Why I Became Catholic (In Spite of Hating Religion)

For most of my life I had about as well formed an animus toward religion as could be conceived. Then, one day, people saw that I’d become a Catholic. How did this happen, my readers and listeners have wanted to know? And why, of all things, Catholicism? Why not, like, anything but Catholicism? Why not Buddhism? Why not Confucianism, or Islam

In this podcast, and subsequent post, I am going to do the best job that I can, given the brief space that I have, and in the most forthright manner possible, to offer support for the primary reasons I decided to become Catholic.

OR, ==> CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE.

Resources mentioned and referred in the podcast and below:

Christ Founded a Visible Church – Dr. Bryan Cross

Why Protestantism Has No Visible Catholic Church – Dr. Bryan Cross

Early Church Fathers on The Eucharist 

The Resurrection of the Son of God – N.T. Wright

People have often asked me explain why I became a Roman Catholic after many years of being an atheist. They wonder why of all the religions I wound up on Christianity and how such a thing as this could possibly have edhappen to a person who was so deeply irreligious–in fact, so anti-religious–for so long; it almost seemed like a miracle, a few have said.

But if they are Protestant, they wonder why I too didn’t become Protestant. Or, if they are some other religion (like Hindu, or Buddhist), they wonder why I converted to a faith that has such a long history of corruption and malfeasance and some very mean and nasty people associated with it. My answer is always the same: I became Catholic for the simple reason that Catholicism is, well, true. Once that conclusion was reached, what else was I supposed to do? What else could I have done?

My story traces back to the sixth grade, when I watched the collapse of the twin towers. Having been so existentially, I then dedicated myself–became obsessed with, really–all the big, hairy questions in life: Most particularly, why am I here?

These ontological growing pangs caused me to take an early interest in philosophy. Ironically enough, it was my study of philosophy that originally brought me away from whatever slim faith I had at the time. It wasn’t until my feet out of the muck all those grim existentialists that philosophy brought me right back in again, thanks to thinkers like Aristotle and Aquinas. But that is a story for another time. Today, I want to focus solely on how I came to be Catholic, or, not just to how I came to belief in God generally, but a very specific type of God: The Christian God.

For a time, I thought of Catholicism in the same way many do today: A perverted institution, hell-bent on controlling people. I was, for, oh, I’d say a decade or so, one of organized religions major antagonists. I spoke out against Christianity in general (knowing next to nothing about it), and Catholicism in particular (knowing literally nothing about it), whenever the opportunity presented itself, and often when it did not.

And yet, here we are: baptized, confirmed, and awash in the Holy Spirit. I’ve gone Full Metal Catholic: I attend mass near daily, make my weekly confession, and have since been married in the Church. Things are good. Better than they’ve ever been, in fact. I really cannot explain how much becoming Catholic–and accepting and practicing Catholic teaching–has changed my life in terms of meaning and purpose and clarity and joy. It wasn’t easy. It still isn’t easy now. But God gives you the grace to get it done, so long as you’re willing to accept it, and make efforts to understand why God wants us to act a certain way, and believe a certain. God only wants what is really good for us. 

The reason I became Catholic? You’ll have to allow me to skip ahead a bit, since there’s a long, tangled history of soul-searching that went on before I came to Christianity in general, a history I’ve covered in many places. But once I arrived at the truth of the incarnation, Catholicism took hold of the lowest rung on my list of options. Like many, it was difficult for me to see the Catholic Church as anything other than a fattened, man-made institution, plump with hypocrisy, and seemingly money-hungry. And so, I ignored it for as long as I could. 

That said, I was already so humbled at becoming a Christian, that I wouldn’t say Catholicism was completely out of consideration. The fact I’d come to believe what Christians believe (generally speaking: Incarnation/atonement), after so many years of rejecting it and mocking it, caused me to want to keep an open mind over everything. Even Catholicism.

