Advice for Converts and Parishes

In 2020, I began to quietly discern Catholicism. It started with the frustration of my own church experiences as a Protestant. Church felt hollow. There was some music and a TED talk, but it was really missing substance, and I was frustrated because I didn't have a clue what was missing. I just knew something was missing. When I decided that I wanted to give Catholicism a consideration, I knew that I needed to let Catholics speak for the Catholic Church rather than rely on my usual go to Protestant sources. But it seemed like every time I listened to Catholics talk about the Catholic faith, they were speaking another language. I knew the words they were using, but the way they talked about Jesus, the church, and Christianity as a whole seems so different from the way that I talked about it. So I wondered, is there a podcast out there from former Protest ants that maybe have converted to Catholicism? Because my personal algorithm was very Protestant, I didn't think such a thing even existed. Nothing like that was on my radar. I thought I'd be looking for a needle in a haystack, but lo and behold , I found this podcast called On the Journey with Matt and Ken. Ken Hensley introduced himself as a former Baptist pastor, and Matt Swaim introduced himself as a former Wesleyan. Wait a second, I thought. I'm a former Baptist pastor , and I went to Wesleyan College. The more I listened to these two banter about Catholic apologetics, the more that I was convinced that I had Catholicism all wrong. Everything I was told, everything I had learned, everything I thought I knew about the Catholic faith was suddenly being challenged by real Catholics. Little by little I was becoming convinced of Catholic doctrine, one domino falling after another. And then I suddenly had this freak out moment . What will people say if I decide to actually become Catholic? How will I tell my wife, my parents, my former parishioners? I mean this has got to be next to unheard of. A former Protestant pastor becomes Catholic , I thought I was some special snowflake. The podcast I was devouring was sponsored by this organization called The Coming Home Network. I had never heard of it, and so I decided to look into it. I created a free account and joined their online community and suddenly I realized that I was not a special snowflake at all. There were Protestants, and even Protestant pastors, quietly investigating Catholicism or had already crossed the Tiber. I, by no means , was alone. Hi, this is Justin Hibbert, and you're listening to Why Catholic, my podcast about the what and why of Catholicism. Thank you so much for joining me. Whether you are a cradle Catholic or a Catholic convert or Catholic curious. Maybe you're a longtime listener of Why Catholic or this is your first episode. Either way, welcome. I'm glad you're here. Why Catholic is my labor of love where I take topics related to Catholic faith and history and break them down into power I know there are thousands and thousands of podcasts out there, and I know all of them want your financial support. I would love your support too, but you could easily go broke being a patron for all of these podcasts that you might listen to. So here's my advice: if you have a couple of podcasts that you're favorites that you tune into on a regular basis, consider supporting those couple of podcasts. And if one of them is this one, I would love your support . You can become a monthly or annual supporter by going to whycatholic.substack.com slash subscribe. Thank you for your generosity. While I plan on beginning my series on the Catholic Mass shortly, I have some standalone episodes that I want to do in the meantime. This past weekend, at the time of this recording, I attended the second annual clergy convert conference put on by the Coming Home Network. Say that ten times fast. This is a conference for current or former Protestant clergy who have become Catholic or in the process or are considering becoming Catholic. Just like last year it was held at the St. Paul Institute for Biblical Theology just outside of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. The founder of this organization is none other than Dr. Scott Hahn, quite possibly one of the most famous Protestant to Catholic converts, and the author of Rome Sweet Home and many other books. As I mentioned, this was the second time this conference was held. And from the looks of it, this will become an annual event. Last year they mentioned that from what they knew of, this was the first conference of its kind in all of history. And while it's a niche group, it's a group that has quite a number of very specific and common needs and concerns . In this episode, I want to talk about some of those common things Protestant pastors experience on this journey based on my experience as well as talking with lots of others in this group, and I want to share bits and pieces and some takeaways from this conference. First, let me talk about the unique challenges that Protestant pastors face when considering becoming Catholic. Being a pastor isn't just a calling, it's a means of livelihood. For some, they've spent years and tens of thousands of dollars in seminary. And if they're in a more established denomination, then they've worked through the ordination process with well-respected leaders. And if they're in a non-denominational church, many of them have even started their own churches. Like a business owner starts a business, it's their baby. For lay people who decide to start investigating Catholicism, they can just quietly or even loudly make their exit and start attending a Catholic church. That's not how it works for a Protestant pastor. Leaving their church means walking