The Catholic Church is experiencing a great movement: Protestants becoming Catholics. Some fundamentalists say those testimonies don’t count because they don’t talk about how Jesus saved them from sin. What can we say in response?”
The classic conversion stories presented by Catholics: the common denominator
Below I present a Protestant review I read at a famous online bookstore, of Surprised by Truth (another Catholic best-seller in the U.S.):
“One could point out many similarities between the stories of Bob Sungenis and Julie Swenson. But the one that strikes me most is this: besides the constant repetition of the same arguments for Roman supremacy (e.g., a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture, the “fractured” nature of Protestantism in light of Rome’s supposed unity, etc.), we do not see our converts to Rome speak of how they came to realize their sinful condition, and to depend totally on Christ for the whole of salvation (Emphasis mine. Ed.)
I am talking about that shattering moment when we realize that we are nothing before God, powerless to save ourselves, in need of a perfect Substitute, a perfect Savior. Those who have truly been Reformed know what I am talking about.
One does not easily deny justification by faith and accept concepts like purgatory, indulgences, the treasury of merit, and the sacrifice of the Mass, when one has truly been immersed in what it means to have peace with God through the work of another, the work of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1-2). Those who have knelt at the foot of the cross in despair of their own works and merits, and have seen, by the grace of God, the perfection of the Savior’s work on their behalf, cannot quickly or easily embrace a system that makes salvation a joint venture between God and man.
Mr. Sungenis and Mrs. Swenson have made their homes in Rome. But one thing is certain: they never built a house on a firm foundation in Geneva. Anyone holding a deed to a house there knows that at the top one reads: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria.
Response to the criticism
Our friend says:
“We do not see our converts to Rome speak of how they came to realize their sinful condition, and to depend totally on Christ for the whole of salvation.”
Of course not. We Catholics know that “born-again” Evangelicals (Protestants) really are Christians, and bear the Holy Spirit. So searching for how “an Evangelical gets saved by becoming a Catholic” is simply a fallacy.
But – and very important: not all Evangelical Christians are 100% orthodox. Do they all believe in the Most Holy Trinity? In original sin? In the Nicene Creed (I believe in one God, etc.)? In the need to be baptized in order to belong to the Church of Christ… etc.? – no, they are not. They all “get saved,” but how is it, then, that they are so confused about such matters? The answer is simple. The same thing that keeps Evangelical Christians from reaching true doctrine is the very thing that keeps many Catholics from loving Christ: Sin.
A very great defect in today’s Catholicism is the lack of the kerygma (preaching the love of Jesus and how He can change our lives) in ministry. But it does exist (above all with Mission 2000). It’s just that our brother didn’t look for it. Have you heard of the Charismatic Renewal? Through this movement the Holy Spirit has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people all over the world. They have been healed of many illnesses, physical and psychological. Real miracles. Healings. Deliverances. The problem is that, since some fundamentalists say the “Catholic Church is of the devil,” all of this is obviously “tricks of Satan” (well, they said the same thing when the Lord cast out demons). Ecumenical Christians know where our Lord makes Himself present.
The real problem is the anti-church inertia taking place within families, and that one really is diabolical. Its symptoms are:
·Pride – “Why should I confess to a sinner like me?”
“I’m fine, I don’t lie, I don’t kill, I don’t steal” (as if there were 3 commandments and not 10)
·Laziness. “Bah, rosaries are so tiring… they’re BORING! Why go around acting all churchy when I can hit the club with my buddies?”
·Lust. “Why doesn’t the church get modern about sex? They’re from the Stone Age!”
·TV idolatry. “I’ll go to church when ‘I feel like it.’ But right now it’s the derby, América vs. Chivas, and I can’t miss it!”
·Giving greater importance to entertainment:
“I knew there was something wrong with those Masses… all those boring, meaningless rituals. Here we sing, here we play guitars!”
·Hypocrisy. “You want ME to go to confession with those corrupt men? Look at all that thieving in the Vatican!” Ah, but when he’s asked for alms… “oh, better some other day.”
·Cynicism. “Everybody knows the church is full of hypocrites. At least I accept that God made me this way and I can’t change”
(And I ask: Why do we criticize? Do we do anything to correct it? Do we report the corruption to the bishop?)
It is very easy to blame the clergy. “They made me sin!” That is the easy road by which many go off to perdition. Do you think the Catholic Church is perfect? Of course not, but WE ALL share the blame. We all sin and WE ALL crucified Christ. Saying that only Catholics did it is a rather serious judgment.
WE ARE ALL THE CHURCH
The Church has corrupt people because we are corrupt.
The Church has hypocritical people because we are hypocrites.
etc.
