This was a recent search string that turned up on my stats page. I don’t know whether or not the person asking this question is still coming by here or not, but I thought it a sufficiently important question to take a shot at answering.
But the fact is - I can’t answer it. I can, however, offer a little guidance.
The question itself is a bit off. It should not be “should I become Catholic?” In reality, the question is, “do I believe what the Catholic Church teaches?” If the answer to this question is yes, then you most certainly should become Catholic. If the answer is no, then you most certainly should not become Catholic.
The trick is to learn as much about what the Church teaches as possible, and then make the decision from that understanding. Some people here have readily accepted the Church’s teachings and are, in the words of one person, swimming the Tiber as fast as they can. Others have their toes in the water as they explore the possibility and try to gain more understanding of where the teachings will lead them.
Alas, I cannot answer your question directly. If you feel the pull of the Spirit then by all means learn as much as you can. Approach it with an open mind and an open heart, and with vast quantities of prayer, and you can’t go wrong.
Mark, first let me say that I really do appreciate the work you do on this blog. It's helpful to me. This question is going to sound more hostile than it really is, but what is it that the Catholic Church actually teaches? What is the content of the Magisterium? It seems the more I learn about Catholicism, the more I know about Catholics' opinions, but the less about the actual teaching of the Church.
This isn't a criticism about individual Catholics not knowing their faith (although such criticisms could be made in many cases) or about wacky priests and bishops teaching things I don't agree with and pointing to this section of the catechism or that papal encyclical to justify it (although there's plenty of that going around, pretty much no matter how you define "wacky").
Rather, my point is that the Church has a history spanning 2000 years, 200-plus popes (all with a charism of infallibility under certain circumstances), 20-plus ecumenical councils (likewise) and countless bishops, by which many, many things have been said and taught. It is exceedingly difficult to determine what is permanent, enduring and obligatory in all that teaching.
This is especially so given that (as Cardinal Newman might have said) doctrine develops, and it takes some doing to figure out whether a particular development is a valid and necessary extension of the core truths that went before, or rather an illegitimate innovation. The Church's teaching today may look an awful lot like the diametrical opposite of its teaching a hundred years ago, or a hundred years hence, in many respects. That's not to say a smart theologian couldn't reconcile and harmonize apparently opposite teachings, but rather to point out that we obviously don't know what harmonizations and reconciliations our great-grandchildren may devise, or what legitimate theological opinion of today may become a dogma of the Church of tomorrow. How can I make the Catholic profession of faith -- how can I profess to believe *everything* the Church proposes as divinely revealed -- if I don't and can't know what those things are?
(And as if that weren't enough to perplex anybody, there are the Eastern Churches -- not the Orthodox, but the Melkites and the Maronites and the other Eastern Rite Churches sui juris in communion with the Pope. They just approach a lot of theological issues differently than the Latin Church -- again, not necessarily so differently that a smart theologian couldn't harmonize East and West, but I suspect they would put the propositional content of the Catholic Faith rather differently than the Council of Trent did. They might even disagree about the number of ecumenical councils -- seven or over twenty -- and whether Trent was one; not sure whether that's a legitimate opinion, or how I would know that.)
This is, candidly, part of why I find the argument from unity for Catholicism and against Protestantism (i.e., we're one Church with an infallible Magisterium and you're 30,000 competing sects with no way above private judgment to determine who's right) so unpersuasive. The Magisterium seems like an awfully slippery and protean thing, almost as useful as private judgment in making any argument I want to make. Where are the boundaries outside of which I must not stray, and what are the postive propositions which I must accept? That's the question, put more polemically than I could wish.
I agree, it is very confusing to pin this all down. Especially about the Eastern vs. Roman churches.