Either way, when I first asked the question of “which, if any, ‘form’ of Christianity is true?” it was with me me leaning in the direction of Protestantism. In fact, before we ever went to a Catholic Church, my wife and I (and kids) attended various Protestant congregations, from Lutheran to Evangelical and so on. Some of them were very nice and pleasant to be in. A few of them were a little bizarre; strange not so much in how they practiced, but in what they believed. I was shocked at how liberalized some of the Protestant teachings had become. One church even rejected the divinity of Christ, which caused me to quarrel with one of the pastors at a group dinner. Now, you might expect that rejection coming from some person who is not a Christian–in fact, that’s what ought to be expected, in that case (I don’t see how somebody could accept the divinity of Christ and not become a Christian. That said, here’s an argument for it.), but it’s amazing why anybody who is a Christian would ever believe that. 

Before I left, I said to this woman, “I am not yet certain of everything a Christian is supposed to believe, but I am fairly certain that no Christian is supposed to believe that.”

After running into so much doctrinal and theological inconsistency throughout Protestantism, I decided to take a step back and have a deeper (or, in the case, wider) look. I asked the question–as, in fact, many Protestants themselves ask–of what did the earliest Christians believe?

That question is what eventually led me to Catholicism.

“To be deep in History, is to cease to be Protestant” – John Henry Neumann

The argument for Catholicism can be advanced in a number of ways, but here I will discuss only two.

First line or argument: That Christ intended to form a church, and that church would be visible, hierarchical, and unified. Next, that the best historical evidence we have shows this church to be the Catholic Church by way of 1) apostolic succession and 2) papal authority.

Second line or argument: The fundamental difference between Catholics and protestants is the mass practiced as a form of sacrifice, as well as the claim that Christ left us with a sacramental relationship to Him (that is, God working through “stuff”–or attaining the spiritual through the material.). Next, that the best historical evidence shows that the earliest Christians not only practiced the mass as a form of sacrifice, but a sacramental religion grounded primarily in the real presence of the Eucharist. In other words, that the Catholic Church just is the earliest church. In other words still, that the Catholic Church just is the very church that Christ founded.

Please be patient with me. These arguments are more historic than philosophical, so greater amounts of evidence will have to be given to support the claims I have made. But remember his: My goal is to share what converted me and get a curious party started. I cannot cover every angle or objection in one post. But I do believe I can make a substantially plausible case for why Catholicism is true.

We’ll begin with the first line of argument:
That Christ intended to form church that is visible and hierarchical and unified.

Let’s start with the following Scriptural support:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18;15-17)

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one Body in Christ, and individually members one of another. (Romans 12:4-5)

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the Body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the Body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the Body be? But now there are many members, but one Body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the Body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the Body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the Body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the Body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ’s Body, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:12-31.)

He [Christ] is also Head of the Body, the Church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. . . . Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His Body, which is the Church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. (Colossians 1:18,24.)

And He [God the Father] put all things in subjection under His [Christ’s] feet, and gave Him as Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:22.)

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him, who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole Body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16.)

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the Head of the Church, He Himself being the Savior of the Body. (Ephesians 5:23.)

So. How should we interpret these passages? To me, the answer seems obvious, especially when each passage is considered in light of the other: Christ intended to build his church on the rock of Peter–that is, the very first Pope; the institution of a vicar–and to establish a visible and hierarchical body. This mystical body was meant to be a unified whole, as described by the very language and analogy of a body by St. Paul. It would be composed of parts and with each part playing a separate–but important–function. The Catholic church, then, is just such a unified whole, since you cannot take away the idea of a unified whole and still have the Catholic church. The “church”, however, in the way Protestants conceive of it, is not a unified whole, but a disparate collection of congregations and affiliations and believes. Nothing about the way Protestant churches are conducted would change–or have to change–if the notion of “unity” were removed from it. But this is not true of Catholicism; take away the notion of unity and there would no longer be a Catholic church. Catholics are unified not just in their visible partaking of the Sacraments, but also in what they believe.

