Why do Protestants convert to Catholicism? If you’ve watched even a few episodes of Marcus Grodi’s “Journey Home” on EWTN, or read conversion stories from the likes of Scott Hahn, Francis Beckwith, Thomas Howard, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, or Paul Thigpen (among many others), you’ll know the answer is: for lots of reasons. Prominent Protestant thinkers Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo distill all of them down to three in their new, 100-page book Why Do Protestants Convert?
The results, as one might expect given the complexity of the subject matter, are curious.
At one level, I’m not certain that I understand the purpose of the book. In the foreword, eminent Presbyterian scholar Carl Trueman says the short volume explores the phenomenon of Protestant-to-Catholic conversion “and offers thoughtful answers to anyone perplexed by the attractions of Rome to a generation of Protestant intellectuals.” So is this—with a chapter titled “The Sociology of Conversion”—supposed to be a dispassionate sociological study, perhaps similar to Stephen Bullivant’s illuminating book Nonverts? Not exactly. The authors are, after all, avowed Protestants who want to deter Protestants from converting.
The first chapter, alternatively, discusses the “psychology of conversion,” also suggesting a neutral and scientific approach to conversion, the authors emphasizing: “Our point is not to discredit conversion narratives as at bottom irrational, or to dismissively ‘psychologize’ any individual’s conversion to Rome.” Yet in the Afterword, Littlejohn writes:
Sometimes, of course, such [Protestant converts to Catholicism] are dealing with their own demons, and projecting their problems onto their churches or educational environments.
That certainly sounds like psychologizing (more on that below).
If this is intended to be a rebuke to the theological explanations for conversion (the third reason the authors discuss), then twenty pages seems hardly sufficient to address them with any degree of thoroughness. Indeed, all Littlejohn and Castaldo do in that chapter is little more than attempt to score a few polemical points in favor of the Reformation, something I doubt would dissuade many of those earnestly considering the claims of the Catholic Church, and certainly few, if any of those who have already swum the Tiber.
Pseudo-scientific explanations of Catholic conversions
Whatever the reason, then, for this little booklet, Littlejohn and Castaldo seem to start off on sound enough footing, describing the conversion of John Henry Newman from his so-called Via Media Anglicanism to Catholicism. The authors note that, similar to Newman’s story, the locus of many contemporary conversions to Rome, focuses on a “particular understanding of the sacraments and the binding authority of church tradition as the divinely accredited organ and oracle of religious truth.” That seems more-or-less accurate: in the many conversion stories I’ve read or heard before and since I became Catholic in 2010, just about all of them have prioritized the need for authority and feeling drawn to Christ in the sacraments.
From there, however, things get confused. The authors argue that the “conversionitis” of so many Protestants is supposedly a consequence of various self-inflicted wounds of what historian Mark Noll called the “scandal of the evangelical mind,” as if the anti-intellectualism of twentieth-century low-church evangelicalism is to blame. But if that’s the case, is that not in tension with their focus on the conversions of Protestantism’s “best and brightest”? Hahn and Beckwith, for example, were very familiar with the more robust intellectual traditions of Reformation Protestantism before they converted; it seems unlikely that if only they had read a bit more Turretin or Hooker that it would have deterred them from converting.
Some of their speculations border on the risible. Their chapter on psychology discusses what C.S. Lewis calls “The Inner Ring,” which the authors describe as “to be on the inside, to be in the know, to be able to wink and nudge and share a laugh at the expense of those benighted uncultured outsiders (whom you may have been part of just five minutes ago).” Supposedly, some Protestants convert to Catholicism because they want this. Yet in the almost 14 years since my return to the Catholic Church, I have never met another convert from Protestantism who evinced such a crude sentiment, especially toward Protestants. The only converts I can speculate might fit this mold would be some Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) adherents such as Taylor Marshall. But TLM hardliners are thumbing their noses less at Protestants than at their Novus Ordo co-religionists.
