Conversion Stories

I feel the same way. Many times converts to the Catholic Church are the best witnesses and apologists. Here are four names: Augustine, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Scott Hahn.

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Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue. ~ St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva.

I'm a revert. But I strayed into Calvin and Luther (what a mix). This thread is wonderful.

Aren't we making Bart Brewer's day?

I'm a Recovering Lapsed Catholic. It took me some time to find the right phrase for me. I had to decide between that, Recovering Cafeteria Catholic and Recovering Oblivious Catholic.

I'm just glad I'm back and I think it is so amazing that it is around the time there seem to be sooo many converts and reverts with such an enthusiasm.

My starting point was when I watched the Beautification of Mother Theresa, when there were only whispers about some movie Mel Gibson made. Now I feel like I see God's signs everywhere and all in BOLD and OBVIOUS ways. I feel like I would delibratley have to dig a whole a bury my head in it to try to ignore them. Even then I bet the Holy Spirit would still pull me.

I was a catholic-criticizing generic protestant who is coming over to Catholicism. God just put it into my heart one day... I'm awfully grateful for it

Actually, I kinda call myself a "revert". I was raised Catholic (if you can call it that) and my family left the church when I was in middle school. I ended coming back into the church about 3 years ago after being challenged by a good friend and briefly investigating the history of the church and Christianity as a whole. I was in fact, Episcopalian before I came back home to Catholicism. For me, simply looking at the "fruits" of the various faiths (apart from the fruits of various members of those faiths) sent me running back to the Church.

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Their own opinion has misled many,
And false reasoning, unbalanced their judgement.
-Sirach 4:23

I came into the Church from the Southern Baptist Church in 2002

I'm also a recent convert. I was initiated on Dec 14th of last year, and it was a tough decision to turn Catholic: I still get some unnecessary garbage from protestants.

I first turned Christian about 3.5 years ago and attended various churches (methodist, anglican, pentecostal, baptist, presbyterian, reformed, etc). I primarily was part of a charismatic/pentecostal denomination but eventually I made the decision to turn Catholic despite the long wait and the frustration of being virtually the only protestant among Catholics. I just couldn't refuse the Church after what the Holy Spirit did to me: I was shown the beauty of the church through the teachings of the Church

-Jason

Michie,

My immediate family wasn't particularly religious. They were basically Christian, and my mother believed that the United Pentecostals were probably right, but we didn't go to church. Around 18 or 19, I started to attend a UPC church and was baptized. However, I had questions about Bible contradictions, whether their interpretations were correct, and about whether tongues are really necessary for salvation.

I looked more into those issues, despite the warnings from my church to not seek knowledge because it will destroy your faith. I also read about evolution, and concluded that creation science was false. After doing some research on the Bible, in particular reading Richard Elliot Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible," I realized that Moses did not write the pentateuch and that the stories of Genesis are contradictory and compiled from different sources, so it cannot be taken literally. Because I believed that either the Bible was literally true or else there is no God, I became an atheist.

Over the years, I began to believe that there were possibilities outside of Bible literalism and atheism. I was intrigued when I saw an NAB Bible, which had a description of Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis (the JEDP theory), which I had read about in Friedman's book and embraced. And I liked that the Catholic Church allowed belief in evolution. I thought of converting to Catholicism years ago, but it occured to me around March and the priest told me that I would start the process in the Fall and finish at Easter. By that time, I had lost interest.

When I met my fiancee, I considered myself a Unitarian Universalist. I hadn't been to many of their services, but I liked how they embraced a sincere search for the truth regardless of your beliefs. When my fiancee decided that she wanted to get married in the Church, we called around and found the local RCIA program.

As far as the Eastern church goes, I am part Russian. I attended a Greek Orthodox and Catholic wedding a couple years ago at a Greek Orthodox church. I was interested in learning about the Russian Orthodox, but I didn't like the idea of standing the whole time and no pews. When I found that there are Eastern churches within the Catholic Church, I was interested but never pursued it. I remembered it when I began RCIA, and thought about finding such a church. Luckily, one was only about 10 minutes away from my home.

i'm a new convert from Baptist to Catholic. and will be starting RCIA in sept

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I am a revert; baptized Catholic at 8 yrs old and due to lack of spiritual formation, I turned skeptic/mason and after tons of prayers from family and friends, guidence of the Holy Spirit, and a hard inner struggle, I (thanks be to God) converted back the Catholic Church.

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I try not to respond to moronic posts.

"A Catholic can either continue on the failed and uncertain path of seeking to overturn Roe, which would result in the individual states doing their own thing, not necessarily, or in most states even likely, protective of the unborn. Or Senator Obama’s approach could be followed, whereby prenatal and income support, paid maternity leave and greater access to adoption would be relied upon to reduce the incidence of abortion."
-- Doug Kmeic