How not to become a Catholic

This is the first installment of how a former Protestant leader crossed the Tiber.  

             James Tonkowich

A little over a year ago my status changed. Having been a Presbyterian minister for over twenty years, I became a Catholic layman.  How that happened is a long story.

In a nutshell, though, reading a Catholic author here, meeting with a priest or two there, befriending groups of faithful Catholics, and attending lectures, meetings, and (occasionally) Mass all added up. At the same time, my questions about the viability of Protestantism in a post-modern environment became more pointed and my answers more frightening. The Protestant mainline, oldline, sideline is in theological, moral, and cultural freefall as it approaches becoming little more than a sideshow. And the evangelicals, I believe, are not all that far behind.

This, of course, didn’t occur to me overnight. My journey to the Catholic Church happened over the course of about twelve years—eight asking increasingly uncomfortable questions and four praying very hard and asking more uncomfortable questions.

Again, it’s a long story. On the other hand, how to keep the same thing from happening to you is a shorter story.

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