By Jonathan Sonantis

Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

—Salve Regina

My conversion from Evangelicalism to Catholicism started about seven years before I finally converted. I was a standard Evangelical who had a conversion experience around the start of middle school. A year or two into junior high, however, I began a journey that would take me to where I am today. I began reading Scripture and became confused because what was apparently revealed by Scripture seemed to conflict with what reason and science told me. With the help of family, I was put in touch with some very helpful resources to which I owe my ultimate entrance into academia. I resolved to investigate my faith fully and go where reason led.

Fast-forward four or five years to my first year of college at Iowa State University, where I was very happy with some amazing Evangelical campus ministries but continued in my insatiable quest for the truth (read this less in an arrogant Indiana Jones way and more in a tortured cognitive dissonance way). Luckily, Brandon Dahm and some other friends of mine put me in touch with the philosophical and theological work of Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic school of thought (I think I owe my love affair with Thomistic philosophy in part to the early mentoring of Brandon; he has my deepest gratitude). It cannot be overstated how eye-opening this experience was. Before I was put in touch with Thomism, I had vague, so-so arguments for the various truths of the Christian faith, of whose soundness I was sort of convinced. After I had been shown the light of Thomas Aquinas I could see the truth of the faith and the integrated whole that the faith is. It was beautiful. Perhaps I was on an immutable course from this very discovery. Perhaps the cognitive dissonance I had had in being Protestant and having such a deep respect for Aquinas pushed me into the obsessive investigation that would be resolved on the feast of Pentecost in 2012. One might say that this is where my journey to the Catholic faith began.

Then again, a year later I discovered the free online audio library provided by Peter Kreeft. I suffered from mild insomnia and would often put one of his lectures on as a way to absorb some interesting facts while I was failing to sleep. (Check out “The Spirituality of the Sea”! It is life changing.) I listened to hours and hours of this and was greatly edified as a result. Then I noticed Kreeft’s lecture on ecumenism. I first thought, “What the heck is ecumenism?” To get an idea of what ecumenism is, think of Pope Francis’ papacy. If I were to attempt to describe his papacy in one word, that word might be ecumenism. Ecumenism refers to the attempt to unite the various sects of Christianity.

Kreeft’s talk gave me a real passion for the problem of Christian disunity. During the Last Supper, Christ prayed for a much deeper unity among Christians than is in principle possible in Protestantism. How deep a unity, you ask? Well, Christ asked the Father “that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you” (Jn 17:21). This is pretty intense unity. The Father and the Son have the same intellect and will. This is much more than a vague spiritual oneness that simply fades the moment any theological question of substance comes up. At this point, maybe I saw at some level the impossibility of this kind of unity in any Protestant sect and had some sort of implicit argument about Christ not desiring and praying for things that were impossible. One might say this is where my conversion began.

Around the same time, I was getting more deeply into my philosophy degree and looking for ways to keep reading and thinking about Aquinas in the midst of my many other classes. I met Ed while taking a philosophy of physics class, and we got to talking about our mutual interest in Aquinas and in starting some sort of discussion group. It was in this group that some of my deeply ingrained anti-Catholic bias came up against the brutal truth: Catholics are Christians, and devoted ones at that. The months I spent with that group interested in Thomas Aquinas (who would guess that they were nearly all Catholic?) made it impossible for me to continue to believe that Catholics are not Christians, and at the very least I had to abandon the view that Catholics are the bogeymen they are made out to be. This time cleared away many of the ridiculous misconceptions I had of the Catholic faith (e.g., that Catholics are idolaters) as I continued to deepen my understanding of Aquinas’ philosophy. One might say that this is when my conversion to the Catholic faith began.

There are many other events that contributed to my conversion, such as my e-mail correspondence with Peter Kreeft and Jay Budziszewski on various issues and perhaps my reading of the resources with which they put me in touch. But I would classify none of those things as the beginning of my conversion. The beginning of one’s conversion is different from the beginning of one’s being convinced of the truth of Catholicism. All of the above were important events along the way to my being convinced of the truth of Catholicism. But my conversion began differently.