Before we move along, we must realize this debate is of fundamental importance. If the Catholic Church is right, then any person who is not a part of the Catholic Church is literally separated from the body of Christ. That means it does not matter how “personal” anybody “feels” their relationship to Jesus is; they are not having a relationship to Jesus in the way Jesus wanted them to. They are basing their faith on their own subjective mood, rather than the objective truth delivered by God. All that, of course, IF the Catholic Church is right–a position I am still attempting to argue for. I put it in such terms as these not to be unnecessarily polemic, but to draw attention to what I believe is an utterly serious matter and one that should be considered openly and honestly by any person who truly loves God and wants to follow Him. It was a statement very similar to this that once caused me to seriously consider the claims of religion in general. 

Moving on.

It is a philosophical mistake to think that because things are of the same or similar “type” this makes them a unified whole. But that is not the case. To be a unified whole means that something must be irreducibly unified, like me–Pat Flynn–as a person (you cannot remove the whole “of me” and still have the parts without fundamentally changing the world–that is, killing Pat Flynn.). Philosopher Dr. Cross gives a concrete example of this:

“One way to determine whether something is an actual whole or merely a plurality of things having something in common, is to determine whether everything could be exactly the same, including all the alleged ‘parts,’ except without the alleged ‘whole.’ If the ‘whole’ can be removed without changing anything about its ‘parts’ and without changing anything else in the world, then there is no actual whole, only a mere plurality. If there is merely a plurality of things having something in common, and not an actual whole, then we can remove the alleged ‘whole’ without needing to change anything in the world. But if there is an actual whole, then in order to remove the whole and leave the parts, we would need to change the world. For example, in order to remove me and leave all my parts, you would have to change the world, by reconfiguring my parts such that I was dead. But in the case of the alleged entity composed of all the apples in the world, we can take away this whole without needing to change anything about the location, arrangement or motion of any apple in the world. And this shows that in actuality there is no such entity, that is, there is no whole composed of all the apples in the world. If someone used the word ‘Panapple’ to refer to “the entity consisting of all the apples in the world,” then by this test we would know that the term ‘Panapple’ does not refer to an actual unified entity consisting of all apples. Instead, we would know that the term refers to what is in actuality merely a plurality of things, each sharing unity of type.”

Protestant congregations would be just as they are minus the notion of a unified whole. Nothing would have to change; nothing, in fact, even would change. But not so with the Catholic Church: The idea of a whole, both hierarchically organized and visible, is essential to the Catholic Church and therefore, to the mystical body of Christ, for they are one in the same. You cannot have the Catholic Church without the notion of a unified whole.

Borrowing again from Dr. Cross, who quotes St. Ignatius (circa AD 107) on the matter:

“Where the bishop is, there is the community, even as where Christ is there is the Catholic Church.”

And…

“As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do anything without the bishop and presbyters. Neither endeavour that anything appear reasonable and proper to yourselves apart; but being come together into the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent. Therefore run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one.”

We can see it too in St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (d. AD 258):

It must be understood that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop and he is not in the Church who is not with the bishop.”

As to another instance, however, there is the matter of church discipline as explained by Christ Himself. In the passages above (now quite a bit above; Matthew 18; 15-17) we have a clear basis for excommunication based on any number of affronts, something which can only make sense in an actual, visible, unified, and hierarchically ordered church.

These passages are difficult if not impossible to make sense of in light of the Protestant view of the church–a person can simply schism if they do not agree with doctrine or would prefer to practice their faith some other way.

But how do you even determine that it is a schism, rather than a branch? It seems impossible to say on the Protestant view. All of church discipline is then essentially for not if you do not see the Church as a unified, visible and hierarchical whole. It is not a mere congregation, a gathering of worshipers. Jesus already mentioned them, but then said you must move go beyond “one or two others”–and bring it to the Church–to have the matter settled. This passage can only make sense in view of a church that is visible, hierarchical, and unified. 

To summarize: I believe there is both significant scriptural and early historical support that Christ not only intended to form a visible and hierarchical church, but that church has persisted even to today, as Christ promised it would. And that that church is the Catholic Church.

