar in your view to Calvinism? (21′ 47″)

6. If God knows our choices by foreknowledge, and not by decree, how does that avoid putting passivity in God, who is Pure Act? (24′ 25″)

7. What makes free will free? (30′)

8. Couldn’t God have placed the reprobate in situations in which He knows that they would freely choose Him? If so, then why didn’t He do so, since He wills all men to be saved? (33′ 13″)

9. Why did God give the devil a chance to tempt us? It seems that we have enough trouble for ourselves? (36′)

10. Perhaps we shouldn’t say that we block or annihilate grace, but that by sinking into nothingness, I become a subject in which grace has no effect. There is nothing for grace to work on. (39′ 32″)

11. Is an action that is done with mixed motives something that can block grace? (41′)

12. What do we do if we are not in St. Francis’ position of thinking we’re the worst person in the world? (43′)

This is my experience moving from life in a Reformed congregation as a committed Calvinist to life in an American Catholic parish as a Catholic who strives to live like one. It is not my conversion story, that is, not an explanation of why I converted or what I went through during my conversion.

As Presbyterians, my wife and I moved a lot. Before we were enrolled in an RCIA class together,¹ my wife and I had been married for eight years, and had lived in six places. We had been married at McLean Presbyterian Church, a large and influential PCA church in an affluent D.C. suburb. Later, we were members of a medium-sized church in Virginia Beach, VA, New Covenant PCA; a large and ‘contemporary’ church in Annapolis, MD, Annapolis Evangelical Presbyterian; a church that had just changed from the OPC denomination to the PCA, New Life, in La Mesa, CA; and a small and extremely close-knit church plant, Dayspring Presbyterian, in Linthicum, MD.

These congregations had much in common with each other and with the churches of my wife’s and my upbringing. Generally speaking, our peers at these places had a sincere love for God, a willingness to place God first in their lives at all costs. As much as I hated “church shopping” at each move, I loved getting settled in to each of these particular congregations, growing in the faith with families similar to my own, getting to know the pastor, and encouraging our elders. We were involved in a host of programs, such as fellowship groups, Sunday morning Bible studies, nursery, and choir, as well as all of the wonderful ad hoc events that occurred throughout the year. And in terms of sharing in intimate Christian love, our experience at our last Reformed congregation was our best; that is, we left on a high note. We became dear friends with the pastor and his wife, could trust our children around any of the other families, and could call on a long list of friends if we ever needed extra help in life.

There were strains too. Several of these congregations had encountered internal factionalism, a church ‘split’, or (in the one case) a denominational change. Issues of contention included musical styles, preaching styles, and (certainly) doctrinal matters. We saw protracted disputes over the role of the Holy Spirit, the necessity for elders to be paedobaptists, the proper age at which children could receive communion, and the significance of the communion elements themselves. There were moral issues that created angst within these congregations too: very common experiences with divorce, where emotional distance was equated with ‘adultery’ (‘porneia’) so as to invoke the supposed New Testament permissions for divorce; disagreements on the permissibility of different forms of contraception; the propriety of in vitro fertilization (and prayers for the efficacy of said technique); and so on.

Generally speaking, we loved the fellowship and community, and accepted the ecclessial, doctrinal, and moral struggles as inevitable for the people of God still struggling in sin. As my intellectual switches slowly began to be thrown in favor of Catholicism’s claims, I was distressed at the thought of leaving life in a Reformed congregation to head for Catholic parish life. In that instance, the grass definitely did not seem greener on the other side. Catholics, my generalization went, had a weak commitment to their faith, shared little in fellowship, concerned themselves more with bingo and raffle tickets than fellowship and outreach, never read their Bibles, didn’t know their faith, and didn’t listen to a word spoken by the homilist.