away from their flock as well as their livelihood. One thing I fortunately didn't have to experience was this. I had already left vocational ministry about six years before I started discerning Catholicism, and even then I had moved to Utah, 2,000 miles away from the place where I was pastoring. For so many clergy converts I know, they'll be a pastor one week and the next, they'll no longer attend that church, but instead start attending mass. And then they'll run into the former parishioners in the grocery store or the local restaurant. It's awkward . But this also means that they're going to be giving up their livelihood. And so one day, they may be the pastor of a large congregation making, I don't know, six figures. And then next, they may be working at that local grocery store or restaurant, just trying to make ends meet until they can find a more permanent solution. One of these converts talked about his experience working at a restaurant to make ends meet. One day he was folding napkins in preparation for dinner service, and the man ager yelled at him for being too slow. He sank in depression. Just a couple weeks before, he was leading a successful Baptist church and suddenly he found himself being chastised at a minimum How hum iliating. These are real challenges for Protestant clergy. And I think that financial pressure is so real that it leads most to suppress any type of consideration of Catholicism. They just don't even want to go there. A friend of mine who is now a priest told me that when he was investigating the Catholic faith, he met with his reformed pastor. He he said said, about this Catholic doctrine and what about this Protestant doctrine? This doesn't make any sense anymore. After a lengthy conversation, his pastor said, You know, you make some really good points, and I don't know that I can argue with you, but I'm called to pastor this church here. I think sometimes the calling of the Holy Spirit gets conflated with what's practical . Because what isn't practical is leaving your Protestant pastor job to become Catholic. But the search for truth becomes so strong that for many it can't be ignored. These pastors mostly have kept very quiet about their journeys. They're not the ones on social media advertising their process. They've acquired a secret library that they've consumed. Sometimes without their own families even knowing. Why? Because the last thing they want to do is make a fuss out of something that will end up going nowhere. Maybe they'll get to the end and realize their Protestant theology was right after all. Crisis averted. But that's usually not what happens when people dive in like this. Usually they become so convinced that they feel torn. They've read the early church fathers and come to the realization that the early church looks nothing like their church. They've read the Bible with a whole different lens, and verses they've pushed aside have taken on a whole new meaning. Baptism now saves you? Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in me? How do you go back to administering a symbolic baptism or communion when you've become convinced that it's far more than a symbol . This past weekend at this conference among the various speakers, five of them were former Protestant pastors who have become Catholic apologists in one form or another. Scott Hahn, John Bergsma, Ken Hensley, Kenny Bouchard, and David Curry. I think one of the reasons it's so common for Protestant pastors to become Catholic apologists is because no group has had to work through Catholic theology like this group. They've had to cross their T's and dot their I's. They've put Catholic theology through the reiner because it's not just truth on the line, it's their livelihood. They're not going to just blow up their lives for something that doesn't check out. And so in the end, they've essentially earned a PhD in Catholic theology. They've done the research, they've written the thesis, and they've sat on the dissertation panel scrutinizing their thesis. Because in reality they love nothing more than to find an out, an escape route that stops the inevitable train wreck that's about to take place, and sometimes it can be a train wreck, even when the Protestant pastor tiptoes delicately. One shared how he had told his congregation that he was going to become Catholic. And the church was very understanding. He planned to continue until the church found his replacement, but when the denomination leaders found out that he was going to become Catholic, they put a quick stop to his plans. They set him down and said, Do you want this week or next week to be your last Sunday? Another one told me how he let his elders know months in advance that he was considering Catholicism. They told him that they wanted him to continue discerning and hoped that he would change his mind, but if he didn't his last Sunday would be in a few months, and they just asked that he would leave quietly. He ultimately didn't change his mind, and finally his last Sunday arrived. He planned to just leave quietly, but another le ader urged him that the congregation deserved the truth. So in his final sermon he slipped in a little sentence. After a long period of discernment, I've decided to join the Catholic Church. There was no theological defense , no smugness, just a brief explanation as to why that sermon would be his last. The sermon was recorded, as all sermons there are, and the denomination leaders got wind of it. This person decided to take down the sermon so as not to be a distraction. However, someone else decided to post it on social media. And that's when you know what hit the fan. He became social media famous in all the wrong ways. It was the exact attention he was trying to