Before we begin, I wish to welcome you here by the Grace of God, to seeking a wider and local opinion. We have all lived experiences that have shaped our views of society and ourselves, and I consider it a privilege that you would take the time to consider my stance on a controversial decision to become Catholic. I hope, that on reading this, many of you will experience the same, and through our commonality, this experience can be real and can propagate such that all who are lost in their Christian faith may be saved.
A Lie
I wish to begin by making this point as clear as possible to all Protestants who are reading this. You may have grown up in a Christian family, and came to your local church because you—like me—were guided by the Holy Spirit. He was pushing you to rekindle something that was lost —or are losing— in hope and in grace that you will seek it and attain it once more. This church you attend, the church which the Nicene Creed quotes as:
[The] one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
This church you attend, this church you have known throughout almost your entire life, is not the true Church. The Church, as we know it today, has been fragmented, displaced and split into torn and battered corpses.
I left the Protestant churches because I am utterly sick and tired of the glibness, the cowardliness, the shallow ignorance and the lukewarm rhetoric of who Christ is. I am utterly sick of the TED Talks and concerts that these churches pretend is glorifying God. The Catholic church, with its smells and bells, has offered stability and clarity (—and authority) of who Jesus Christ was, who He is, and who He will be in the times to come.
The Political Capture of the Church
When you move to a new city or a new place, it can always be apprehensive to find a suitable church (“my church” so to speak). Typically, you set out on finding a church that suits your needs in relation to the church’s focus on worship or prayer or family and community activities. For me, it became apparent that what I was searching for was a conservative and traditional community, routed in the clear message of Jesus Christ. I do not know what gave me this criteria, except perhaps the vision that where I go must be routed in a connected community. Substantially, this criteria could not be dissimilar from that of a politically conservative criteria.
So why I did choose the Catholic Church? For mere political reasons?
I have recently discovered that the political is not merely “mere”. What I noticed about the political is that it has ultimate downstream and upstream effects of how we view society and ourselves. What Protestants value the most is DEI, immigrants and refugees, the gays and trans, the abortionists and the feminists. When the conversation of questioning these topics are discussed in a church, it is immediately painted as “political” and cast aside.
“Oh we shouldn’t talk about politics…It’s too political for me…I tend to stay away from politics…”
Furthermore, when Pride Month or Black History Month come around, they promote it, display it and even fund it. “We don’t want to talk about it because that stuff is too ‘political’, not in accordance with Scripture”. Rather, “we don’t want to talk about it because our politics are already established.” They have already chosen a side.
You might argue, well that isn’t part of Scripture, my church focusses on the Word of God, and that’s enough for me. It is often more important to see what a church is not talking about rather than what it is.
In the words of Adlai E. Stevenson I:
"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
The political sphere is what shapes your daily decisions, your choices and your views of yourself and others around you. If the political has a deep affect on how people talk about you, and who you are, and how you view yourself, then yes! That is something I have a stake and an invested interest in.
Aristotle talks of the political as the “master science”, he writes
political society exists for the sake of noble action, not mere companionship.
This noble action is a ultimately a religious motto: a Christian motto. If we are to bravely enter the political sphere as religious conservatives, then making noble actions are one which we must bear. Noble, not of pride, or of imposing our individual beliefs, but of noble actions for the benefits for all.
If this is case, why wouldn’t or how couldn’t a religious perspective shape your politics? (Why is it that every Muslim unanimously hate Israel and support Palestine—and for that matter Hamas?)
I was a Man on a Fence
There was a story I read called the Man on the Fence. The story is about—well—a man on a fence. Jesus was on one side of the fence and he approached the man and asked him to join His side. The man politely declined and said “I’m on the fence”. Then, Christ and His followers left the fence and walked back into the distance, leaving the man alone. Later in the evening as the sun was going down, Satan comes from behind the man sitting on the fence, from the other side. Satan asks him to join him and his followers. The man replies “No, I’m on neither side, I’m on the fence. “ Satan says “That’s OK, I own the fence.”