So how has Catholic parish life gone for the Browns? The answer to that question deserves a quick caveat. When I accepted that the Catholic Church was the one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the Church Christ founded, I made an acknowledgement. It hit me that if the Church was those things in my own time, she was also those things through her least attractive times. She will be those things in the future, no matter what clerical scandals or conditions of lay despondency should occur. Because of what she is and what is contained in her Eucharist, as well as because of the mandate extra ecclesiam nulla salus, for those who recognize what the Catholic Church is or might be, there is a special and essential obligation to learn and then to follow one’s properly formed conscience. So, simply stated, I would have joined the Catholic Church even if faced with the lousiest parish life imaginable because I did not join for Catholic parish life. That said, Catholic parish life for my family has been sweet and precious, and also has left some things to be desired.

Catholic parish life is sweet and precious because we are able to connect with dear Christians who love their faith and who live in the fullness of the Catholic faith. Where we have ‘connected’ with others who have given their lives over to God’s service, we have ‘connected’ at a much deeper level than I have previously experienced. I do not attribute this to a deeper commitment to God’s service by these Catholics than I could have found in my Presbyterian congregants. Not at all! But in my Presbyterian congregations, there was never a complete “meeting of the minds” on the faith with any other person, I suppose including my own wife. One fellow may have held a virtually identical view on Predestination (giving us great kinship) while simultaneously holding a discordant view on contraception. Or another fellow may have been very like-minded on moral issues, but then not seen a problem with putting leftover communion bread out with the fellowship snacks after the service. The proper way for Christians to live was not knowable apart from a common interpretation of Scripture. But since each individual was his or her own final interpretative authority of Scripture, we never could be mutually abandoned to a common way of Christian life. Those of my fellow parishioners who are abandoned to the teaching authority of the Catholic magisterium can thereby be mutually abandoned to a common way of Christian life, like-minded with me in doctrine and morals. This creates a depth of fraternity which I had not previously experienced, despite the amazing fraternal love I shared with many of my Reformed brethren.

In addition, in Catholic parish life we get to worship right along with all of the great Saints in Heaven. When we partake of the Holy Eucharist, we are bodily united with all of the Holy Catholic Church, including our Bishops, our separated loved ones, and even the distant Redemptorist monks at Papa Stronsay, Scotland, or those giant-hearted Missionaries of Charity sisters in Calcutta.  Our local parish’s liturgy and mass is the same as that of a parish of any other language, on any other continent, even in places of war. While spending last Christmas in the heart of Afghanistan, attending mass said by a Czech priest, in Czech, I was still united by the Bread of Heaven with my wife and our home parish.

My parish’s liturgy also contains rich music that is itself a part of the worship. It is traditional, but not because it is “old fashioned” (many of the compositions are modern).  It is traditional because it taps into the traditional role of music in the Catholic liturgy.  (I must concede at this point that many Catholic parishes do deal with debates over music that are strikingly similar to those at Protestant congregations.  A distinction lies in the ability to resolve this debate through resort to tradition and the role of music in the Church’s liturgy.) Lent is a community sacrifice, Hallow-e’en is given context, and Christmas is a season that doesn’t start until December 25th! We even have shared adventures, like when we process the body of Christ through town.

Speaking more generally, there are many similarities between Catholic parish life and Presbyterian congregational life. In parishes one can find fellowship groups, Bible studies, prayer groups, youth groups, young-professionals groups, moms groups, boy scouts, and the like. But, admittedly, there are improvements to be desired. Even in parishes that are committed to orthodoxy, one can find many a frustrating faux pas, such as parishioners entering mass with a cup of Starbucks in hand.² Also, one might hear some wonky teaching in RCIA, or in a homily when visiting a parish with a less-than-stellar priest. The religious education of children is based on a parochial school model that is rapidly becoming antiquated — this leaves home school and public school kids to run through a one-size-fits-all religious education program that leaves a “check in the box” taste in the parent’s mouth. And yes, as expected, there are plenty of older Catholics who seem more enthused about raffle sales than outreach.

Ultimately, I love the richness, and am invigorated by what I perceive to be “growth areas.” There is so much grace in the sacraments and in tradition on which I can lean for strength. And I could never run out of opportunities to be involved in ‘ministries’ and the lives of my fellow parishioners, to encourage them to run the race set before them with perseverance.