This “inner ring” theory then descends into something more deserving of the conspiratorial musings of The Da Vinci Code or the Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk than serious academic analysis:
With her complex graded hierarchy of regular clergy from the ordinary parish priest to the conclave of cardinals to the papal curia, not to mention the myriad little hierarchies of her myriad monastic orders, each with its own inner circle, with her love of secrecy and mystery, with her graduated ascent of holiness from the catechumen to the saint to the Blessed Virgin herself, the Roman Catholic Church has more rings within rings than the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos.
As if Protestants are converting to Catholicism to uncover the hidden secrets of the Norbertines, or because they hope to someday have their saintly visage memorialized on stained glass windows, their remains devotedly honored by barefoot pilgrims. This is too much.
They then claim that Protestants are leaving because of effective branding by Catholic intellectuals and their institutions. “But let’s face it — they [Protestant intellectuals and their institutions] just aren’t as slick, sexy, or sophisticated as their Catholic counterparts,” write the authors, citing as examples Robert George and Ryan Anderson. Now of all the words I’d use to describe George and Anderson, the words “slick” or “sexy” haven’t typically been the first ones off my tongue (no offense, gentlemen). And would that really be enough to motivate someone to abandon one religious tradition for another, often damaging if not losing friendships in the process?
Or how about this laugher:
If you want to be a Christian conservative with some kind of access to the levers of power, some kind of influence for helping keep our country on track, Roman Catholicism promises your best chance of access to these coveted inner corridors.
That’s patently false: there are twice as many Protestants in Congress as Catholics. When I had the honor of participating in the Hillsdale James Madison Fellows program in D.C. a couple years ago — which is aimed at young, up-and-coming professionals in politics and government—the number of Anglicans, Baptists, and Presbyterians at least equaled us Catholics.
Addressing the theological objections
In response to Catholic claims of certitude vis-a-vis the objective authority of the magisterium, the authors offer the expected pablum regarding the current pontificate. “If there’s one thing the pontificate of Francis has demonstrated, it’s the imperspicuous nature of the Roman Catholic magisterium.” Relatedly, they also cite “infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics,” as undermining Rome’s “claim to speak with the living voice of divine authority.”
I can at least appreciate this critique: Francis’ pontificate has undoubtedly been a controversial and perplexing one, whether we are talking adjustments to the catechism on the application of the death penalty, restrictions on the liturgy, or permission to bless same-sex “couples”. But what magisterial doctrine has changed during the current pontificate? For all the Protestant (and Catholic) kvetching about Francis, the papacy’s actions have altered no magisterial teaching. Moreover, infighting among the various Catholic camps—though often ugly and also potentially obscuring magisterial authority to outsiders—hardly vitiates that authority. One might alternatively ask, do Protestant debates over the Bible’s meaning undermine the Bible’s authority?
Littlejohn and Castaldo finger-wag at Catholic exclusion of baptized Christians from communion, “an exclusivism that rends asunder Christ’s body before a watching world.” Yet that exclusion is based on the fact that those prohibited are not in full communion with the Church by virtue of their refusal to recognize the Church as bearing the authority of Christ. They are certainly welcome to recognize the Church as representing Christ and enter into full communion with her. Moreover, most of those excluded don’t even believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist, and would therefore be profaning it, and dishonoring themselves, by participating in what they don’t believe in. Indeed, if we are to go with what the Reformers taught, the Eucharist is blasphemous. Why would the authors want to participate in that?
It’s unclear how well the authors even understand Catholic teaching. Littlejohn asks:
But if sixty-six books of divinely inspired text are susceptible to many different interpretations, why would adding six hundred and sixty-six divinely-inspired bulls, encyclicals, or canons solve the problem?
But the Church does not teach, nor has she ever taught, that magisterial teaching is divinely-inspired. Magisterial teaching, according to Catholic definition, is infallible, not inspired.
What the authors offer in contrast to Catholicism comes with its own problems. They write:
The proper path, rather, is an acknowledge that in Scripture alone we have the inspired Word of God commanding our allegiance above all earthly powers and authorities (including that of Popes and councils), a word that is rightly understood in the community of faith, the church, with her biblically chastened theological judgments (or “catholic tradition”) retrieved and renewed from centuries of church history.