When you take the stance of being “apolitical” or when you take the stance of being on nobody’s side, somebody else picks it for you. The people that pick your side for you usually don’t have your best interest in mind and I would bet that they are forceful, narcissistic, and tyrannical. I think we can all agree that the Left, after damaging property, rioting, starting destructive protests, sexually abusing children, funding abortions, harbouring illegal migrants and criminals, the Left is the side that holds and protects such values.
I won’t elaborate too long on the moral of this story but it’s fairly obvious what is happening when you don’t pick a side: the side is picked for you. Christ does not force people to come to Him, but Satan will sure as Hell force himself on you.
The Real History of the Reformation
We now turn to a brief history of the Reformation and another form of people having their beliefs enforced.
There are two main principles of the so-called “freedom” that the Protestant Movement has maintained: Sola Fide ("By Faith Alone") and Sola Scriptura ("By Scripture Alone").
Sola, meaning “by oneself”, an individual. Indeed, in Government, it’s vital that we see each other as individuals rather than belonging to any race or class of people. When the Government has stepped in, or introduced legislation which —on the surface—seems good and non-discriminatory, the system usually has the opposite effect and discriminates far more harshly than if the law was not there in the first place. This is evident with the growing DEI practises which directly excludes white men from society.
Martin Luther was surprised to find that his sola interpretation of Scripture was different to others. One of the biggest and most controversial divides came from Luther’s partner and most prolific supporter, Calvin. Where Luther believed in complete free will and by faith you may be saved, Calvin believed that God had already chosen who He would save (”predestination”).
You might believe that the Protestant Reformation was a call for religious freedom and a global liberation from the tyrannical claws of the Catholic Church. This is simply not true. The Reformation was a separatist movement, adopted largely by Scandinavian and central European kingdoms, which would result in a separate State religion under the rule of each kingdom’s monarch. What seemed to be a movement of liberty and national identity instead became a separation from the Church, with each nation having unelected and unordained (and unvetted) clergy, deacons and bishops in control of the national State. No longer was the King’s allegiance held to the line of St Peter himself, but rather his own interpretation of scripture (”Scriptura”) and whatever he feels fitting to be aligned to God (”Fide”).
What is not further discussed is how these movements were often exploited by Kings and nobleman to gain enormous amounts of political power in their country and in their subjects. Without the people’s consent, the monarch’s subjects were forced to renounce their loyalty to the Pope and to the Church, cut themselves from Christendom and many who abstained were slaughtered and displaced. Kings became the self-elected heads of their own church and their subjects were religiously bound— by law— to be under their spiritual rule of the monarch. If this was religious freedom, I couldn’t possibly imagine what real freedom looked like.
These divisions took place again more and more times, when taken to it's very end, will make everyone their own Church and each and everyone of us our own Pope.
This fractionation, this cutting and splitting and dissecting of the Church of Christ has happened so many times in the Protestant Reformation that I have come to one conclusion: the Protestant churches, and everyone in their body, are dead. The churches have become so split that they are actually blooded corpses, laying aside in the dirt and the fog.
What has further happened, is that the Left have taken this dead corpse, tied strings around it, lifted it up and pulled its strings around its limbs such that it would imitate a church like a mangled and disfigured old puppet. It walks like a church, it talks like a church, but it is by no means a Church.
Today, after hundreds of years since the Reformation, we are now expected to believe that this "pastor", this self-righteous and self-elected man, is wise and profound because he can gather a few people in a room and twist their attention at his will. We are expected to believe that by giving tithes to this man (—and sometimes to his bejewelled wife) we will have blessings of our own. We are expected to believe that this tied up corpse can motivate us to transform our lives, drive us to new understandings of ourselves, and we are expected to believe that his explanation of us is the Truth.
What else is this stringed corpse doing? This puppet of ministers and pastors weave and stitch Bible quotes together to feed a patchy leftist narrative for their congregation to eat, to believe in, and to follow.
Victim groups make victims their heroes. In the UK, when pastors speak of the poor and oppressed, they speak in a Marxist perspective. When about low-skilled immigrants who hate this country, we should have mercy to the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:18) as oppose to not bending the law to his favour (Deuteronomy 24:17). When about women in the Bible, they will yield it through a feminist lens and justify the women’s independence and disdain for the men in her life.