Nothing has given me a misgiving about parish life that I could not also find in some Reformed denomination or individual congregation. If the more earnest and orthodox among us parishioners could pack up and form our own Catholic denomination, perhaps some of the aforesaid deficits would disappear. But in the process we would have instantly cashed in on all the treasures of being in unity with the Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.  We would also wind up cashing in on doctrinal purity, since the source of the Catholic Church’s purity is not a core group of earnest and orthodox believers, but the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost to the Church. While I did not join the Catholic Church for Catholic parish life, I have been filled with joy by that parish life.

1. RCIA is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a ritual and classroom-based process for unbaptized persons to enter the Catholic Church, but also used by many parishes to catechize Christians baptized as Protestants who are seeking to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.
2. This violates the fast, assuming the human cupholder is partaking of Holy Eucharist; it is disrespectful to those who are fasting, if he is not.

Stephen Beck was raised Evangelical, but read his way into the Reformed world. He became a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and then the Presbyterian Church in America. Stephen and his family were received into the Catholic Church on the Easter Vigil of 2011 at St. Andrew’s by the Bay Catholic Church in Annapolis, Maryland. He has a Master’s degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Greek and Latin at the Catholic University of America. Stephen is a brilliant thinker with a deep love for Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. In this episode, Stephen’s personal friend and regular CTC contributor, Jeremy Tate, interviews him to find out the reasons behind his conversion.

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Newman wrote various books and treatises on the subject of conversion, sometimes alluding to his own process, helping to clear the way for others, that they might find what he earnestly believed that he had found–the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. (See Difficulties of Anglicans and Letter to Dr. Pusey. Newman’s only published conversion story, Loss and Gain, is a work of fiction. Though it is intended to reflect Newman’s own experiences, it is not simply a retelling, with pseudonyms, of those experiences. The famous Apologia pro vita sua is not a conversion story. It is, as it professes to be, a history of Newman’s religious opinions. Nevertheless, the concluding chapters do describe the intellectual changes that helped move Newman from Canterbury to Rome.)

In his Letter to Dr. Pusey, a tract largely concerned to explain and thereby explicate the Catholic doctrines and devotions pertaining to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Newman, then more than twenty years a Catholic, offers the following description of the duties and prerogatives of the convert. First, and most fundamentally, is the movement of submission and reception:

Of course, as you say, a convert comes to learn, and not to pick and choose. He comes in simplicity and confidence, and it does not occur to him to weigh and measure every proceeding, every practice which he meets with among those whom he has joined. He comes to Catholicism as to a living system, with a living teaching, and not to a mere collection of decrees and canons, which by themselves are of course but the framework, not the body and substance of the Church. And this is a truth which concerns, which binds, those also who never knew any other religion, not only the convert. By the Catholic system, I mean that rule of life, and those practices of devotion, for which we shall look in vain in the Creed of Pope Pius. The convert comes, {19} not only to believe the Church, but also to trust and obey her priests, and to conform himself in charity to her people. It would never do for him to resolve that he never would say a Hail Mary, never avail himself of an indulgence, never kiss a crucifix, never accept the Lent dispensations, never mention a venial sin in confession. All this would not only be unreal, but would be dangerous, too, as arguing a wrong state of mind, which could not look to receive the divine blessing. Moreover, he comes to the ceremonial, and the moral theology, and the ecclesiastical regulations, which he finds on the spot where his lot is cast. And again, as regards matters of politics, of education, of general expedience, of taste, he does not criticize or controvert. And thus surrendering himself to the influences of his new religion, and not risking the loss of revealed truth altogether by attempting by a private rule to discriminate every moment its substance from its accidents, he is gradually so indoctrinated in Catholicism, as at length to have a right to speak as well as to hear…. (Letter to Pusey, p. 18-19.)