There is yet another Kreeft connection here, however. There was a moment in his lecture on ecumenism that nagged at me for a long time. Kreeft said, “Baptists are learning to love Mary and pray the Rosary, and Catholics are asking, ‘Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?’ ” This line really bothered me. Really? Baptists are learning to love Mary and pray the Rosary? I needed to look into this. For the next few days (neglecting to go to class as often as I should have, as often happened in those days) I obsessively investigated the Mary thing. The first and easiest point to determine was whether praying the Rosary is worshipping Mary and therefore idolatry (hint: it is not). The Rosary is a very interesting devotional practice that centers on three things: (1) the Our Father, (2) the Hail Mary, and (3) meditation on important events in the lives of Christ and Mary.

The only thing that produces worry regarding Mary worship or idolatry at all is the Hail Mary. There are three parts of the Hail Mary to consider in discussing whether it is idolatrous. First, there are the nearly direct quotations from Holy Scripture. This part is easy. If it is okay for the angel Gabriel to say to Mary, “Hail, full of grace”, and for Elizabeth to say, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Lk 1:28, 42), then it is okay for us. The second part of the prayer to consider is the “Holy Mary, Mother of God” part. As a Protestant, I thought Mary was special and set apart (though not yet convinced of her sinlessness), so it was no problem to call her holy. Further, it is a simple corollary of trinitarian theology that “Mother of God” is true of Mary.

Then comes the third and final part. “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Well, there is no harm in asking someone to pray for you. This leaves the question of whether it is possible for Mary to pray for us. Well, at the time (because I did not understand the beatific vision) I thought this depended on Catholics’ being right about the Assumption of Mary, so I was off down a rabbit hole. The biggest criticism of the doctrine of the Assumption is that it did not arrive early enough. The idea is that the doctrine arrived on the scene so late that it cannot be considered authentic apostolic Christian doctrine. It had to have come in due to other influences.

But this is not true, and there are some clues here. The first thing I noticed is that no one in the Church has ever claimed to have body parts of Mary. You can pick anyone else important in any way in Church history, and there will be numerous relics claimed for that person. The strikingly odd fact about Mary is that no one ever even claimed to possess knowledge of where Mary’s body is. This is not a knockdown argument for the Assumption, but it makes it more probable and establishes the early origin of the doctrine. (I had not at this point been put in touch with the evidence that veneration of Mary dates back to the early second century.)

Further, I reasoned that Mary’s being sinless and preserved from Original Sin would make a doctrine such as the Assumption fitting. But it stands to reason that Mary would be preserved from sin. Christ was put on Earth and is meant to have been morally perfect. In entrusting his divine Son to an earthly mother, God would certainly choose a very virtuous person, free from sin, if he wished his Son to be fully human and fully virtuous to the extent of going to the Cross for man’s sin. Further, while pregnant with Christ, Mary housed the divine presence, and we know from the Old Testament that having sin made it impossible to survive even being in the divine presence, let alone housing it. Mary was probably sinless (assuming Christianity is true), and thus the Assumption is fitting, and it is fitting that Mary is in heaven.

This, along with the discovery that Jesus calls departed Old Testament faithful alive while defending life after death to the Sadducees (Lk 20:27-38), as well as some Thomistic philosophy, convinced me that it was possible for Mary to pray for me and for me to ask her to do so.

Satisfied that the Assumption was not crazy and that even if it were false, Mary could pray for me, I decided to give it a try. This was the start of my conversion. I prayed the Rosary for the first time. It was probably the most beautiful prayer and meditation of my life to that point. Contemplating the torture and death of Christ moved me to tears as I asked our Lady for her intercession. You see, the Rosary exemplifies beautifully one of the important truths about Mary. Always and in all that she does, she points past herself to her beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. During the Rosary, one contemplates the Incarnation, life, death, and Resurrection of Christ. It is a beautiful devotional practice and moves one toward virtue.

Now, being the stubborn rationalistic fellow that I am (and, more frankly, fearing the consequences of taking the big Catholic leap), I found those few items of Catholic doctrine of which I was not yet convinced, used them as an excuse to squelch the spirit awakening in me, and stopped thinking about the issue. After all, I would soon be heading to one of the best Evangelical schools (Southern Evangelical Seminary) to further my studies.

While studying at SES, I repressed my changing views, although I see now that I tended to use humor as a defense mechanism. When having serious discussions about the nature of the Church, I would half jokingly say, for instance, “Obviously it’s the bishops in union with the Pope”, when discussing the nature of the Church. This was quite hilarious in context, but you will have to take my word for it.

