Once upon a time, RL asked a very pertinent question. Unfortunately, I completely missed it at the time. Therefore, in accordance with my glacial writing speed, here’s the extremely late answer.
Well, ok, perhaps I should post the question first…
“Where are the boundaries outside of which I must not stray, and what are the positive propositions which I must accept? That's the question, put more polemically than I could wish.�
One question I’ve heard often is how to handle your own conversion with family members. It’s come up on this blog, I’ve heard about it asked on Catholic radio, and seen it in other places. I have no magic answer here, but I thought I’d open a thread to see if anyone else has any ideas.
One thing I did hear was to ask a third party to talk to the reluctant family members. I suppose this is a good idea as far as it goes. To me it seems a bit more complicated than that (and it’s going to depend a great deal on the individual situation).
When I told my mother that I was going to convert, well, let’s just say that the expression on her face will remain with me to my dying day. She was disappointed and suspicious (and, I suspect, still is). But one thing I did was present it as a fait acompli. I presented it as “I am going to convert,� rather than, “I’m seriously thinking about converting.� I think the finality of it saved some argument.
It’s a serious problem for some people, so I thought it might be useful to open a thread and see where it goes.
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.
Some of you may have encountered Rod Dreher and his departure from the Catholic Church. It’s been all over the Catholic Blogosphere for a few days now. I, however, don’t get out much, so I didn’t see it until yesterday.
I’m not going to comment on Rod or his departure directly. I know Rod, though not well. Our sporatic correspondence goes back two or three years to around the time he moved to Dallas. I’m not going to comment directly here because I’ve already commented directly to Rod himself. Anything I say here may get painfully close to disclosure of private information, and I don’t really want to risk that.
But Rod’s well publicized departure brings up an interesting point on the submission of an individual to the Church. The Pontificator has an excellent post on the subject. There are plenty of others as well. But the important matter for a potential convert is this: properly understood, conversion to Catholicism is a one-way trip.
There’s an interesting scene in the Return of the King. It’s during the victory party after Helm’s Deep. Aragorn and Gandalf are in a corner of the room, with merriment and celebration going on all around them.
Aragorn: No news of Frodo?
Gandalf: No word. Nothing.
Aragorn: We have time. Every day Frodo moves closer to Mordor.
Gandalf: Do we know that?
Aragorn: What does your heart tell you?
Gandalf: That Frodo is alive. Yes. Yes, he's alive.
Over the past six or seven days, I’ve gotten several e-mails that have a common theme. Each has some variation of…
“I feel drawn to the Catholic Church, but…"?
“I’d convert, but I can’t get my head around…"?
“I would dive in, but I have a knot in my gut when I consider the doctrine of…"?
Conversion is, in a very real way, an intellectual process. Eventually, you have to get your head around the teachings of the Church to accept them with real depth. However, it’s a mistake to make it an exclusively intellectual process.
A guy I know is going through a very public discernment process. He is trying to decide whether or not his family will convert to Orthodoxy (if you know of whom I am referring, please don’t say...let us give him what peace we’re able). He has a blog and has posted on the subject several times. On each of those occasions, he’s gotten lots of comments and even more e-mails. I have refrained from commenting directly as this is a very personal decision, but I did send along one piece of advice via e-mail:
How can you possibly hear the whispers of the Spirit when everyone around you is shouting advice at the top of their lungs?
The same basic idea applies to everyone. It is important to get your head around the teachings of the Church, but it is equally important to consult your heart as well. Sit quietly in prayer, and listen for the whispers of the Spirit. If you don’t hear them, don’t panic. They’ll turn up at another time, probably when you least expect it. Or maybe you’ll just be guided to your proper place. But if you go through a conversion as a primarily intellectual process, then it’s likely to turn into a sterile, dry and incomplete thing.
What do you do if confronted with a teaching that you cannot accept - when you are asking Gandalf’s question, “Do we know that"? Stop for a moment, take a break, and in answer turn to Aragorn’s question: “What does your heart tell you"? Seek the answer in stillness, quiet and humility, and eventually you will find your way.
From A Friendly Questioner in the comments below: Thank you, Mark. Well, Anglicanism and Catholicism have been split from each other these 500 years, but are still quite comprehensible to each other, like the Norwegian and Danish languages. The creator of that split was a bloody, whim driven, thieving, lecherous tyrant, whose legacy if repudiated by a modern Anglican makes that Anglican a repentant large "C" catholic in good stead, no extra lessons needed, or does it?
I picked these off of a single combox on MCJ. They are from the post where Christopher Johnson was kind enough to announce the existence of this blog. Here’s a brief sampling:
This idea has brought up a great deal of passion each time I’ve mentioned it. It is, however, such an important concept that I want to mention it early in the existence of this blog. When I wrote about worthiness before, I got one of two reactions. First, people shouted at me, “How dare you say such a condescending thing."? Second, people wrote to me privately to say, “That’s exactly how I felt for many years."? So, I would like everyone to keep a level head when reading this post. It is an important concept, especially for Anglicans.