Second Line of Argument: The Eucharist

There are a couple of very definite and peculiar things (I’ve come to learn) that separate Catholics from Protestants, but central among them would be the practice of sacrifice offered in the form of the mass. Catholics believe the mass as celebrated is the preservation of the traditions of the earliest church (which Catholics say just is the Catholic Church), whereas Protestants say that such a notion of sacrifice is, well, sacrilege. A very big part of this comes down to the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is really and truly Jesus Himself–the doctrine of “real presence”, or the “transubstantiation” of the bread and wine into body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. (Philosopher and mathematician Alexander Pruss recently gave a formidable argument for this.) This is one of those great mysteries of faith, and not something that can be reasoned out, in and of itself. It can only be reasoned to by establishing that this is, fact, what Jesus promised and asked us to believe.  

So, the question (or questions, as the case may be) then, for me, was this: 1) Did the earliest Christians practice the mass, 2) did they see it as a form of sacrifice, and–most importantly, to me, anyway–3) did they believe in the real presence of the Eucharist, which are just all the things that Catholics believe today? It was by studying this question that I came to rather fantastic conclusion that the Catholic Church had been right all along.

Here is what I came to realize. I do not see how any person can searchingly investigate the Church Fathers (read: earliest Christians) and not come away with the firm conclusion that all of them were Catholic. And while I leave much of that investigation to the reader,  I’ll provide a few examples that initially got my attention, and which ultimately led to my conversion. (Note: The purpose of this post is not to complete a full apologetic project for the Catholic faith, but to present some of the evidence that, in a gradual way, brought me into the Catholic faith.)

One of the first documents to command my interest on the matter was from St. Clement, or the third successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome (aka the third Pope.). Allow me to share the passage with you, now.

“Since then these things are manifest to us, and we have looked into the depths of the divine knowledge, we ought to do in order all things which the Master commanded us to perform at appointed times. He commanded us to celebrate sacrifices and services, and that it should not be thoughtlessly or disorderly, but at fixed times and hours. He has Himself fixed by His supreme will the places and persons whom He desires for these celebrations, in order that all things may be done piously according to His good pleasure, and be acceptable to His will. So then those who offer their oblations at the appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed, but they follow the laws of the Master and do not sin. For to the high priest his proper ministrations are allotted, and to the priests the proper place has been appointed, and on Levites their proper services have been imposed. The layman is bound by the ordinances for the laity.”

…

“Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its Sacrifices.”

St. Clement, bishop of Rome, 80 A.D., to the Corinthians

…

From this, a series of (at least to me) startling realizations: First, the language of sacrifice is patently undeniable–there is no getting around it. What the earliest Christians celebrated was a form of sacrifice. Second, the clear acknowledgement of apostolic succession and–particularly in this case–papal authority. All this, even before the books of the New Testament were finished, let alone assembled. By most historical accounts, the Gospel of John hadn’t even been written yet.

This is strong evidence (I think), but not the only evidence.

Next: The Didache or “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles,” used by second century Bishops in the instruction of Catechumen.

“Let no one eat and drink of your Eucharist but those baptized in the name of the Lord; to this, too the saying of the Lord is applicable: ‘Do not give to dogs what is sacred'”. (Pat’s note: People occasionally wonder why Catholics don’t admit to communion those who aren’t Catholic. The answer: They never have.)

-Ch. 9:5

“On the Lord’s own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks; but first confess your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure. However, no one quarreling with his brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled. For here we have the saying of the Lord: ‘In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a mighty King, says the Lord; and my name spreads terror among the nations.'”

-Ch 14

Next: The writings of St. Ignatius, also from the 1st and 2nd century.

“Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.”

Letter to the Smyrnaeans, paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A.D.

“Come together in common, one and all without exception in charity, in one faith and in one Jesus Christ, who is of the race of David according to the flesh, the son of man, and the Son of God, so that with undivided mind you may obey the bishop and the priests, and break one Bread which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote against death, enabling us to live forever in Jesus Christ.”

Letter to the Ephesians, paragraph 20, c. 80-110 A.D

“I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.”

