Why I'm Joining the Catholic Church

I recently had someone ask what prompted my conversion to Catholicism. For those of you who are interested, here's my answer.

Short version:

Basically, I wanted to find the most Biblically and historically accurate denomination. When I looked into the Catholic Church, I couldn't refute it... and what I discovered in my research eliminated any other options I would have considered.

Long version:

I grew up non-denominational in PA, and am adamantly against the "Eternal Security" doctrine, so prospective churches were slim when I moved to Clarksville. I went to 5 in one day.... wasn't a fan. Visited the Catholic Church here, liked the homily on unity, and felt at home. That was about 3 years ago. I've been attending irregularly for the last 3 years while keeping my eyes open for a "good" non-denominational Church. Never found one.

Somewhere along in there, pretty early I think, I figured that logically it would be closest to the early church since all the other churches branched off of it... and, the closer I got to the root, the closer I would get to what Christ originally intended, right? Made sense to me.

I was spending about 1/2 my weekends in Nashville at that time (Rick). So, even though I started the RCIA process a couple times, I wasn't really ready to commit to being here to attend them every Sunday. I did a little study here and there for a while.

When Rick moved to Chicago I figured this would be a great time to really buckle down, do some research and make a definite decision. (I was getting tired of messing around and not knowing.) My goal was to set aside any previous biases, and give the Catholic Church a purely logical trial (which I think I did pretty well at, though I got a little emotionally involved during the last month or so), and hopefully find reason that their doctrine wasn't true. I figured that since the church is supposed to have infallible teaching authority, then disproving one dogma would allow me to dismiss the whole faith. (And I KNEW Mary had other children. How hard could it be?)

So, lots of reading later (I LOVE John Salza and Scott Hahn, btw!), I think I've tested most (if not all) the major doctrines that differ from basic Protestantism, and have not been able to disprove any of them. (I was wrong about Mary's other children.) Further, my research has led to satisfactory proof (for me anyway) of several of the doctrines that I never thought I'd accept.... primarily transubstantiation, purgatory, papal authority, and lots about Mary. Beyond that it's undermined the two foundations of Sola Scriptura, and Sola Fide. Then, it's helped me understand how illogical it is to accept the Bible without accepting the Church that wrote, compiled, and defines it.

So it kinda left me with nowhere else to go. I mean, how could I go back to being protestant when the two foundations of protestantism crumbled before my eyes, and I found so much support for Catholic truth?

(When I say Catholic truth, I mean the Biblical dogmas as well as the history and the support of the early church fathers.)

Beyond that it was just beautiful. Everything I learned was just absolutely beautiful. The relationships, the covenants, the sacraments, the symbols, the practices, etc.. Like, I almost felt like a cultist because "beautiful" was the only word I could think of to describe it. I kept being reminded of the European Emperor who was petitioned to join several different religions and he sent his men out to investigate each of them. When they returned from investigating Christianity, they told him that it was so beautiful that they didn't know whether they were in heaven or on earth.

I had consulted several people or references (generally non-denominational) to help me combat the Catholic doctrinal proofs that I was finding. It didn't help much. There were either unsupported assertions, or arguments that I'd already dismissed. The best feed-back I got was from a gentleman that suggested I check into the Eastern Orthodox... So I did.

I was really surprised to find that they see eye to eye with the Catholic Church on almost all of the main doctrinal issues. They were so similar that I definitely considered it an option for a while. I visited w/ a couple Orthodox presbyters and took about a month looking into the Orthodox doctrines and history.

I finally decided to convert to Catholicism on March 19th after resolving two main questions about Orthodoxy. One was papal authority, which I found too much support in order to dismiss... and not any concrete refutation. I'm thinking the other was either the doctrine of original sin, or the canonization of scripture.... I can't quite remember.

At any rate, it was just after 9am, and it was the first time I remember feeling confident in my decision. Questions about Orthodoxy have come up since then, but I believe that there is enough evidence that I am making the right decision.

I hope that's what you were looking for.