Abuses happen in all churches and in all denominations. It is very easy to blame the Church, because there probably won’t be a scandal in a little church founded 2 years ago. Or – could there be a scandal in a church with only one member (me and my Bible)? Protestantism tends to use a double standard:
When there is a scandal, they say: “It wasn’t in MY church.” But when their church produces good fruit, they say: “See? WE – the Protestants – are right!”
But let’s wait some 10, 15, or 20 years, for church x to grow a little. It will inevitably split. This is what happens all the time. 30,000 Protestant churches in the world, contradicting one another.
Let’s continue with the review:
I am talking about that shattering moment when we realize that we are nothing before God, powerless to save ourselves, in need of a perfect Substitute, a perfect Savior. Those who have truly been Reformed know what I am talking about.
When someone finds a great treasure, he goes and tells everyone he found it. Hey, look! I found it, I found it! Imagine you’re on an archaeological dig and you discover the cross on which Christ died. You’d tell everyone, wouldn’t you? HEY, I FOUND THE CROSS, I FOUND THE CROSS! They would put it in a museum where everyone could see it. Or if you found His mantle, or His crown of thorns. And what happens when you find His Church? Is that not important? The very Church that Jesus founded. The very same one. With defects owing to time, but still the same beliefs, the same liturgy. The same Church. Wouldn’t you shout it from the rooftops?
I FOUND HIS CHURCH! I FOUND HIS CHURCH!
The testimonies of Protestants who became Catholics ARE NOT those of hopeless sinners who found salvation.
They are testimonies of Christians already saved and redeemed who found the Truth.
Tell me: would you comment on every important paragraph of all the books of the Bible by yourself, with no one’s help, believing the Spirit will enlighten you at every moment? The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of humility. One must be humble and admit that one does not know all the answers – which ALREADY exist somewhere. Christianity is not a “do-it-yourself” religion. It is a religion based on the Church, which in turn is based on Christ. 1 Tim 3:15 says that the Church is the pillar and bulwark of the Truth. The “do-it-yourself” philosophy is simply based on pride. It is not possible to believe that the Holy Spirit will enlighten you when you read the Bible, and at the same time believe that He has never enlightened anyone else before you.
And this is what the Catholic testimonies are about. Protestant Christianity is based on “God, the Bible, and me.” Reinventing the wheel by interpreting the Bible from scratch. No research, no linguistic analysis, not even a bit of history. Catholic dogma, on the other hand, is already complete. None of this “my pastor says.” The CHURCH said it and has not changed it. Contrary to what the Jehovah’s Witnesses do, there are no “new lights” (or blinking lights, rather) in Catholicism. No pope has ever defined a Catholic dogma that contradicted another Catholic dogma already defined. A dogma is usually defined with the words: “Whoever contradicts this, let him be anathema.” Catholic scholars have already done the work of interpreting the Bible, with all the elements, building on the work of other scholars and saints. And that is without mentioning the deposit of Faith (1 Tim 6:20) that comes down through Oral Tradition (2 Thess 2:15) and is preserved in the Apostolic Succession (2 Tim 2:2), which we can read in the writings of the Fathers of the Church.
There are so many mysteries hidden in the Bible… it is so dense that it takes many years to discover even one. The most hidden and difficult (for some) is the mystery of the Church. We are all the Church, and the Holy Spirit lives in each one of us, for all of us. And we partake of one and the same bread, and our prayers help all the brethren. We are one with Christ. ONE. Will this bond be broken when our tents collapse? If you don’t understand the mystery of the Church, how are you going to understand the intercession of the Saints?
Just when we think we have already studied the whole Bible, we read it again and find something new. These discoveries, recorded one by one, were already present in Catholic documents and biblical commentaries.
See what I mean? The testimonies of Catholic converts do not talk about Jesus as a person now. They already shared that with many people, many years ago. Now they talk about Jesus as the Way, Truth, and Life. Doctrinal agreement. Jesus was persecuted and crucified for His doctrine (I AM). The Pharisees did not like the doctrine that pagans too could go to heaven. And He was far more critical when He said that they would not be able to find Life in the Scriptures if they refused to come to Him.
It is this other persecution that born-again Protestants, now Catholics, talk about today. It is about being persecuted for the Truth. Let me remind you that ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses suffer similar persecutions (expulsions, slander) when they discover that the religion they were so sure about for so many years was not so true after all.
The first commandment says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
Catholic converts used to speak of loving the Lord with their hearts. Now with their minds as well. Before, we needed spiritual milk. Now we are talking about solid food. Before, we thought like children; now we are thinking like adults.