Letter to the Romans, paragraph 7, circa 80-110 A.D.

“Take care, then who belong to God and to Jesus Christ – they are with the bishop. And those who repent and come to the unity of the Church – they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren: if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (Pat’s note: That’s troubling…) If any man walk about with strange doctrine, he cannot lie down with the passion. (Pat’s note: Perhaps even more so…) Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons.”

-Epistle to the Philadelphians, 3:2-4:1, 110 A.D.

…..

Next, from St. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies.

“Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul (Pat’s note: This, mind us, long before Catholicism had anything to do with Constantine); as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority.

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes.” (Against Heresies, III.3.3)

[Pat’s Note: Notice the corroboration in Irenaeus of Clement as the third Pope.]

From here, I leave the rest of the investigation up to the reader. I trust that any person who looks into these matters with an open mind and honest heart, will arrive at a similar conclusion: That the first Christians were all Catholic.

These, to be sure, are controversial claims (isn’t everything?), and possibility agitating/irritating/annoying to any devout Christian who isn’t a Catholic. I don’t mean to be offensive. My hope is these claims are intriguing, as they were intriguing to me, even if they’re initially irritating (as they were to me). But they are claims about as well evidenced as any can get (particularly from that time), and there is zero evidence to the contrary; one cannot find a single example of any person denying the real presence in the Eucharist (or the mass as a form of sacrifice) until at least the year 500–a heresy which the Church was able to more or less successfully combat until the eruption of Protestantism.

Trust me when I say this: I would have gladly accepted a “way out” of becoming a Roman Catholic, if I believed the evidence was either against it, or undecided. But that isn’t the conclusion I reached. And it’s not the conclusion many well known Protestant converts themselves have reached when looking at what the earliest Christians believed. The evidence appears to me a preponderance: The more one studies the beliefs of the earliest Christians, the more one discovers the teachings of Catholicism.

Moving ahead: The fact that the Catholic Church has thus preserved these essential teachings and doctrine throughout its nearly two thousand year history, throughout all the turmoil, corruption, and admittedly (at times) abhorrent leadership–the fact that that could even happen, and has happened–was overpowering evidence to me that this must be the Church which Jesus Christ had founded. There is no way that any institution –less it be divine in origin — with that much debauchery over the years could have done what the Catholic Church has done in preserving the great truths of Christianity, if that church was merely the construction of men, and not guided principally by The Holy Spirit. It would have fallen apart and degraded into confusion and falsehood. It would have become heretical.

But the case can (and should) be taken further. It is one thing to see that the earliest Christians just were Catholic, and that at the very beginning we have all this corroborating material, not just on the mass as a form of sacrifice and the real presence of the Eucharist, but for confession, Marian devotion, papal authority, and so on and so forth. It’s all there, ready for any person willing to have a look at it. And why shouldn’t a person be willing to have a look at it? Surely it is reasonable to admit that based on the evidence I’ve provided here that what I say is at least possibly true. And to the extent that any of this is even possibly true, shouldn’t a person devoted to Christ do whatever they can to see if it is really true? Does such a deeply ingrained bias against Catholicism justify a person committed to Christ to stop seeking the truth about Him? I would certainly hope not.

At this point, however, a person may be wondering why I haven’t overmuch referenced Scripture in support of this. And the reason for that is, well, there are a few reasons, actually. First, most of what I’ve referenced (apart from Scripture) is so close to Christ Himself (first and second generation Christians, some of whom lived right alongside the apostles, and were students of them), that these beliefs were held, practiced, and promulgated, even before the canon of the New Testament was closed, some of it before certain parts of the New Testament had even been written. (For more extensive arguments based on Scripture alone for the teachings of the Catholic tradition and faith, I’d recommend something like Why We’re Catholic, from Trent Horn, himself a convert to Catholicism. Also Catholic Apologetics by Fr. Peter Kucer.)

