Catholic Conversion Story of the Day

The always good From Burke to Kirk and Beyond... has a link to a great Catholic Conversion story. Go see his link Great conversion story... . It recounts a the story of a man from the 60's counterculture that became Catholic.

His last paragraphs are for me like looking in a mirror and one reason I like it. It is sort of a Catholic Conversion story for those that have been around the Catholic block a few times. Or to put it another way for Catholic Converts that sadly discovered Life was going to throw us some painful roadblocks and yes that is indeed St Paul said our Salvation is indeed a life long Race. The parts I bold ed might as well be me in some regards.


It is, indeed, "not always easy to see that vision." It is with real sadness that I compare my closing paragraph above to a remark I made to a friend a few years ago: that my relationship to the Church is now like an unhappy marriage. That is putting it perhaps a little too darkly, but it’s accurate with regard to one aspect of that relationship, which is the liturgy. I have a deep and intense need for liturgical worship that is rich, dignified, and mysterious. Although I found quickly enough that I could not remain in the Episcopal church for doctrinal reasons, the Book of Common Prayer (those parts which have not been made drab by modernization) and the Anglo-American hymn tradition comprise the most powerful expression of Christian worship in the English language; certainly it is the most deeply affecting to me.

I am not going to dwell here on the problems with the Catholic liturgy and especially with Catholic music. They have been discussed until every one involved is bitter and exhausted and unspeakably sick of the subject. The comparison to a bad marriage is very applicable here, specifically to the stage when the combatants have ceased to expect anything at all of each other.
This may seem a frivolous complaint, and perhaps it wouldn’t matter so much if I were indifferent to liturgy or never had any trouble in my life. But when trouble comes and there is no comfort to be found in the place that is not supposed to fail of comfort, dessication of soul follows. (Yes, of course, there is sacramental grace, and no doubt that has kept me afloat; I’m speaking of the subjective experience.)

Moreover, I have not found, humanly speaking, an especially comfortable community in the Church. This is not the Church’s fault, but rather a function of my own eccentricity. Nevertheless it is a fact, and an unhappy one. And then there is the fact that the Church is so divided, so that those of us who believe the faith more or less as it was traditionally believed and taught find ourselves in continual combat with those who would have the Church revise its doctrine along the lines of liberal Protestantism.

In sum, I regard the Church as having, at bottom, two reasons to exist: to maintain doctrine and to worship “in spirit and in truth.” And when one feels that one must struggle constantly to find these things in the Church, is it any surprise that the temptation to abandon ship is strong at times?

But in spite of all this I can say with some assurance that I will never leave the Church. I still believe everything I believed in 1981, and more. The fact that I have not found the road to be smooth and pleasant does not mean that it is the wrong road. There is, simply, nowhere else to go. “Lord, to whom else should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” I can imagine ceasing to be a Christian—and a few years ago in a period of serious depression I was in some danger of doing so—but I cannot imagine becoming a Protestant. (Orthodoxy would be a possibility, at least from the doctrinal point of view, but I don’t believe I could ever give myself to it as I have given myself to the Catholic Church.) If I ever cease to be Catholic, I will cease to be Christian.

Nor, despite my disappointment and my grievances, have I ever regretted for a moment that I became a Catholic. When I look back at my life thus far it often seems like a long string of sins, mistakes, and missed opportunities. But my adoption of the Catholic faith is not in this list. If there is any thing I’ve ever done that I believe was unquestionably the right thing to do, it is this.

As I take stock of what I have said here, casting about for a final summation, a couple of lines from a more recent Bob Dylan song come into my mind and assume an unexpected significance:

Summer days, summer nights are gone
I know a place where there’s still something going on