Elsewhere, they similarly appeal to the need to adhere to the “historical consensus” and true tradition. But whose interpretation of the Word of God? Which community of faith? Which historical consensus and tradition? The answer, inevitably, is the interpretation and the consensus that agrees with that of the authors, and the communities of faith the authors have determined to be legitimate ones based on their own arbitrary “Bible-based” speculations. This is why, for example, the Reformers, despite their appeals to tradition, ignored or rejected whichever conciliar or patristic teachings (say, on soteriology, sacramentology, ecclesiology, iconography, or Mariology) did not cohere with their particular interpretations of Scripture.
The authors argue, contra the Catholic Church and her understanding of visible unity, that “Scripture calls Christians to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” But in the Protestant paradigm, the one ultimately determining who has the Spirit must be the individual Christian based on his personal interpretation of Scripture, so that unity is ad hoc and arbitrary. They argue that the “diverse structural contours” of the body of Christ “may appear deficient… but they are simply the outworking of an ecclesiology that defines catholicity by adherence to the kerygma, an adherence that is shared by Christian traditions from every tribe, tongue, and nation.” But again, it is Protestants who are acting as arbiters of what constitutes that kerygma, or, “Protestant orthodoxy,” an empty term given the lack of consensus among Protestants regarding what constitutes orthodoxy.
They call the Reformation “a special time of spiritual awakening and ‘return to the sources’ such as God sends only rarely in the church’s life.” Yet if the Reformation was such a significant, divinely-authorized event in salvation history, why (as so many counter-Reformation apologists asked) did no miracles attend it? When I posed this to an Anglican friend of mine, he cited the miracles of people professing faith in Christ or being baptized. But this is not what the counter-Reformers meant. An epochal shift in salvation history—say, the people of God being led into the Promised Land, or the coming of the Messiah—is attested to by miracles, such as those which accompanied Moses or Christ. However, neither Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, or Cranmer performed any such miracles to demonstrate divine approbation for the Reformation.
In sharp, glaring contrast, widely recognized miracles continue to confirm the Catholic Church is precisely who she says she is. I’ve had the great privilege to visit where one of those miracles took place: Tepeyac, Mexico City, where Mary appeared to an Aztec peasant almost five-hundred years ago. Visitors can still see the tilma of Juan Diego bearing the image of Our Lady, miraculously preserved not only from time, but attacks from anti-Catholic Marxist terrorists. And that, I was quite amazed to discover as a former Protestant once skeptical of what I once viewed as blasphemous superstition, is just one of many.
Littlejohn and Castaldo would do well to study such “motives of credibility” as the Catechism (CCC ¶156) calls them. Indeed, such motives have often served as impetus for the conversion of many.
Why Do Protestants Convert?
By Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo, with Foreword by Carl Trueman
The Davenant Press, 2023
Paperback, 100 pages
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The question perhaps should be: Why would any devout and well-informed Protestant want to belong to an ecclesial community other than the one founded by Christ himself?
As an evangelical convert of almost 40 years I fully understand where they are coming from. It took me almost 20 years to come into the Church. It was a long, slow and painful process. I had many questions and I did plenty of research before making the step that I knew that God was promoting me to take. Once taken, I never looked back and over time (and it did take time) I became very comfortable in my new home. I am eternally grateful for my many Protestant friends who led me to Christ and discipled me and I still respect and love them to this day. There are many narrow minded Protestants just as there are many narrow minded Catholics, but we must accept and love them all. Each of us must answer to the way we lived before the Lord and onlyHe is our judge. As Fr. Mitch on EWTN says “We are in sales,not management “
I believe Fr. Mitch may have appropriated that great line from the late Monsignor William Smith. I first heard it uttered by Monsignor Smith in the 1990s. Chances are, he may have heard it from somebody else even earlier unless he is the originator. All good.
You’ve done dirty the TLM adherents in the same way these authors did Protestants who converted. Perhaps you should get to know the people you insult before you insult them? You may find your insults aren’t necessary, or helpful.
Don’t be a millstone, brother. Know the thing before you deny the thing.
This is so funny. As soon as I heard the words “Taylor Marshall” mentioned, I knew some thin skinned, easily offended cult member would be here in the comments, complaining.
