Some Catholics Just Don’t Understand: Thoughts on the New Evangelization

In my conversations with Protestants and fellow Catholics, in my own experience leaving and returning to the Catholic faith, and especially in watching my wife on her journey to Rome, one thing has become painfully clear. Most faithful Catholics simply do not understand Protestant reasoning. Moreover, they fail to grasp the degree to which anti-catholic sentiment truly reaches. Even for those who recognize on some level the opposition to Catholicism, too often they can’t wrap their brains around the notion that many catholic practices that they assumed were universally held would actually be repulsive to some otherwise faithful Christians.

A clarification is in order. In using the term “anti catholic,” I don’t mean to imply that fundamentalist Christians hold any hatred or malice toward Catholics (though undoubtedly, some do hate what they believe the church teaches and practices). Rather, I simply mean that they are opposed to the catholic faith. At times, vehemently so.

The One True Church

What is truth? Is there one true religion founded by God? Is there a single church established by Jesus Christ? These are hard questions that Christians must ask — and answer — if they are to find the full joy and love of God the Father through the Son.

During my time outside of the Catholic Church, I became convinced that truth was relative. I knew that the church I was attending wasn’t doing it for me. The best way I could describe it is to say that my flame wasn’t being fanned. The fire was lit, but it wasn’t burning very bright. I also knew, intuitively, that this shouldn’t be how a deep love for God should be expressed.

Truly, Madly, Deeply

As a happily married man, I know all about love and what it should feel like. The longing, the desire, the need. I want to be with my wife all the time, at all hours of the day. I need her. I desire her. I long to spend as much time with her as possible. I also knew that, if marriage was an extension and expression of God’s love for us, a profound love of God should manifest itself similarly. But I wasn’t feeling that.