I am slightly abashed by much of this. How alarmingly easy it is to “criticize” and “controvert,” and to attempt “by private rule to discriminate every moment [the Catholic Faith's] substance from its accidents.” That last bit, in particular, stands out. It seems to resonate with something that Newman had just described to his old friend, Pusey, concerning Scripture and Tradition:

How, then, do Anglicans differ from Rome here? I believe the difference is merely one of words; and I shall be doing, so far, the work of an Irenicon, if I make clear what this verbal difference is. Catholics and Anglicans (I do not say Protestants), attach different meanings to the word “proof,” in the controversy as to whether the whole faith is, or is not, contained in Scripture. We mean that not every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be logically proved, independently of the teaching and authority of the Tradition; but Anglicans mean that every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be proved, provided there be added the illustrations and compensations supplied by the Tradition. And it is in this latter sense that the Fathers also speak in the passages which you quote from them. I am sure at least that St. Athanasius frequently adduces passages in proof of points in controversy, which no one would see to be proofs, unless Apostolical Tradition were taken into account, first as suggesting, then as authoritatively ruling their meaning. Thus you do not say, that the whole revelation is in Scripture in such sense that pure unaided logic can draw it from the sacred text; nor do we say, that it is not in Scripture, in an improper sense, in the sense that the Tradition of the Church is able to recognize and determine it there. You do not profess to dispense with Tradition; nor do we forbid the idea of probable, {13} secondary, symbolical, connotative, senses of Scripture, over and above those which properly belong to the wording and context. I hope you will agree with me in this. (Letter, p. 11-13.)

It is frighteningly easy, and often tempting, for private Catholics, I mean, laypersons with no special permission, to “use pure unaided logic” in an effort to draw inferences from the Deposit of Faith as authoritatively expounded by the Magisterium, in order to draw a circumference labeled “orthodoxy” around private judgments that have not been explicitly endorsed by the Church. That is to say, it is tempting to carry on as though one’s own speculations were dogma. As a matter of fact, the Church is generally broader than any school of opinion tolerated, or even for a time predominant, within her ranks.

Over time, however, the perceptive convert can learn to distinguish substance and accident. Some extraordinary individuals, and Newman is one of these, can even make significant contributions to the Church’s ongoing development of doctrine (although these contributions are not always immediately appreciated–just ask Newman, or Aquinas, whenever you get to heaven). Thus, Newman describes a second movement within the convert:

Also in course of time a new generation rises round him; and there is no reason why he should not know as much, and decide questions with as true an instinct, as those who perhaps number fewer years of life than he numbers Easter communions. He has mastered the fact and the nature of the differences of theologian from theologian, school from school, nation from nation, era from era. He knows that there is much of what may be called fashion in opinions and practices, according to the circumstances of time and place, according to current politics, the character of the Pope of the day, or the chief Prelates of a particular country;—and that fashions change. His experience tells him, that sometimes what is denounced in one place as a great offence, or preached up as a first principle, has in another nation been immemorially regarded in just a contrary sense, or has made no sensation at all, one way or the other, when brought before public opinion; and that loud talkers are apt to carry all before them in the Church, as elsewhere, while quiet and conscientious persons commonly have to give way. He perceives that, in matters which happen to be in debate, ecclesiastical authority watches the state of opinion and the direction and course of controversy, and decides accordingly; so that in certain cases to keep back his own judgment on a point, is to be disloyal to his superiors. (Letter, 19-20.)

John Henry Cardinal, now Blessed, Newman is rightly considered a standard-bearer and an inspiration for converts to the Catholic Faith. For some of us, it is all too easy to use his legacy in a polemical way. It would be better to follow his example, by taking one step at a time, not assuming that perfect reception of the Catholic Faith is the work of a day, nor a matter of the private application of logic alone to the “mere collection of decrees and canons.” Blessed Newman, as much, perhaps, as anyone, has has shown us how to think about the Church, as an empirical entity that is also a spiritual kingdom. He has also, as attested by his recent beatification, demonstrated how to live and think in submission to the Church, in the hope of eternal life, and for a witness to the world.