Hi AJ, thanks for the comment. I didn’t criticize *all* TLM adherents, I referred to a certain subset represented by people such as Taylor Marshall. Indeed, I’ve written entire articles praising TLM and its adherents (see, for example, this one: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/01/26/liturgy-and-imbecility/). Moreover, I didn’t “insult” anyone, I made an observation which is quite obvious: *some* TLM adherents view the Novus Ordo and its celebrants with palpable disdain. best, Casey
Dr. Taylor Marshall can indeed go over the top at times via jumping to unwarranted conclusions in his zeal on behalf of traditional Catholicism, but not as much as the caricature of him would lead people to believe, especially as it is unjustly presented by those who like to use him as a whipping boy representative of so-called “rad trads.”
Also, he has indeed exposed some legitimate problems with the Church and Church leadership, and so simply dismissing him as a yahoo of sorts is actually quite ignorant.
Let’s try something for perhaps a better perspective in part:
A Few Thought Questions For Any Catholic reader of CWR Who is Honestly Aware of what Taylor Marshall represents and presents, and what Tucho Fernandez represents and presents:
1. Between these two men, which one would you trust more in terms of teaching perennial Catholic morality to any child between the ages of 8 and 18?
2. Between these two men, which one would you trust more to teach girls between the ages of 12 and 18 how to act like virtuous young ladies?
3. Between these two men, which one sets forth his Catholic understanding of the Faith in the clearer language?
4. Between these two men, which one better recognizes the problems and dangers of the entire Synod on Synodality approach?
5. If a hypothetical papal election came down to these two men, and you could vote, which one would garner your vote based on the following consideration: The person more likely to faithfully fulfill the traditional role of the Pope in accordance with the mandate given to Peter and his successors by our Lord.
I hope that all who sincerely considered the thought questions had some fun and learned something as well to go along with any chuckles.
Regrettably, AJ, it is a fact that many Old Mass devotees are very offensive in their insults of those who attend the New Mass.
I write as one who attends both the New and the Old Mass.
Said the convert John Henry Newman: “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”
Authors Pettyjohn and Castastone bemoan the complexity of the Church which “has more rings than the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos,” when in fact even in the 5th Century St. Augustine could identify eighty-eight heresies (same number as the constellations in the cosmos!). And, when the Church adheres only to its Center–through the Apostolic Succession of bishops with priests as extensions of the bishops.
And, about the unfortunate misunderstanding about the referenced 66 books of the Bible.
The Church recognizes 73 books based on the Septuagint (the early Greek translation), while Luther worked directly from a different collection. The difference being that the Septuagint (ordered by Ptolemy!) is not limited to tribally geographic Hebrew, but includes Jewish writings from the diaspora outside of Palestine, and who spoke more than Hebrew, and who were not limited to a narrower time period. It’s almost as if this whole Old Testament more fully anticipates the New, and the conversion of the non-tribal Gentiles from wherever.
In any event, Pettyjohn and Castastone would be well “to be deep in history,” as Chalk points out, that the canonical Bible existed for 1100 years before Luther simply overlooked (not really a fight?) some Old Testament books, but then almost deleted James in the New Testament–because it speaks clearly of both faith and works.
Casey Chalk demonstrates that authors Castaldo and Littlejohn approach the question from way out in left field. Just one of several, “Littlejohn and Castaldo finger-wag at Catholic exclusion of baptized Christians from communion, an exclusivism that rends asunder Christ’s body before a watching world”. Ending with a penchant of converts for a Gnostic exclusivism. Garbage aside Chalk points to the multiple reasons that the Church draws converts given in Marcus Grodi interviews.
What is interesting is the Gates of Hell riddle, some assuming that the gates keep the devilish barbarians from getting in others that the hellish gates cannot keep the truth from getting out. The latter must be the answer since the devilish barbarians have crashed down the mystery gates and poured in capturing Vatican headquarters itself. Despite the immoral carnage in the streets somehow enlightened Protestants see through the fabrications, outright lies, heresies. Why and how? Most of the new troops read. And actually study documents. And realize there’d be a later time for peace but now a time for war. That Christ has called them to bolster the battered remnants of a once seeming invincible Church.
