My Case for Catholicism

I grew up Lutheran, in a fairly liturgically traditional but liberal church.

It was in my crisis that I turned to my faith for substantial answers to my torment, and I realized that I had never chronologically read the New Testament and didn’t have a very substantial intellectual faith footing. I knew the stories and had a good relationship with God, praying daily for as long as I can remember, but I admittedly didn’t know the substance of the Christian faith so I dove deep into scripture and adjacent readings (Jack Miles’ God and C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity).

There is no other answer to the above in Protestantism because of the individual interpretation and study of scripture, but the Catechism and official teachings of the Catholic Church would have spared me the months of research and struggle.

Reading scripture also raised questions about the meaning and implications of the text, especially when there were seemingly contradictory or confusing messages, and this is where I turned to where I always had for the intellectual and historical answers— the Catholic Church.

In this, I realized the real value of Apostolic Tradition and the magisterium as the arbiter of scripture and theory, and in turn began to recognize the Catholic Church as the true, uninterrupted tradition of Christianity.

If I knew in my heath the Catholic Church to be the true Church, I had no choice but to follow that.

Now, even without that, the Catholic Church overwhelmingly has better faith infrastructure for worship and works which is very appealing for me. In Protestantism, almost every physical church is a different form or interpretation of Christianity. In the Catholic Church, that same Apostolic Tradition and hierarchy means that there are Catholic Churches, and non-Catholic Churches, with far less variation between the Catholic Churches. This is a great benefit to its members.

Finally, what I mean by works infrastructure is that the central authority means that the Church can be the largest non-governmental healthcare provider in the world with its network of hospitals, and have vast resources of service in nursing homes and care facilities, homeless shelters, charities, schools, and universities. It just seems incredibly effective and Christlike.