__________

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An early 2009 Christianity Today contained a provocative article entitled Jesus Is Not A Brand. ¹  In it, the author, Rev. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, analyzes the conflation of evangelism with sales marketing. He states:

The de-churched nature of our theology makes evangelism hard to do without seeming salesy, because churchless evangelism unavoidably promotes a consumerist soteriology. When it’s just you and Jesus, you (the consumer) “invite him” (the product) “into your heart” (brand adoption) and “get saved” (consumer gratification).²

While distinct from the central thesis of Wigg-Stevenson’s discussion, his painting of religious decisions in the light of the American consumerist mentality provides insight into the denominational marketplace as well. The reactions to Catholicism’s arguments that I have received from some of my more sympathetic Reformed brethren are understandable when viewed through the consumerist lens: “I would agree with them if it weren’t for their adoption of doctrine X,” or “I just can’t stomach the Catholic culture.”

A presumption in these conversations with my former co-denominationalists seems to be that I was impelled to enter the denominational marketplace by feelings of dissatisfaction with my former ecclesial selection. We happen to live in an era where many can be ‘choosers.’ As choosers, we approach the ecclesial buffet pondering what selection best fits our appetite for God. And being used to making choices catered to our particular predilections, we are (no doubt) hesitant to set our tastes to one side when choosing or re-choosing Church. As members of a chooser society, the idea of choice uninfluenced by taste seems foreign if not implausible. At least, this has been my experience when trying to convince people that a certain truth-claim or other gave me a conviction to become Catholic: they rejoin that actually I did it because I wanted something-or-other (or wanted away from something-or-other).

To use another analogy to describe the reactions I get when discussing Catholicism’s claims, some seem able to respect the reasons a minivan might meet my needs, but recognize that such an automobile would clearly fail to meet their own. A van’s fundamentals would be inadequate for the task at hand; it would be the wrong choice for them. Many may even think a minivan is the wrong choice for me (or anyone at all) despite my best judgment. But they are prepared to respect some positive aspects of the minivan, even if they believe its purchase is the wrong choice from the market.

The fallacy, I believe, is in conceptualizing the Church universal as invisible, containing visible market choices of varying merit. I did not leave a Reformed denominational ‘market choice’ because of deficiencies in the choice qua choice. The terms of that analysis are entirely wrong. I encountered truth-claims that conflicted with my denomination’s truth-claims, and which my denomination’s teachings could not resolve (most particularly, the Canon Question).

But under the Catholic paradigm, there simply is no denominational market choice to make. (And it would be good for all Catholics to realize this too.) For the consumer, minivans and station wagons are both types of automobiles. They both get passengers and cargo to a destination. Corn and rice from the buffet are both types of side dishes that can nourish the body. The market has less desirable choices, and even bad choices.  But if the Catholic ecclesiological model is true, there is no market.  Or under these analogies, the Catholic Church is the buffet, is the auto lot. She has choice and diversity, for sure, but all within her visible confines.

My challenge in explaining the claims of Catholicism and its critiques of the Protestant Reformation is in avoiding the impression that I simply find Catholicism preferable to competing choices such as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). This is a conclusion with which Presbyterians can quickly and readily disagree, without profit from having the conversation in the first place. Rather, to be productive, the discussion must accept or concede that Catholicism claims itself to be without market competitor, the one Church to which we are all called to be in communion.

1. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, p. 20, Jan. 2009.
2. Id. at p. 22.

After years as a devout atheist, I converted to Evangelical Protestantism in February of 2000 and was baptized at a Southern Baptist church. One year later I became Catholic. I would like to use my own (double) conversion to examine the role that faith and reason played in discovering the Catholic Church.

Conversion

I initially turned to Christ from atheism out of sheer desperation: I was clinically depressed, suffering from an anxiety disorder with panic attacks and agoraphobia. My atheism offered nothing but black despair. Christianity seemed to offer more, so I “gave it a try.” Since I had been brought up to believe in a kind of scientism, which holds that the natural sciences are the lone authoritative source for forming one’s worldview, the idea of believing in God, much less a God who became man, seemed irrational. Nonetheless, I realized that I had nothing to lose, since all my own efforts to solve my problems had failed. I reasoned that if God was real, He would help me. If He did not exist, then trying to believe in Him would do nothing, and I would be no worse off than I already was.