avoid. It was traumatic. And this is the stuff that happens in circles that paint the Catholic Church as this enemy, this boogeyman or even worse, this idolatrous church of Satan that engages in pagan rituals like worshiping a woman and necromancy. Good leaders can't just leave quietly. It becomes scandalous and is treated with even more intensity than a pastor who admits to having an affair. If transitioning to the Catholic Church isn't challenging enough, there's a whole dilemma that happens once the former Protestant clergy is Catholic. Now what do I do? They wonder. How do I get involved? How do I serve the Church? Where do I fit in? For as much as the Catholic Church may For as much as the Catholic Church may feel theologically at home, it can feel socially disorienting. For one, when they decide to be confirmed and receive first communion, they will stand in front of a church that has no clue what they've been through. One person I know was a missionary in the Far East. The parish where they became Catholic had no idea the former lives they lived as Protestant missionaries. There was no fanfare, no rolling out the red carpet for them. They just maybe received some brief welcome homes as parishioners passed by them on their way out after Mass. Many of these former Protestant clergy struggle with finding their place in serving the Catholic Church. They have all of this experience leading churches. They've prepared the liturgy, they've preached, they've counseled with people, they've raised money, they've visited the sick, they've performed weddings and funerals and baptisms. Now what do they do? Where do they fit in? One former pastor told this funny story of how shortly after he converted, he was sitting in mass, and the lector came up and introduced the reading by saying, A reading from the book of Job. He was like, Are you kidding me? I've preached on Job countless times, and here I am relegated as sitting back while others mispronounce his three letter name. This place of finding our identity in the Catholic Church seemed to emerge as a central theme for the weekend. Last year Marcus Grodi, the founder of the Coming Home Network and the former host of the show, The Journey Home, said that when he converted, he met with his priest and said, Should I become a priest? His priest gave him this advice be the best darn lay person you can be, and after a while, then maybe we can explore the possibility of priesthood. He never did become a priest. God had other plans. Thanks to him starting the Coming Home Network, many people haveed cross the Tiber. Perhaps nobody has normalized Protestants becoming Catholic more than Marcus Grodi . At this conference last weekend, we were reminded that after Paul's conversion, he disappeared for a while. He went to Arabia. We're not told how long. Some believe it was a few months, others suspect a few years. He needed time to adjust to his new identity, and when Paul reemerged into society, he didn't just inject himself into the church. Barnabas spoke up for him . We were reminded this weekend that it takes time to think like a Catholic, to put on this new identity. It's not our place to just inject ourselves into the church. For former clergy, humility is a huge and necessary step in this journey. Dr. Scott Hahn gave a unique perspective. He said that the St. Paul Center has really three focuses: the clergy, scholars, and the laity. He said clergy converts are unique because they're all three. They've been clergy, they're oftentimes academics, and now they're laity. And sometimes that can be challenging because we feel like we fit into all these different areas, but we struggle to find our specific place. A couple of years ago, I really wrestled with this. I was like, I want to serve the church, but I just don't know how or what I'm supposed to do. I was helping to teach OCIA at given altar serving a world, but I just wanted to do more but couldn't figure out what. I've since come on staff at my parish and I realized something. I'm really good at church leadership. I don't say that to brag. I've had lots of jobs where I constantly feel like I'm failing. And this might be the first time in a long time where I feel like I'm thriving. I don't know if this is what I'm supposed to be doing long term, but all I know is that I'm simply using the skills and experience and trying to apply them in ways that fit the Catholic In some ways I'm thinking a little bit like a Protestant and getting us outside of the Catholic box, but in many ways I'm stretching myself to think more like a Catholic. I was joking with a Protestant friend recently who I have known since middle school. She was asking me what I do at my parish, and I told her, you know, a lot of candle management. I told her about our Easter Vigil Paschal Fire and how I'm trying to keep that fire going through a few strategically placed candles around the church. Man, what I do now is so different than my time serving in evangelical churches. I want to be careful here not to pretend like I have all the answers because I certainly don't. I am really too new to be any kind of expert . But I do feel that I have seen and experienced some things and can offer a few pieces of advice. So let me say a few things first to the clergy convert, then to the Catholic clergy who might be listening to this, and finally to any lay people out there. First, to the convert who is coming from Protestant Church leadership into the Catholic Church, it is hard to know where to serve, but I know this: you have an itching to serve. Things work differently in the Catholic Church, and a good way to figure out where you belong is just to try different things. Volunteer to be a lector, volunteer to be an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, volunteer to be a catechist for religious education. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. But you don't know unless you try. And one thing I know for sure is that your parish probably needs volunteers in those positions. Every year my parish is begging for warm bodies to be a catechist for first communion and confirmation classes. And you aren't just a warm body, you have knowledge, you've been a teacher, you know theol ogy, you have experience. Just volunteer in little ways. Don't come in and try to change things and start new ministries right away. If you decide to lecture, be the best darn faithful lector you can be. Other opportunities will open up and reveal themselves as you get involved in the life of the parish. To any Catholic clergy who might be listening to this, I've heard many stories where a clergy convert meets with his priest, and the priest says, I don't really know what to do with you . Please don't be one that says that. The person in front of you has a ton of skills, theological education, experienced teaching, probably they have some experience counseling even. And most importantly, they want to serve. If your diocese is anything like mine priests are stretched super thin, what can this person do that can take some of that load off of your plate and support you in leading the parish where you want to go. And here's a really important question to ask these clergy converts. What are the areas of ministry that you're really good at? What did you enjoy doing as a pastor? Like all jobs, there are things we do really well because we're good at them. And then there are things we do because they have to get done. But that might help you understand where this convert's skills can be best utilized. And it's probably prudent not to give them huge responsibilities at first. Give them time to get to know the parish and to think like a Catholic. It's probably a good idea to give them a task where there might be supervision at first. So instead of just letting them go and start a theology class or a Bible study, have them be a catechist where they have a curriculum and are under direct supervision. Or if you are willing to let them start a Bible study, ask them to do it with a well-respected leader. Now I can only imagine how lonely it is at times to be a priest. You often live alone. Nobody in the parish has a life like yours. These clergy converts can be your biggest allies and quite possibly your closest friends. In many ways they've been in your shoes, and they can empathize with you in a way that other people can't. One day a parishioner criticized my priest in a way that was completely unfair. My priest was visibly upset and came and just started venting to me. And I just listened and encouraged him and reminded him that this parishioner is in the minority. I also told him that if I was in that room when the prisoner said what he said, I would have gone off on him. My priest told me recently how thankful he was that I was working with him, and he thanked me for the respect that I have for the clergy, because not everyone respects priests, but I bet you these clergy converts respect them more than anyone else. Lastly, let me speak to the lay person. A clergy convert feels lost. They're excited and at the same time disoriented. The best thing you can do is befriend them. Let them know you care. Recognize that their conversion has probably been traumatic, and a simple question you can ask them is , hey, how are you doing? They might be struggling psychologically, emotionally, financially, and they might not have many places to go to process their journey. In fact, many of their family or friends may have cut ties with them. Another thing to keep in mind is if you have a business or you know people that are hiring, help them find a job. They may never have done that specific job, but they are highly educated, highly skilled, well-rounded, and something that every business needs , they're probably pretty good with interpersonal relationships and handling conflict resolution. One thing you can do as a layperson is be to them as Barnabas was to Paul. It was Barnabas that spoke up for Paul that, introduced him to others in the church, help these clergy converts make connections and build relationships and find their place in the parish. Lastly, let me say this: if you are Protestant clergy or even a layperson considering Catholicism, I can't recommend enough the Coming Home Netw ork. It's a free resource. For me, it was a godsend. I spent so much time in the chat forums asking questions and learning from people who had a similar background as me. Because I was a former clergy, I was introduced to a whole other part of the community that remains confidential. This apostolate is a lifesaver for Catholic converts as well as Catholic reverts. Take advantage of it. And if I can help in any way, I will do my best. Always feel free to reach out to me through a direct message on my social media channels or by emailing me at yCatholic at substack.com . Thank you for joining me for Y Catholic. Be sure to subscribe to Y Catholic wherever you get your podcast. And you can also subscribe to my Substack site and get the next episode in your email inbox. As a subscriber, you get a special discount code to the Y Catholic Etsy store. If you've been blessed by this podcast and you're feeling generous, there's also a way to financially support it and patrons get some extra perks. To become a free subscriber or a patron, just go to whycatholic.substack.com slash subscribe. Also join me on Instagram at YCatholic Podcast All One Word . Thanks again for listening. My name is Justin Hibbert, and this is Why Catholic. God bless you.