My late husband (he died in 2020 of COVID, before the vaccinations were available) and I converted from Evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism in 2004. Two years later, our older daughter converted (she was in college in Michigan), and in the spring of 2023, our younger daughter and her husband converted, and had their baby son baptized Catholic.
This new book about Protestant conversion to Catholicism sounds like a hot mess. I will agree that one reason why Protestants convert is that they have been “hurt” by a church or churches. This happened to us, and resulted in our not attending any church for a full year because we were afraid to go to church because our church had literally “kicked us out” on the basis of the testimony of a woman pastor (who a year later was caught in a lie and dismissed from that church). We were accused of heinous things, and when we ran out of that church (during a “tribunal meeting” that included officials from the nearby Big City that we had never met), I saw a vision in the parking lot of a massive Bible that was shearing to pieces, like mica. I realized at that moment that “sola Scriptura” was an evil lie and makes no sense, because every Protestant denomination or “non-denominational church” has its own interpretation of Scripture, and the interpretations differ in so many ways. When we got home, our younger daughter, who was around 16 years old at that time, started screaming when she heard what had happened–her words were, “I tried to tell you! That church is evil! I tried to tell you!”
I didn’t even open the Bible during that year away from church. I was afraid to open it.
At the end of a year, I told my husband that we really needed to return to Church so we wouldn’t be “alone with our faith.” We decided to try a strategy that we had used in the past–attend the church closest to us geographically. The nearest church to us was the Unitarian Church–nope! The next nearest church was 7th Day Adventist–definitely not! The next nearest church was LDS–no way! The next nearest church was UMC–too liberal politically! The NEXT nearest church was a huge Catholic church–well, it’s worth a try and at least we know they’re pro-life.
So we attended a Mass (Novus Ordo), and contrary to what many Latin Mass/traditional Catholics say about the “Protestantisms in the Novus Ordo”, we had no idea what was going on other than the Scripture readings and a few of the traditional hymns.
So we made an appointment with one of the priests and asked him to explain the Mass. He spent around 2 hours with us explaining every part of the Mass and suggested that we attend the parish Apologetics Class that met on Wednesday nights. So we did–and it was being taught by a man who had previously been a pastor at the Baptist church where I grew up! He and his wife actually appeared on Marcus Grodi’s “Coming Home” program!
We studied Catholicism for a full year, and decided to join RCIA so we could convert. Our parents were shocked and horrified, but they had experienced their own problems with Protestantism (a UMC church with homosexual pastors that taught that abortion should be a choice available to women). So after we converted, my father-in-law started attending the daytime Bible study at our parish, and then he started attending the night-time Bible study with me–and he loved it, and the people in the study loved him! He never converted, but when COVID hit the nation, he was thinking about converting, but sadly, passed away a few months after his son (my husband) died. The majority of people at his Protestant funeral were from the Catholic Bible studies that he had attended.
Anyway, I appreciate the review of this new anti-Catholic Protestant book, and hope that many Protestants will see the errors in it, based on their own experiences with the many different brands of Protestantism. I hope they will at least take a good hard look at Catholicism before labelling it “false” or worse.
A remarkable testimony to the Holy Spirit at work. Thanks for sharing, Sharon. I will offer my evening prayer today for the intention of your husband and your father-in-law.
Beautiful story Sharon. Thank you for sharing. My prayers for your husband’s soul.
The best explanation of the reason for conversions in both directions, for me, is from John Bergsma in his book, Stunned by Scripture: How the Bible Made Catholic. He talks of one’s scope and depth of Bible reading, study, and comprehension. “Weak Catholics become Protestants / Evangelicals. Strong Protestants / Evangelicals become Catholics.”
J.M.J.
“It is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesial Communion”, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost” (Filioque), For “It Is Through Christ, With Christ, And In Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost”, that Holy Mother Church, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque ) exists.
“If there’s one thing the pontificate of Francis has demonstrated, it’s the imperspicuous nature of the Roman Catholic magisterium.” Relatedly, they also cite “infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics,” as undermining Rome’s “claim to speak with the living voice of divine authority.”