I am utterly appalled at what the Protestant churches have become in the UK: a drunken orgy of the unfaithful posing as the faithful.
Catholics eat the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, so that we may be filled with His Spirit. Protestants stuff their faces with Leftist and Socialist junk, so that they may vomit and embody the Devil.
What has this Body become other than a puppet to be glorified?
Every Protestant church in the UK has been captured by the Left. Every single church unanimously believes in so-called Gay and Transgender Rights. Every church believe we should have free speech —as long it doesn't offend anyone. Every church believe in hiring DEI practices, showing how inclusive we are to the BLM and diversity mobs. Every church believes in the Feminist agenda, that women should be strong and independent, not needing any man, and simultaneously be a slave to the corporate ladder. Every church tolerates delaying marriage for the sake of money and "financial stability". Every church either believes that it is OK to murder your own baby, or that they are too cowardly to comment on it.
There is a huge dilemma in the Protestant movement that has culminated and led to the disaster in our culture that we all are witnessing today. Protestants refuse to address the cultural problems of our day and give a message that may rectify them. Instead, if you still do not believe me, maybe you could answer the following questions:
When was the last time your church leaders encouraged young men and women to get married?
When was the last time your church leaders discouraged ideas of Feminism, or did they begin twisting the word of God to appeal to the independent women who doesn't need a man?
When was the last time your church gave you a clear message of Hope, Faith and Charity?
When was the last time your church rejected Race as the primary optical factor in justice and the prime mode of embodiment?
When was the last time your church gave everyone a clear and unifying message about who Christ is, rather than just some minor theory of who He was?
When was the last time your church leaders actively encouraged young couples to get married and have lots of children?
When was the last time your Church responded to the growing crisis of young women eager to kill their babies?
When was the last time your church actually and explicitly said that men and women are different and need each other?
When was the last time your church actually did anything according to the Spirit, and not in accordance with money, attention or power?
If the answer is never, your church has been lying to you about who God is, about who Christ is, and ultimately who YOU are.
I am not saying that the Catholic Church is absent of it's faults. It’s a human institution. The very evidence of its faults and its continued existence demonstrates that—even in despite of our errors—God will not give up on us.
Furthermore, there are homilies and addresses I deeply disagree with. The Archbishop of Liverpool declared Racial Justice Sunday and purported DEI practises in the Novus Order Church. In response to thousands of Pakistani Muslim gangs raping, grooming and even killing young British white girls, the outrage across the UK, he claimed, is instead a form of "islamophobia". The Muslim community has hidden behind that word for generations, but that is a topic for another time.
Conversely, neither am I knocking the achievements of the Protestant Reformation completely. The Protestant movement and the Evangelicals abolished and ended Slavery across the World. They led the single biggest transformation and the core realisation of self Governance which formed the United States of America. They have also fuelled many of our scientific achievements during the Enlightenment and motioned for radical advances in science, art and humanities. However, what I am knocking is that this liberal movement is finally coming to its natural end and I for one will not be a part of it.
Youth
As a young person, I trusted many of the institutions that branded the cross and elevated themselves as Christians in order to meet other young people. Notably, I trusted my University’s Christian Union (CU) that they would provide a solid platform for sharing the Gospel, being tolerant to understanding and offer a clear vision of Christ. Instead, CU is nothing more than management corporation, designed to create illusions and imaginations, promote propaganda and warp the message of God. I trusted CU would not be just another puppet for the worldly machine, that cranks out workers and scatters their followers in the fog.
I attended CU because, after all, it is “Christian”—it’s in the name. Their leaders spoke loudly and clearly, with confidence and with a deliverance that was impressive. Those who went to CU also went to church and said things such as “I’m living for Jesus,” and “Praise God” and “God’s love and kindness”. They offered the usual image of Jesus as though he was some powerless socialist hippy.
I attended CU. What did I find? I found sad, lonely, porn-addicted boys with no leader or spiritual father, no channel of trust and no structure of where to look or go. I found unsatisfied, spiteful and deranged girls who give their “heart and soul for Jesus”, yet can never seem to find the “right man” to agree with her Feminist, crystal worshipping, star-sign discerning, diversity and anti-racist, socialist views.
