Why I Became Catholic
Jeremy Wolford
Originally posted on 7/11/2010

For any of you who have ever wondered what people mean when they say "the Lord works in mysterious ways," I submit this example: I became Catholic due to a sequence of events that began with The Da Vinci Code.

I was raised Protestant (Baptist, then Presbyterian, then non-denominational), and for the most part always believed it. When I was younger, I was somewhat of a Pharisee about it, but by the time I reached high school I think I was more reasonable. I was never really antagonistic toward the Catholic Church; I thought they were doing it wrong, but they were still Christians, so I was cool with it even though I thought most of their traditions were silly. I would do things with my Catholic friends like intentionally order a cheeseburger when we went out on Fridays during Lent, then proceed to talk about how delicious it was, but only with a group of people who would respond by threatening to burn me at the stake, so it was all in good fun.

I never read through The Da Vinci Code, as much because I'm a literary snob as because I'm a Christian (the few pages I looked at appalled me from a literary standpoint, with respect to Mr. Brown, who I'm told has written far better books). A group of my friends were going to see the movie and talked me into going with them. My stated reason, which was true, was that the Ron Howard/Tom Hanks/Audrey Tautou/Jean Reno/Paul Bettany combo would make any movie look appealing; I also figured someone who was still a practicing Christian should be there to do damage control in the worst case scenario.

As it turns out, neither set of expectations were met; Reno was underutilized and the others all disappointed me relative to their other work (I blame the source), and my friends thought it was silly and faith didn't really come up in the post-movie conversation. There was one scene, however, that caught my attention: the discussion of the Council of Nicaea. In Brown's version, this was where the Biblical Canon was first set. (This is not actually the case as far as I know, but that's not the point.) What it did was get me to think about the selection process of the books in the Bible. One of Martin Luther's key theological points was that only the canonical Scripture contains the word of God; everything else was introduced by man. I was never a Luther fan overall (the man followed this statement by attempting to remove books from the canon that didn't support his theology), but part of the reason I thought Catholic traditions were silly was that there was no Scriptural basis for many of them. (The other reason was that they didn't have meaning for anyone I knew personally and were done without thinking, which is a separate issue.) However, as I thought more about it, I realized it was pretty presumptuous to assume that the 66 books in the Protestant canon are the only works that have ever been divinely influenced. Every Protestant I knew, myself included, had teachers or Christians philosophers who had influenced their thinking. Could the Catholics actually be right?

As is often my approach to new knowledge, I decided to do some research. I read several Catholic apologetics, from "Rome Sweet Home" by Scott Hahn to more dense theological treatises online written by various priests and seminary professors. I talked to several priests and seminary students to get answers to my questions. With the exception of one point brought up by my pastor at the time (who himself was raised Catholic but left the Church over a point of Scripture he couldn't reconcile), I couldn't find any good Protestant counterpoints. They were all either venomous and Limbaugh-equse rants (agree with him or not, the man commits every logical fallacy I'm aware of in his arguments, over and over again) or very weakly supported points. I didn't want to make a decision until I'd assessed both sides of the argument, but after a few months, I had to face the possibility that there may not be a solid counter-argument. At this point, I decided to join an RCIA program - not necessarily to convert, but just to learn more about the Catholic Church.

This group, at a church in Buffalo, was a terrible experience. I knew more about Catholic theology from my reading than the majority of those who were supposed to be teaching, the stated reason of most of the people there for attendance was "well, it would be nice if we could all go to Church together as a family," and most of the less touchy-feely points about Christianity (anything related to Hell, persecution, call to social justice) were glossed over in favor of talking about God's love in nearly every session for nine months. Despite these frustrations, I felt a peace about the Catholic Church. Peaceful enough, in fact, that it was oddly disconcerting, given how poorly the class was going. After a lot of prayer, I decided to join the Catholic Church (and never go back to that specific parish again once RCIA was over).

There are still things I don't like about the Catholic Church. I'm not a cheerleader for Pope Benedict by any stretch, I think that there are important things being severely mismanaged both at the Diocesan and international levels, and the disrespect I observe some people demonstrate toward the Eucharist at Masses appalls me more than anything I ever observed at any of the Protestant churches I ever attended. Still, I feel that God has called me to be here, and maybe more importantly, I realize now that Protestantism has deeper theological issues than Catholicism does, and the institutional issues are not a fair comparison because Protestant churches do not have the same kind of hierarchy. So, I'm going to stick with the Catholic Church, do what I can to help improve it, and leave the rest to God.