Why I Am Catholic
The best decision I ever made is one that I cannot take credit for. The credit must go to the Holy Spirit. If you read the title, then you are probably guessing that I'm going to say that my decision to become Catholic is that decision. I can name many reasons for being Catholic, such as:
I prayed, and God led me there.
I love the Eucharist.
There is a lot of intellectual material in the Church's teaching for my brain to play with.
Catholic spirituality is beautiful.
However, there is really only one reason why I have stayed Catholic all these year (11 years as of these writings) - and that is truth. If what the Church teaches were not true, then how could I be sure that God led me there? The Eucharist would be nothing but a tasteless piece of bread. The intellectual material that I like to play with would be nothing but false doctrine. The spirituality would be nothing more than a detour down the wrong path (perhaps even the road to Hell).
I've heard it said that we can never be sure of who is right because so many people believe so many different things. Yet, if this is so, how can people who say this know that they are right in saying that no one is right? Differences in belief do not negate the possibility of truth any more than the existence of the Flat Earth Society negates the possibility of the earth being round. Another accuses such a viewpoint that I have of being closed-minded. Is such a person closed-minded to the idea of there being a true God?
Simply put, I see a basis here for the truth of Catholicism. If I didn't, then I see no other conclusion but that God is playing an arbitrary hide-and-seek game with us. The basis comes from three main points:
The existence of God.
The divinity of Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church having been founded by Jesus Christ.
The Existence of God
Our age often demands scientific proof for anything that is to be deemed worthy of belief. I will have to disappoint in this regard. The atheist would disappoint as well. Therefore, faith is demanded of the atheist as much as it is of the theist. Still, faith in God is much more reasonable than atheism.
Is the car that you drive a product of some random wind having accidentally blown several pieces of metal together? Is this that you are reading a result of a chance flow of electrons? Is the computer that you are using to view this page a result of a chance explosion in an electronics store? If you do not believe any of this, then why believe that the universe is the product of a random explosion?
Blaise Pascal, a great scientist of the seventeenth century, proposed what is now known as Pascal's Wager. By belief in God or lack thereof, we place a wager. To put it simply, it would be better to believe in God and then find out he doesn't exist than to not believe in God and find out he does. We lose nothing in the end by believing in a nonexistent God, but oh, the horror of finding out that he whom we rejected in this life is not only real, but that his wrath is upon us for not believing in him!
The Divinity of Jesus Christ
After considering the existence of God, we must look at the very thing by which Christianity is found to be true or not. The divinity of Christ is proven by his bodily resurrection from the dead (I will not buy that "Jesus lives on in our hearts." garbage.). There are two possibilities here:
1. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
2. Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead.
The contradictory nature of these statements leaves room for only one of them to be true. In our history, we have men who saw Jesus alive after having been crucified as a common criminal. Given the fact that eleven of the twelve apostles were executed because they preached having seen Jesus alive, we should be able to at least conclude that they believed in the resurrection. Surely they did not all die for what they knew to be a lie about a dead man.
I am well aware of the fact that we have had suicide cults in our age who have died for their beliefs. Do remember that most died under the influence of their leader. These men who died for Jesus Christ did so, at least in some cases, decades after this supposed resurrection. They went out into the world and preached his message after the world could no longer tell that he was with them. Their death came by their refusal to deny what they had seen and heard even under threat of execution.
Jesus Christ Founded a Church
If we accept the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ as proven by his resurrection, then what about the Catholic Church. Historically, it is known that only the Catholic Church has been in existence since the time of Christ. Even many detractors from the Church admit of this; they claim that the Church went apostate.
If we look at the Bible as if it were nothing more than a historical account of the men who followed Jesus, we can see that it was clearly understood that Jesus intended to found a Church. After all, the Bible tells us that God made the Old Covenant with the Jewish people. Why wouldn't the New Covenant also be made with a people set apart?
We can see the intent to found a Church when Peter made his declaration about Jesus (Matthew 16:13-20). When Judas Iscariot died, a successor was appointed by the apostles (Acts 1:12-26). When a dispute arose as to whether the Gentile converts needed to be circumcised, the apostles gathered and decided and understood their decision to be that of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:22-35). St. Paul, in his writing to St. Timothy, calls this Church "the pillar and foundation of truth." (1 Timothy 3:15).
If indeed, we see the Church as having a divine origin, and trust the promises of Jesus that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against her (Matthew 16:18) and that he is with us always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), then there is a basis for believing all that she teaches without fear. Some may point to this scandal or that scandal as showing that the Church is not a divine institution, but I view this as evidence for the Church rather than against her. A Church that can have leaders who have sometimes been so corrupt yet maintain the integrity of her doctrine must be under divine protection.