I suppressed the many atheistic beliefs which I “knew” were true, and tried to believe in God. I began praying a simple prayer each day: “God, you know I have never believed in you, but I am in trouble and need help. If you are real, then please help me.” I also started reading an old King James version of the Bible that my cousins had given me when I was ten years old. Amazingly, over the next few months, my disordered anxieties improved somewhat, and I began to feel something (that must have been the grace of God) drawing me to read more, pray more, and to try to believe more.

Happily, I had several good friends who were Evangelical Protestant Christians, and around this time they took me under their wing. I had a ton of questions, especially about how Christians could reconcile the theory of evolution with their beliefs, and my friends had answers. I started going to their Baptist church and learning more about the Christian Faith. After a few more months, I was baptized and quickly became an Evangelical of Evangelicals. Just as I had been a fervent atheist, I now became a fervent Protestant. I accepted the (NIV) Bible I was given by my new-found brothers in Christ and off I went! Bible studies, accountability groups, frequent church attendance (with requisite note-taking in the margins of my Bible during the sermon), praise and worship, serving the poor and needy–I was living a new life in Christ, and it felt great.

I didn’t realize at the time that I was absorbing a specifically Evangelical Protestant understanding of the Christian Faith–not purely Reformed or Anglican or Lutheran or Methodist or Anabaptist, but some parts of all of them mixed together. However, after six months of being a Christian, I started noticing the fact that there were lots of other churches and realized that there were significant differences in the beliefs of Christian denominations. Previously, as an atheist, I knew at some level that these differences must exist, but all types of Christians were so far from where I was at the time that their internal differences seemed unimportant. Now that I was a Christian, those differences began to matter.

I was taught that Jesus Christ was God and that the sixty-six book Bible was God’s inerrant Word, and I believed it with all my heart. Unwittingly, I had also accepted en masse all of the other standard Protestant doctrines. Yet even with the same Bible and these fundamental doctrines like sola Scriptura and sola Fide as common ground, we Protestants managed to find substantial disagreement on a host of important issues, so much so that split after split after split had divided Protestantism into thousands of splinters. Something struck me as very wrong about that, especially given Christ’s clear statements in John 17 that we all be perfectly one, as He and the Father are one.

Around this same time, I learned that Catholics had seventy-three books in their Bibles. I assumed that they must have added books to the Bible, since I had already accepted the claim that Catholics “contradicted Scripture” in many ways, adding extra man-made traditions onto God’s Word. But, I soon began asking how, exactly, I knew that the Bible was composed of the particular sixty-six books that I was given. I asked the canon question and at first was blithely confident that I would find the answer from my Protestant friends. But their answers weren’t convincing–in fact, most of them hadn’t even considered the question. So I turned to the internet to find what I knew must be solid Protestant arguments for the canon. Much to my chagrin, the answers I found there were weak as well, and I began to grow uneasy.

The “answers” that Protestant apologists gave to the canon question often focused on pointing out the historical testimony that was in favor of the Protestant canon as reasons for believing it to be true. But though there is some historical testimony in favor of the Protestant canon, there is at least as much testimony for the Catholic one. (Not to mention the fact that the Eastern Orthodox Churches also accept the deuterocanonical books.) If the canon had been universally agreed upon in the Church by the early second century, perhaps it could give one certainty that that particular canon was obviously the true one, but that simply didn’t happen. Instead, for over three centuries different canonical lists were proposed and discussed in the long and winding road of the Church’s discernment of the canon. The ambiguous historical testimony regarding the formation of the canon cannot provide conscience-binding certainty for any of the different canons accepted today by the major Christian groups. I realized that my belief in the Protestant canon could not be maintained without making an ad hoc claim that God protected the Church from erring as she determined which books belong to the canon, but did not protect from error anything else the Church did.

