Conversion: January 2007 Archives

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.