Before, it was about knowing Jesus (kerygma). Now it is about immersing ourselves in His doctrine (catechesis – theology). Evangelicals are TERRIFIC evangelizers. But our saints have a 2,000-year head start in exploring the far reaches of the Love of God. The Treatise on Purgatory by St. Catherine of Genoa is just one example. The Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales. The Confessions of St. Augustine. The Interior Castle of St. Teresa of Ávila. And that is without mentioning the Fathers of the Church – Eusebius (History of the Church), Irenaeus (Against Heresies), Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho – a Jewish-Catholic debate, quite thorough). There are so many saints full of testimonies of God’s love, of conversion, of the Cross… in fact St. Teresa of Ávila tells us that her conversion came from seeing an image of Jesus, covered with wounds for the sins of men. Do images not help us increase our love for God?
A comment for the critic: if he wanted to read Catholics telling how Jesus changed their lives, he bought the wrong book. Instead of reading “Surprised by Truth,” he should have read “Jesus Is Alive” by Emiliano Tardif: a book about the love of Jesus, His miracles, and the Charismatic Renewal, written for Catholics who already understand the basics of Catholic theology, such as the role of Mary in our salvation… there are so many Catholic books that speak of the love of God.
Read the works of the saints. Read the Confessions of St. Augustine… the “Dark Night” of St. John of the Cross. The books of the saints say so much about God’s love for mankind… but if what you are looking for are books about Evangelical sinners who discovered Jesus in the Catholic Church, you are only looking for lies. Why? Because Evangelical Christians already are Christians. Halfway, but Christians.
By the way, the critic also suggests that the Christians who became Catholics “weren’t saved” after all. In his own words, he says: “Those who have truly been Reformed know what I am talking about.” He cannot accept that there could be a true Christian who does not think like him. He is saying that the Protestants who became Catholics had never truly been Reformed. Is it with prejudices that we are going to make progress in love?
One does not easily deny justification by faith and accept concepts like purgatory, indulgences, the treasury of merit, and the sacrifice of the Mass, when one has truly been immersed in what it means to have peace with God through the work of another, the work of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1-2).
Of course not. If everyone did, they would become Catholics. Now let us look at this subtle error: thinking that the work of Jesus is NOT important to Catholics. It is. And it is complete. But we need to apply it to our lives. That is why we need to evangelize; Christ already died for everyone, but many still need to accept Him. And we still sin. This is not about “faith alone.” This is about “once saved = always saved.” Let us look at certain “hard to understand” passages – Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, James, Peter, Jude… and even in the gospels themselves. Clinging to some favorite passage while ignoring the context and other passages of the Bible is clinging to our own taste about what is Truth and what is not, ignoring Jesus.
The sacrifice of the Mass is NOT a work of “men.” It is the VERY sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. It is an active, ever-present memorial. Not a mere representation. If they could feel the love of God when receiving Communion, or when adoring Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament, they would realize what love really is. But many are afraid to accept that their belief system is based on a subjective analysis of life and of the people around them. “200 million Evangelicals can’t be wrong!” (Of course, 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses can’t be wrong either, can they? Especially when they grow so quickly among the people – it MUST be from God! (yes, uh-huh). When you accept that you may have been mistaken, and that Catholicism may (may) be the Church that Christ founded, you are beginning to follow the steps that the ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses put into practice: putting your trust in God and not in your church or in the reformers. The reformer Calvin himself said: “Return to the Primitive Church!”
Those who have knelt at the foot of the cross in despair of their own works and merits, and have seen, by the grace of God, the perfection of the Savior’s work on their behalf, cannot quickly or easily embrace a system that makes salvation a joint venture between God and man.
Kneeling at the foot of the cross… hmmmmm… sounds very Catholic, doesn’t it? I wonder what our fundamentalist friends would say if they saw their brother kneel before the cross. Idolatry, I suppose. “Don’t kneel before images! Look at what you’re doing!”
But let’s get back to the matter at hand: the Savior’s work on our behalf. I agree with this… God’s Work is perfect. But WE are not. I think our Evangelical brother sees Catholicism as a legalistic religion… and nothing could be further from the truth.
Catholicism is NOT a religion of “scoring points with God,” or of “being good because God is watching you.” It is not like that. A thousand times over, IT IS NOT LIKE THAT! That is for the rebels, the hopeless sinners, who sin and sin and sin… the good Catholic does his best because he knows that God will not allow him to be tempted beyond his strength. Which means that if he sins, it is HIS fault. Not God’s. And along with the temptations, God gives us the means to escape them. In other words: how we reach our goal.