We can know through both Faith and reason this is because prior to his election to The Papacy, Jorge Bergoglio, in one full sweep, Ipso facto separated himself from The One Body Of Christ, which exists From The Father, Through The Son, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque) and continues to serve as a contradiction to Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching Of The Magisterium, The Deposit of Faith that Christ Entrusted to His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
The facts are: 1) Jorge Bergoglio’s Apostasy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly: “If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin.
Jorge Bergoglio, In Faith, and Reason, is Protestant, thus the only question one needs to ask is how can the election to The Papacy of a Protestant be valid when, all Protestants deny The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, and in denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity?
“It is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesial Communion”, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost” (Filioque), For “It Is Through Christ, With Christ, And In Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost”, that Holy Mother Church, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque ) exists.
Don’t we now call the Holy Ghost the Holy Spirit? Your castigation of Jorge Bergoglio or Pope Francis shows a hardness of heart. I hope to construct a comment on the “perils of remaining Protestant. My Protestant relatives have no plan to be proselytized. Are they destined for Gehenna?
Have you not heard about The Good Thief, who, at the moment of his death, recognized Christ In All His Glory and came late to The One Body Of Christ, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost ,The Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love, That Flows From The Father, Through The Son, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost(Filioque)?
The Catholic Church Calls this “The Baptism Of Desire”.
No, we don’t have to call the Holy Ghost the Holy Spirit. Why should we ignore the fact that it was the way Spiritus Sanctus was translated into English for centuries? English started out as a Germanic language (and has since borrowed liberally from every other language it comes across). In German, Holy Spirit is Heiliger Geist – Geist and Ghost both descend from the same early Germanic word.
“Spiritus Sanctus” is the Latin, and Latin-based languages like French, Italian, and Spanish still use words that are similar to it – Saint-Esprit, Sprito Santo Espíritu Santo.
Ghost is just as valid as Spirit.
Are you next going to insist that we can’t use the word “Holy” because in the Latin-based languages they use variations of “Spiritus?” Or maybe we should be required to use “Ágio pnévma”, which is the modern Greek for “pneuma to Agion,” which is Holy Spirit in the Greek used in the Bible.
Variations on “Sanctus,” I meant. Sorry.
Instructions well taken…
In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
God bless.
“As if Protestants are converting to Catholicism to uncover the hidden secrets of the Norbertines” — HA HA HA
It sounds as if the authors started their book perplexed, did some research and remained perplexed, and then wrote a book about why they are perplexed. They don’t seem to understand even basic points of Catholicism:
‘Littlejohn and Castaldo finger-wag at Catholic exclusion of baptized Christians from communion, “an exclusivism that rends asunder Christ’s body before a watching world.”’
It’s rather rich to accuse Catholics of excluding people from Communion after their founders LEFT communion with the Church and despite the fact that they and their various denominations and factions still don’t WANT communion with the Church. And for political power? Seems to me that Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Al Sharpton, and a lot of other Protestant ministers have the ear of politicians.
What’s most interesting to me is that if I were going to write a book about how people converted FROM Catholicism, it would be about either the things they found in whatever church they joined that they didn’t find in Catholicism (sometimes wrongly), marriage, certain teachings, or things they wanted to do that the Catholic Church didn’t allow. Not ANY of the things this book seems to propose.
You are right. Franklin Graham, Rick Warren, Al Sharpton have the ear of sinful politicians. We are largely silent and complicit.
At a time when many evangelical Christian ministers are supporting Donald Trump in his lies, the U.S. Catholic bishops remain remarkably silent.
So you rather have Biden the “baby killer”?
A Protestant who converts to Catholicism was never chosen or elected by God in the first place….they’re the dishonorable vessels predestined by God before the foundation of the universe.
How do you know? It’s your opinion. How can you be sure? Are you firmly convinced that you’re chosen or elected by God, and are an honorable vessel? What happens if you stray? Does that mean that you weren’t in fact chosen or elected by God and are not an honorable vessel, even though at the moment you are firmly convinced that you are? So how can you possibly know?
It can’t be so hopeless for poor Protestants. If you transfix divisions that way your heart will turn rakish and be forfeited from heaven.