This “ignore it and make jokes about it” strategy was working swimmingly as a defense mechanism, but over time the last remaining problems I had with Catholic doctrine eroded away. I became solidly convinced of the real presence by carefully reading Scripture, among many other things.

Then came the influence of a wonderful man and historian. Wayne Detzler taught one of my favorite courses at SES—a course in Church history with a concentration on theology. Detzler taught the course with such gentle scholastic aplomb that I felt comfortable voicing nearly all of my remaining questions on Catholicism and my doubts about the official Evangelical line on various issues. After his honest and frank discussion of my questions, I had almost nothing left to object to in Catholicism. By the end of the course my defenses were all but gone.

This all left me in a very precarious position. I was convinced of nearly every Catholic doctrine while desperately trying to suppress the allure the Church had for me. I felt that whatever I did, whatever convinced me, I certainly could not become Catholic, because Catholicism was the enemy. It was a bridge too far. I did not want to be drawn in by, and convinced of, Catholicism.

At the time, I was taking many interesting philosophy classes and working on my thesis, so I was able to ignore and push down the impulse to run home to Catholicism. I became more confident in my philosophical work. Little did I know that the universe had conspired (in consultation with God and, I am sure, with the intercession of our Lady) to shake me from my willful slumber.

A friend of mine was going through similar doubts about Evangelicalism and being drawn to the Church in a somewhat different way. He came to me in confidence, voicing some of these doubts, but I was not very helpful, as my answer to most of his doubts and questions was “I agree” or “The Catholic Church seems right on that one.” This conversation, though, made me unable to continue in my slumber. I remembered how important a decision it was, and, further, I realized that, in my final objection, I had been holding myself to epistemic standards that were too high.

That final objection against Catholicism was the vague assertion that people have charged popes with contradicting each other. But I know people have accused the Bible of contradicting itself, and I have not required myself to investigate every extant or possible accusation before believing it. To be sure, I would have to look at several representative examples before placing much confidence in such a thing. That I did. Nearly all accusations of papal contradiction failed to understand the conditions of papal infallibility, and other cases misread one or another of the popes in question. The final puzzle piece was in place. I could no longer in good conscience stay away from the Church.

I began going to daily Mass and began the process of official conversion. It was then that I really discovered all the things that many attribute to being the cause of people’s conversions. I noticed, for example, the beautiful connection to history and the amazing sense of the sacred in the liturgy that is missing in much of Evangelicalism. God had guided me to the right decision, and I had perhaps the greatest personal growth period in my life as a result of this conversion. I had found the truth, and I had found my home. Catholicism is the true Church, and now, I am happy to say that it is my Church.

Sunshine and Roses?

But it’s not all sunshine and roses. The one thing I would like to change about my journey is to include my wife in the process. The case is a little more complex than that, but the upshot is that I failed to adequately keep my wife abreast of the growing developments in my consideration of the issues surrounding Catholicism. Part of this was because it was an uncomfortable subject to discuss, but the other part was because I was yet in denial about my budding conversion until very late in the process.

Part of it, I think, was also my misconceptions regarding how widespread anti-Catholicism was in Evangelicalism. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of people out there who, if you begin discussing the issues surrounding Catholicism, will view you as going through a temptation or having a “struggle.” These are not the people to talk to, but there are a lot of people who are very open to understanding what’s going on with you, provided that they can be assured that you aren’t doing any of the things that Catholicism is falsely charged with being. That is, there are probably many people in your life who, though you might worry that they will cut you off or stop talking to you if you convert or think seriously about converting, can be disabused of the caricature of Catholicism that many of us held at one time or another. It will take discernment, but I think finding these people and having serious discussions with them is also a very important part of the conversion process. It is a part of my conversion that I unfairly neglected, and it is one of my main regrets in this whole process. I pray that God will bless all of you wherever you are in your long salvation journey, and that, if you haven’t yet considered seriously the possibility that Catholicism is actually correct, you will give it a long serious thought. Don’t believe every charge you see in Evangelical circles. Search out the answers yourself, and, with God’s grace, you will be on a similar journey to mine. God bless!