Tools. The Bible is a tool. Prayer is another. We Catholics know what the sacraments and the intercession of the saints are. They are not “human works.” They are God’s help. For the Evangelical, salvation is attained through the “sinner’s prayer.” But even saying “Jesus, I repent of my sins, come into my heart” is something that we do. Is it a work? (Jesus was asked what we must do to be saved). In the same way, going up to the altar and receiving Christ into our Heart (the Eucharist) is not a ‘human work.’ We do not earn points. We simply accept the gifts God gives us. St. Peter in his letter tells us that baptism saves us. Is baptism a work of men? Of course not! Is it free? Of course it is!
The Catholic system is exactly what Jesus said in His parable: be careful. Do not abuse. St. Paul tells us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” Be careful, be responsible. When a Christian makes a mistake and disobeys Jesus, he truly feels the pain of his sin, and with tears in his heart he asks Jesus for forgiveness. We all make mistakes. The Catholic Church knows that we must be responsible and not trust in ourselves just because “we are saved.” We HAVE BEEN saved. But not forever. We live an ETERNAL life because we are partakers of the Holy Spirit, who is Eternal. But this communion can be broken by sin, just as Adam sinned and was cast out of paradise. John 3:16 says: whoever BELIEVES – present tense, an ongoing action. The Catholic saints knew they were not perfect. They asked Jesus to help them with their problems, with their defects. The Catholic saints never settled for “I’m saved, now what?” Their goal was to reach PERFECTION and to be SAINTS, 100% holy, without even a shadow of sin. Yes – the Catholic saints stopped being sinners at some point in their lives. Whether through martyrdom, or through a life of such perfection and such complete communion with God that it was no longer possible for them to sin. Read St. Teresa of Ávila and know that for the saints, being “always saved” is a reality (in Catholic theology we call this being “confirmed in Grace”). But a reality with fruits. Without sins, not even the tiniest ones. Protestants excuse themselves by saying “they are not sins, they are imperfections.” But the Catholic saint is already free of those “imperfections.” The certainty of eternal security is a gift God gives only to whom He wills to give it – and for a good reason: to shepherd the flock. And we are that flock.
The Catholic saints do not have the slightest disobedience toward God or the Church. Only love for everyone. Look at Mother Teresa. We KNOW she comes from God by her fruits (charity). All that feeding of the poor, with no secrets. Only the work of Jesus Christ, through a person. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
The Catholic is not content with sharing “how I was saved.” The devout Catholic will want to obey Jesus’ commandment to be perfect. He will follow Jesus in his life, no matter the cost. If you could take two roads for evangelization, which would you take? The one that is more effective in the short term, or one with many difficulties, tribulations, temptations, but with even more helps, which will result in more and better fruits? This one – this is the Catholic way. It is not easy to walk it – there are many dangers: scrupulosity (believing everything is a sin), which tortures weak consciences and takes away their freedom; laziness; the devil will fight you hard, with every means to drag you back to his empire. I have experienced this struggle when praying the rosary. Many wicked thoughts and oppression to keep me from finishing it. Thoughts telling me that I am going to hell because I did something terrible, and since “I am in sin,” my prayers would not help me. Laziness about praying, sacrilegious thoughts and images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary… but when I finish the rosary, I find myself with more strength and a peace in the soul that only God can give. As St. Paul said, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
The devil’s favorite weapons are the corrupt clergy and the family inertia found in many “cafeteria” Catholics (a little of this, a little of that, and I make my own religion at home). Yes – there is a great number of Catholics who completely ignore God… many live like pagans in a constant state of sin. And their children learn this from them, and the word of God cannot bear fruit because it is choked in this worldly life. But a good Catholic family whose members read the Bible, study the catechism, go to Mass, confess their sins regularly, pray the rosary, and love our Lady will certainly have good children. Many Catholic saints came from such families. Do not be quick to judge Catholicism by what many Catholics do. Judge Catholicism by what the Catholic saints did. Just like our Lord.
Being Catholic is not easy. But when you reach the end, and attain the goal, you will be crowned with the prize: eternal life and the governance of many cities for having been faithful with a few small coins. Not to mention helping people with your prayers once you get to heaven, because death will not separate us from Christ. What is death, but to depart and be with Christ?
Mr. Sungenis and Mrs. Swenson have made their homes in Rome. But one thing is certain: they never built a house on a firm foundation in Geneva. Anyone holding a deed to a house there knows that at the top one reads: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria.
I doubt any Catholic has a house inscribed with Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura. The Catholic inscription is this: “On this rock I will build my church (a rather firm foundation, I would say), and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
And “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
And “always” includes, of course, the 4th century through the 16th, and the 21st, and every one of them. God bless you!
Author: Ricardo García