There was another side to CU I could not help notice. All of the managers of CU were self-elected business managers. They were capable with collecting money and managing people, but none of them had any background in theology or divinity (why would they?). All of the young women I met were extremely hesitant to even the idea of marriage, and would prefer to exchange the possibility of children for the luxuries and indulgences that a high-flying corporate career can offer: all of them were stark feminists. Many of the young girls were adamant supporters of abortion, one calling it a technological “gift from God”. Is CU unique in the so-called “Christian world”?
Not at all, I’ve been to hundreds of Protestant churches and met many communities, all of which have welcomed views of transgenderism, abortion, mass immigration and taxing the rich. To many of you, none of this is new. Your church is refusing to stand against these insidious claims of Being for the simple reason that they worship a powerless socialist hippy. I want to make this point as clear as possible: every Protestant church in the UK has been captured by the Left, and there is absolutely no way of saving them because the Protestant churches and the spirit that goes along with them are dead.
There may be the odd goose bump during worship, there may be the odd feeling of ecstasy during your TED Talk, but the spirit of the church is completely and utterly dead in the ground. It died well before you were born and there is no way of reviving it.
One Holy CATHOLIC and apostolic Church
Christ doesn’t want a piece of you, He wants all of you.
Like every Church, the Roman Catholic Church is an unfolding organism. It is a living institution. It is not built of stone, iron or gold. It is not even just about its people. This organism has been growing for almost 2000 years, and it started growing from the seeds of Christ himself into his first Apostles. The lineage of the Papacy has been riddled with thorns and nettles, but it has also been a line of some of the greatest leaders and deepest thinkers that have ever been recorded. All of that lineages has extended to St Peter and thus to Christ himself when he said:
"You shall be the rock I build my church."
If you would rather cut off the branches, shred the leaves, and try replanting these twigs to grow your own tree, I do not deny you that right. God loves us so much that He has given us the will to reject Him.
And you may also wish to reject Him through the faults of His Church. Through that love, the Catholic Church has many controversies, schisms, and is painted with a horrific history. Indeed, a tree that grows in the hot beat of the sun, shaking in the bitter coldness of the wind, such a tree does not grow perfectly or even how we would expect it to. Just as it is silly to expect a tree to grow perfectly symmetrical, it is silly to expect the Church to also be. Nonetheless, it grows firmly in the ground. What is important is not the supposed perfect Nature of the tree, but rather that the tree itself is rooted in the ground Christ seeded with his heart.
This seed has grown over time, as we are also beings of time. We don’t base our institutions on self-election or single-minded corruption. We base it on the lineage of Christ’s authority. If you believe that Christ’s authority has been lost on Earth through His church, how then can you believe that Christ has authority on Earth at all? How can you have authority to forgive sin (John 20:23), to love one another (John 13:34), and to being the truth to the world (Matthew 10:26).
I do not know what God has planned for us, and nor do I claim to know. The Catholic Church, does not claim or even strive to grow perfectly. It cannot. I extend a hand to you and invite you onto these branches, with faith that the tree will not be struck, or become uprooted by the forces of the world. Other weeds will grow and die with the seasons, but this tree I know, I have faith that I know, will continue to grow forever.
Concluding
Thank you for taking the time to read my article on Why I Became Catholic? It is important that we share this experience. In the UK, as it stands, there are 2:1 young Gen Z Catholics for every Anglican. These young people are not born into a Catholic family, they are coming to the Church because of conversion. In the words of Archbishop Mark O'Toole of Cardiff:
When you meet them and hear their stories, they say they are looking for clarity and stability
The Catholic Church has offered the family, the community and the Cross Christ has set out for me to carry. I am home.
If you wish to know more about becoming Catholic or are curious about entering into a Catechism, please do get in touch with your local parish or reach out to someone in your Archdiocese. It can be quite daunting to enter into the Catholic church, but be open to the Spirit, and humble yourself so that something new can take place, and something old may be left behind.