But I had already put my faith in God, accepting that He had communicated infallibly to us through these sixty-six books, so what was I to do? One possibility was to simply claim that “I believed” that the Protestant canon was the true one and use that as my starting theological assumption. Some of my Evangelical friends opted for this route. I would thus avoid the ad hoc logical fallacy. But this attempt to salvage the position just traded out one offense against reason for a worse one: the error of presuppositionalism.¹ Presuppositionalism is the idea that every worldview or position is based on theological assumptions and that the only way to find the truth is by choosing the right presuppositions. It is a form of philosophical skepticism which doubts the ability of the human intellect to ascertain truth. If I accepted presuppositionalism, I knew that I would then have no argument to make against a Catholic who claimed his starting point was the seventy-three book Bible or the infallible Church, or against the Mormon who claimed the Book of Mormon as his theological assumption.

So far, I didn’t see a way of reasonably believing in the Protestant canon and in the inerrancy of its books, but what if I simply gave up the belief in inerrancy? I would then entirely avoid the fallacies of the first position and side-step Catholic arguments for the canon on the basis of infallibility. Perhaps it is reasonable to believe that, instead of inerrant Scriptures, God gave Christians a loose set of writings to act as a guide and touchstone, which were to be discussed and prayed about in community, and though this could not give certainty that any given doctrine is true, it could, with the Spirit’s help, get us “close enough” to the truth so that we could live lives pleasing to God?

This position does not have an ad hoc fallacy or a presuppositionalist stance, since it lacks the belief that God can and did work infallibly through fallible human beings. Nonetheless, it has problems. For one thing, it isn’t reasonable that God would leave us in such a state of darkness with regard to His revelation. If He protected nothing from error, then the deposit of faith that Christ gave to the Apostles could have been corrupted almost immediately. In fact, this is the position held by the Jesus Seminar and scholars like Bart Ehrmann, who have created their own theories of what “Jesus really taught” to fit the subset of historical writings they deem authoritative. If one denies God’s protection of the truth from error, the possibility of handed-down divine revelation is completely lost. Instead of being able to look to the living Church as the authority to be trusted, one must choose which members of the academy to follow, and hope that the chosen scholars are trustworthy.

I found myself at a cross-roads: I could either jettison my nascent faith or find a more reasonable ground for my faith. Only two options seemed left to me: either God protected one Christian denomination’s teachings from error, or He did not. I was not yet ready to abandon my new faith by giving up on the possibility that God made sure we could know the truth, even two thousand years after Christ, so I decided to explore the option that God did indeed protect some Church from error.

The two “denominations” that had the hubris to even claim such protection were the Mormons and the Catholics.² And the Mormons never seemed credible to me, whether as an atheist or an Evangelical Protestant, so my attention turned to the institution which I had already learned to dread and mistrust: the Catholic Church.

I read the writings of the Church Fathers and grew even more uneasy. Whether their teachings squared with those of the Catholic Church I did not yet know enough to confirm, but one thing I did know was that their beliefs differed significantly from my Baptist faith. For instance, the Fathers’ unanimous belief in baptismal regeneration was undeniable and disturbing because it meant that either that doctrine was true (and my symbolic-only baptismal doctrine was false) or that the Church fell into serious error in her teachings almost immediately.³ As I investigated more doctrines which divide Catholics and Protestants, I found that the Fathers’ writings strongly favored the Catholic positions. For every one quote that could possibly be construed as supporting uniquely-Protestant teachings, twenty more existed that were utterly incompatible with Protestantism.

After a significant period of study and prayer, I became Catholic. Why? Because I already had placed my faith in Christ and had faith that He could and did work infallibly through fallible human beings (in the sixty-six books of the Bible I accepted at the time). “So what’s to stop Him from working infallibly through fallible human beings in other matters of the Faith? Or perhaps even in all matters of faith?” I couldn’t see anything unreasonable about that, and accepting the Catholic Church’s claim of infallibility resolved the ad hoc rationale I had accepted as a Protestant that He worked infallibly in sixty-six specific instances but in no others. (Well, to be more accurate, that He had done so sixty-seven times: in the sixty-six inspired books plus the decision about which books those were).