But let’s shift our focus a moment, and have a look from the other side, or what I found to be the primary problem with Protestantism: The rejection of any interpreting authority outside of the Bible. This, I just couldn’t make sense of. Ultimately, I found the notion of Sola Scriptura (“by Scripture alone,” with no reference to any external authority or traditional) to be both 1) circular and 2) self defeating.

Here’s how conversions based on that premise will typically go: I’ll quote a passage in the Bible–say, Jesus building his church on the “rock” of Peter, and giving him the authority to bind and loose sins. Then, I’ll say that passage is evidence of not only apostolic succession and papal authority, but the beginning of the sacrament of confession (how is one suppose to forgive sins if one doesn’t know what those sins are?). The Protestant might object (as they almost certainly will), and say it actually means something entirely different than what I (as a Catholic) think it does. A third person might enter the conversation, and say it means neither of what either of us have said, but instead should be interpreted as a great (but totally different) spiritual truth in the light of what Gautama the Buddha preached, or, say, the gnostic gospels. How is the matter to be settled? Well, it doesn’t seem like it ever can be, at least not so long as we are claiming that Scripture is the only authority. Because what then–or who–is to say that my interpretation is any more or less fallacious than the Protestants, or our friend the Buddhist?

Patrick Madrid (who was recently on my podcast) exemplifies the Sola Scriptura predicament by having us examine the following sentence:

I never said that you stole money.

But what does that sentence mean, exactly? And, how do we know? Does it mean: 1) *I*  never said that you stole money? 2) I never *said* that you stole money 3) I never said that *you* stole money 4) I never said that you stole *money*? The problem is without some greater or external contextual understanding/framework/authority, we really have no idea what that sentence is saying. Now compare that one otherwise simple statement with the entirety of the Bible. Which do you think is more liable to misunderstanding?

Further, with regards to Sola Scriptura:

1. There is nothing in the Bible which tells us what books ought to be in the Bible. (Perhaps I want to pull some books out, or put some other books in, like a page or two from Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. Perhaps I *feel* like this is what the Holy Spirit is telling me. Who’s to say that I’m wrong? Luther wanted to rip books from the Bible. In fact, that’s just what he did–books that were in the Septuagint at the time Christ. Christ didn’t see it fit to remove these books from the Bible, so why did Luther?)
2. There is nothing in the Bible which tells us we should go with the Bible alone. (There are many passages which state the opposite–but again, whose interpretation is right?)
3. Jesus never wrote anything down (aside something wholly ambiguous in the sand.)
4. Jesus never told anybody else to write anything down.
5. Jesus did not leave his Apostles with the New Testament when He ascended to heaven. For the earliest Christians, there was no “Bible” (as we know it) for them to defer to. This means we must either say that 1) they weren’t really Christians (if we’re to say that Christianity is solely a religion of the book, as some, but not all Protestant denominations claim) which is, frankly, absurd, or 2) that tradition has merit, which is to say that there must be some external standard of authority, which is just what the Catholic Church has said all along: By the Word of God alone (as opposed to the Bible alone), through both Scripture and tradition.

For me, the whole debate came down to this: By tearing the Bible away from the tradition of the Catholic Church, the Bible was made subjective. It became whatever people wanted it to be–and they read it however they wanted to read it–hence the now tens of thousands of Christian denominations in existence who cannot agree on just about anything. But if God exists, then truth exists. And that truth is objective, not subjective. So, if the Bible has any truth in it at all, that truth must come from a proper understanding–an interpretation that is, in other words, valid and binding regardless of any human opinion. But how are we to get to truth in the Bible? Empirically, it’s clear that Scripture is not self-interpreting. If that were the case, then there would be no disagreement. But there is disagreement — a lot of disagreement. So, there must be some other way of getting the truth out of the Bible. But you cannot get the truth out of the Bible by going with the Bible alone. Sola Scriptura isfalse. But the only alternative to Scripture is that of Scripture and Tradition.

This is not a complete account–there is more to the story–and my conversion didn’t happen overnight. The process for me was stepwise. But for any person who has curiously wondered why I became, of all things, Catholic, I hope the picture is now becoming clear.

– Pat

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