Authentic conversion into the Catholic faith is from fear of God and love of God.
Did God not create man in his image and likeness? ALL of his human creation?
I’m surprised that Carl Trueman would lend his name to this book.
P.S. Grammar nit – last sentence of para. 7 – those who have already swum the Tiber.
Back in the day I used to watch that show often. Could learn some good apologetics watching but what amazed me was whenever they were asked at end of show ultimately why they became Catholic I remember answers mostly like for the “fullness of Truth” “Blessed Mother” the “Holy Eucharist” but not one time did I ever hear anyone say the the most important reason: “for the eternal salvation of my soul” which led me to question whether they were even authentically Catholic to begin or just a bunch of more CINO’S.
Mr. Chalk is disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that Pope Francis’s “actions have altered no magisterial teaching.” He absolutely has radically altered — excuse me, unilaterally “developed” — magisterial teaching on the nature of repentance (now effectively redefined as mere regret), the prerequisites to receiving the sacraments, the compatibility of the death penalty (and, as of just literally yesterday, the waging of war) with the Gospel, the permissibility of blessing same-sex “couples”, et al. Amoris Laetitia and his catechism revisions are major alterations of magisterial teaching, which in turn is grossly contrary to nearly two millenia of once-settled, definitive Catholic teaching.
Now, maybe what Chalk means is that none of these heretical teachings have been *dogmatized*, but they’re still heretical. With Pope Francis, the visible, institutional Catholic Church officially teaches heresy, albeit not (yet) dogmatically. Does this state of affairs contradict Catholic dogma? Of course not; far less does it vindicate Protestantism (which is a distinct set of theological commitments, not mere disagreement with the pope). But it does contradict very widespread simplistic and misleading articulations of the Catholic position, e.g., Chalk’s own claim that Catholics believe that “magisterial teaching is infallible,” No, in fact, this is not Catholic teaching, and never has been. *Certain* magisterial teaching is infallible. As Francis has proven, magisterial teaching is not only not infallible, it can be positively heretical, i.e., it is possible for a human being to culpably sin and be damned for adhering to magisterial teaching.
Now, maybe what Chalk means is that Church’s highest visible authority can officially promulgate (without dogmatizing) heretical teaching, but that such promulgated teaching is not magisterial. Well, that’s fine, but it’s misleading in the extreme to have that qualification in the back of one’s mind and not explicate it. It leaves Catholics and the Church to such obvious criticisms as the ones leveled by Littlejohn and Castaldo.
The fact of the matter is, these Protestant authors have a *point*. For centuries now, popular (even major) Catholic authors have not done a good job in articulating the very limited scope of the Church’s (let alone the pope’s) infallibility, and it’s coming back to bite them in the rear. Before Francis became pope, we just naively assumed that popes would always be orthodox, or would at least refrain from officially promulgating heterodox teaching — but we now know this assumption was false. We need to own up to this instead of gaslighting Protestants who recognize that the pop-apologetic version of Catholicism has no clothes.
Finally, I’m taking for granted, for the purpose of this comment, that Francis is in fact a heretic who has promulgated heretical teaching. I seriously do not believe that a single one of Francis’s professional defenders is a man of good faith and good will. They either know he is a heretic (i.e., they know that Francis’s teaching contradicts the hitherto teaching of the Church) and approve, or else they know Francis is a heretic but pretend he isn’t — i.e., they blatantly lie and mislead — because they fear (wrongly) that admitting this out loud to non-Catholics or to simple Catholic believers will cause scandal. In fact, it’s precisely the opposite: Disingenuous defenses of the Francis’s orthodoxy make Catholics look intellectually dishonest, and as literal idolaters, fearing Christ’s vicar more than they fear Christ Himself.
“Slick” Catholics? The only clergy/theologians I’ve ever encountered that were slick were the smarmy TV Evangelists of the Protestant kind. That’s not to say there aren’t decent and good Protestant clergy or theologians – I know there are – but those TV preachers were icons for slick.
“Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. i give to you the keys of the kingdom and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven” Jesus is founder of the Catholic Church and man is founder of all other Christian denominations. This realization is often the basis of conversion.
Women priests… Does the beat go on?