Reflecting back on my double conversion, I now realize that I came to faith in Jesus Christ outside of full communion with the Catholic Church, which was only possible because God is so gracious that even schisms cannot thwart His desire for all men to come to know Him in truth. Only after prayer and study did I come to realize that there were flaws in the reasoning supporting my Protestant beliefs. I knew that God would not require me to believe something that contradicted reason. From reading John 17, I also knew that God wanted us to be in unity. But the principle of sola Scriptura was incapable of achieving this unity for Protestantism, so something was wrong: either sola Scriptura was false, or God had given us a deficient means to reach unity in the fullness of the truth.

Even before I knew Him, God gave me reason to see that my life without Him was empty and purposeless. He brought me to a place of despair so that I would be humbled enough to recognize my need for Him. After becoming a Christian, He again showed me through various reasons that the Catholic Church was all that she claimed to be. None of this, of course, was done without tremendous outpourings of grace. God gave us a great gift in His Church by making it both beautifully faithful as well as eminently reasonable. If either piece were missing, it would be immeasurably more difficult to discover her. But God in His wisdom has shown us that just as grace builds upon nature, so faith builds upon reason and does not eradicate it or make it unnecessary. Pope Benedict recently devoted a Wednesday audience to St. Thomas Aquinas and explained that “the trust St. Thomas placed in both ways to knowledge—faith and reason—can be traced to his conviction that both come from the single wellspring of all truth, the divine Logos, which is at work in the area of both creation and redemption”⁴ The truth in its fullness can be found in the Church and the good news is that it can be known by the most brilliant philosopher and the most simple manual laborer alike. Let us continue to pray for and work toward unity in the truth.

- by Devin Rose.  Devin blogs at St. Joseph’s Vanguard.

1. To gain a better understanding of the error of presuppositionalism, see Bryan Cross’ helpful blog post or this Called to Communion article (as well as the comments).
2. My understanding of the Orthodox was that they claimed to be the true Church but only claimed infallibility of the first seven ecumenical councils. At the time of my conversion, I only examined the Orthodox claims in a cursory way, but having done more in-depth study over the past ten years, I remain convinced that the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded.
3. Interestingly, Protestant apologist William Webster also concedes that the Church went off the rails on baptism early on, in his book, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History
4. Papal Audience on 6/16/2010.

Becoming Catholic or in my case coming back home to the Church is so hard to explain to those who find such horror when they look in the face of the Church. They just do not get it, for whatever reason. For me being Catholic is so rich, so lively. I think of cannoli and ravioli, and red wine, laughter, piazzas, feast days, families (indeed large ones) all held together by the love of the living God made known in the face of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit.

Being Catholic is sitting in the family room, praying the Rosary, as your three year old hits his eleven year old brother or one child prays his decade a bit faster. It’s daily mass, sitting with the young and old, who have a simple faith. They really believe that God is there, yes, the Lord of the Universe is there.

It is the 24/7 365 Adoration Chapel, that is even scheduled with the faithful during the Easter Triduum, as men just getting off their shift — still in their work clothes — come to spend an hour before Him who holds all things together. It is the mom, with her six kids at home, who takes that precious hour, when she could go shop or grab some coffee, and sits at the feet of the Master, her Lord, much like Mary of old. It is the old couple, who can barely walk, with shriveled bodies, who come to have some time with the Lord. It is the man, who has buried three kids and then his wife, who in the midst of it all clings to his Lord. It is the mom who, after losing her daughter and then her son, finds consolation for her heart in the Virgin at the Cross who hears the words, “and a sword will pierce your soul.” It is the man watching his father die an agonizing death who sees in this suffering the sufferings of Christ, that nothing, not even the last moments, are wasted, but in some way through this, all things will be made new. It is witnessing the man receive for his last bit of food not the bread of this world, but the bread of the angels. Oh to be Catholic…