Continuing My Story
I started to tell my story about how I became Catholic and began with the motif of key scriptures in my journey. I ended up beginning a little further back than I intended and so the next bit does not actually have a dominate scripture passage. I ended up marrying a Catholic woman. When we were engaged I went to RCIA and she went to my church’s new members class. I figured she would see how wonderfully biblical reformed theology was and convert pretty quick. I would learn about Catholic theology and be better able to explain to her what was wrong with it and we could go on as a reformed couple. The problem is she didn’t have any desire to leave the Catholic church. I could not understand it. RCIA had made me more sure than ever that Catholic theology was flatly unbiblical. The priest had explained what Catholics believe but done very little to explain why. He did not allow me to ask any questions about key Catholic distinctives (like all the Marion doctrines). So there I was. I had showed up to hear the best defense Catholicism has to offer and there was virtually nothing presented. Looking back on it I am not sure I was ready to deal with a strong defense of the Catholic faith. I may not have been open to hearing it. Still I expected it and the fact that I didn’t get it just made me thing Catholics were not capable of theological discussion and biblical exegesis.
One area where I did find this priest’s presentation convincing was the area of contraception. This was relevant because I was about to get married and we needed to decide what we were going to do. I had concluded that the pill and condoms were not what God wanted us to do as a couple. So that was a grace we got for our marriage and it removed one obstacle that many have has to accepting the Catholic faith.
So we got married and we started going to both my reformed church and a Catholic church every week. We found a priest who was very protestant in his thinking and really welcomed us into his parish. I was allowed to help lead the Life Teen youth group and share my faith with them. They were trying to make a protestant style ministry so I was considered an expert in some ways. I had some really powerful experiences especially at retreats. I learned to love that parish. I was still convinced they were wrong theologically but I could never discuss it. I was trusted with a leadership position in the church and didn’t want to be seen as someone who was secretly trying to convert people to the protestant faith. So life went on. Before I knew it we had been there 8 years and we were still going to both churches every week. We joked we were protestants in the morning and Catholics in the evening.
That changed when my wife Mary gave me the book Rome Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberley Hahn. I had heard something of Scott Hahn’s story but just briefly. I read it and liked it a lot. I always like stories of personal spiritual journeys. I didn’t really find it very convincing but it opened up some questions in my mind. I became aware that I really didn’t know the typical debate between Protestants and Catholic over the various points of disagreement they have. So I decided to surf the web a little and find out. I was really interested in both sides of the debate because I was running into some anticatholic comments mostly from my mother but from some others as well. At this point I just wanted to be fair to the church. GK Chesterton talks about doing that. Not thinking of converting he was just noticing some really cheap shots being taken against the church and decided to defend it just because it was picked on. For both of us that was a turning point. The arguments in favor of Catholicism are so strong that the minute you let your guard down they become very convincing.
The one biblical argument the Hahn’s do make in some detail in their book is the one on Matthew 16:
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
So when I surfed the net I focused on this verse first. I was shocked at how ignorant I was. I never even knew anyone connected this passage with the papacy. Catholicism was just so far off the radar when I did the bulk of my bible study this never came up. I had hear a few homilies on this gospel but the pope was never mentioned. You never know who might be offended. Anyway, I located some debates and was really surprised how reasonable the Catholic apologists sounded. Compared to James White anyone would sound reasonable.
The protestants made a lot of linguistic arguments that didn’t make sense to me. The petra/petros thing seemed weak even before it was pointed out to me that the difference was totally gender based and didn’t exist in the original Aramaic. I kept going back to the fact that Simon’s name was changed to Peter. So much of what the protestants would say just didn’t fit with this. It had to be about Peter. I didn’t see the papacy there yet. I could see a kernel of it but I didn’t see the connection between the legitimate blessing Jesus was giving Peter and the pope being infallible. It seemed like to much significance to be assigned to one short text.
Still I was shocked at how strong the Catholic argument seemed. I was also surprised at how few of the protestant big guns have really weighed in on the debate. The guys defending the protestant position were people I had never heard of and quite frankly was not impressed by. So I went looking for some more effective statement of the protestant position that I could make my own. I still never doubted the protestant position was right. I just thought I hadn’t found a good defender.