Seems that Mary Magdalene was at the last supper, but not an apostle. Rabbi Christ’s Last Supper was a Passover feast that included his twelve apostles, all men. Pope Francis said emphatically “women will never be ordained priests”. I have felt that Jesus would never intentionally exclude women at the feast where he broke the bread, his body and changed the wine, his blood. Just imagine what women clergy would do to improve our sacred church.
By nature, women are the nurtures of humanity. They suffer natural “ailments” much more than men with medical and physical challenges, mainly the birth of a God given child. They rarely complain. They are, by far, societies’ heavy lifters. Women were very high in Jesus’ playbook.
The first appearance of Jesus was to Mary Magdalene. Jesus also appeared to these three women. Mary The Mother of James, Salome, And Joanna. After an angel told them Jesus had risen, they were on their way to tell Jesus’ disciples when they met the risen Christ.
I continue to argue that church isolation of women by a handful of old men, many beyond retirement age, is wrong.
“Seems that Mary Magdalene was at the last supper”
Oh? According to whom?
“I have felt that Jesus would never intentionally exclude women at the feast where he broke the bread, his body and changed the wine, his blood.”
How you feel is irrelevant. Your opinion means nothing. Jesus did not make priestesses.
“Just imagine what women clergy would do to improve our sacred church.”
Absolutely nothing. You’ve only to look at the denominations that have allowed priestesses to see that.
“I continue to argue that church isolation of women by a handful of old men, many beyond retirement age, is wrong.”
And you continue to be utterly wrong, and clearly not really Catholic if you are dismissing the hierarchy of the Church through the centuries so insultingly.
Casey,
Thank you for slogging through this book so that I don’t have to. I saw Gavin Ortlund interview the authors of this book on his YouTube channel recently, and was unimpressed on how (I think it was Castaldo) said that in addition to the Scriptures, the Magisterium produces even more documents that need interpretation. He clearly fails to see the difference between persons and texts, which is egregious lack of understanding for someone who holds a PhD in Theology. But if such misconceptions regarding basic Catholic doctrine abound in the authors’ minds, it is no surprise that what’s left is the risible rhetoric which you have brought to our attention. In particular, I loved this howler: “[T]he Roman Catholic Church has more rings within rings than the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos.” I wonder how long they had to think to come up with that one.
What’s most disappointing to me is that it seems, based on your review, that they never found someone like me. I’m converting because I realize that if the Catholic Church is not the church Christ founded, then it’s game over. We can’t have any certainty even on what Baptism or the Eucharist are or do. The only certainty I could have hoped for is the provisional certainty derived from scholarly consensus — until I find another theologian with a specially-named professorship who has a better, more compelling view. But that kind of certainty has no terminus, and is unworkable. I have to become not merely a Christian, but a Christian philologist. And the faith becomes anything but catholic and instead a faith for the scholarly. But most people are not scholars, and should not be. Hence, I began looking for a faith that could accommodate the majority of people in the world who have IQs below 130.
Soon thereafter, I realized that when Christ commissioned the apostles at His ascension, the apostles had to have agreed on baptism, and that they transmitted this faith onward to successors until the present day (just as the early Fathers say). Otherwise, it just me, Chris, Brad, and a host of others pretending to be united under the “gospel” (which is whatever you want it to be, usually justification by faith alone, and divorced from all other major doctrines such as the Trinity, Christology, Sacraments, etc) yet disagreeing substantially with each other on the very things Christ Himself instituted.
What a missed opportunity the authors missed. Once again, thanks for putting the effort to write this review, Casey.
Great review, but let me push back on the “inner corridors” question a bit. Yes, among the rank and file of, say, Hill staffers or working journalists, there are plenty of Protestants, but among elite “opinion-shaping” positions (think: NY Times columnist or Supreme Court justice [currently 6 RC, 2 Prot, 1 Jewish]) it is definitely more respectable to be Catholic than to be Protestant.
Protestants Aaron Renn and Onsi Kamel go into some detail on this:
https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/tyler-cowen-protestants
https://adfontesjournal.com/web-exclusives/the-power-of-the-catholic-intellectual-ecosystem/