What Would it Take for You to Believe Me? A Protestant View of the Catholic Church

A year ago I was talking to a colleague of mine who asked if I was Christian. 

Yes, I said to her. 

Me too, she said... I'm Catholic, so same thing.

No, it's not, I thought to myself.

After all, I believed that Catholicism was a form of paganism. That was actually the title of a blog post I had sitting in my drafts for years. It was a big subject to take on, but from my perspective, it seemed like the Catholic church was blatantly going against what the bible instructed us to do.

Namely, right in the ten commandments where it said not to make graven images for ourselves of anything in heaven. But the Catholic church had graven images all over the place. If you were to walk into a church, the first thing you would see is Jesus' body hanging on the cross. Our God, cast in earthly materials, and people bowing down before it. 

It was a far cry from the way that the Jewish people worshipped, from whom we were passed down the Old Testament, without any pictures or statues or even the name of God displayed in their temples. 

To me, Catholics seemed to be both superstitious and practicing a kind of religiosity that Jesus warned against. The crucifixes above every doorway, the rosaries, the necklaces, the holy water. All of these things to keep them safe. Didn't they know that the Spirit of God dwelled inside them? 

I saw them as a people who were so tied up with rituals and sacraments and orders that they were missing the point. I hated that when I walked into a Catholic Church, I had no idea what they were doing, felt like I didn't fit in, and was denied partaking in the Eucharist even though I was a baptized Christian. 

I whined that Jesus proclaimed 'this is my body broken for you, and my blood poured out for you,' - as believers! Not as people who had done all of their sacraments in the Catholic Church. 

When I started going to Protestant Church, I was so moved by the way I saw people worshipping. The way that they welcomed everyone in, the way that they sang and lifted their hands up with joy, and prayed for each other on the spot. 

Everyone had a place at the table, and surely that was what Jesus wanted for us. That we would all be drawn into the faith and accepted as we were, and free to worship in the ways wanted. That we would be saved simply by believing in Him, not by the rituals we partook in. 

The congregants at the Protestant church were different than the Catholics I'd encountered, who were either cultural Catholics that received their sacraments but that largely lived their lives far from Jesus, or were rule-following and cold. People who had unfortunately been bogged down by the law of religion and never experienced the joy of faith. 

That was until earlier this year during Lent, when a friend of mine commented on an instagram picture I'd taken inside a Catholic church he'd been to. He asked me how I liked it. 

I didn't like it at all, if I was being honest. I looked in the pews for a bible and didn't find one. I watched as the procession of holy people in robes came down the aisle shaking incense around. I felt so uncomfortable during communion that I got up to go to the restroom. 

So why was I there? You might ask. 

Despite all of my disdain for the Catholic Church, which had it's seeds planted in me in childhood by my atheist father, I'd always been drawn to it. To the beauty in the architecture and the idea that the most magnificent works of art were so meticulously constructed for God. 

To the crucifix, which made me feel love for Jesus, to see his love displayed for us in that way. To the sense of awe and reverence one experiences in the Catholic church, which - although very welcoming - was something I'd not felt in a protestant church. 

I told my friend, with an air of superiority, that most Christian churches didn't allow images of Christ inside (which was actually untrue). And then, a couple of days later, while I was attending the Good Friday service at my church, I felt a nudge to apologize. 

We were blessed with hymns from the choir on Good Friday, something different from the contemporary worship I was used to at Church. It was beautiful and it reminded me that I was part of an ancient religion, one in which millions of people for thousands of years before me have partaken in. 

Yet there I was, in 2026, putting down a fellow believer in Christ for belonging to the Catholic church, the church that was started by Jesus himself and had been dutifully serving him all of these years. 

On Easter he responded to my apology with a thoughtful message which I received all bound up in the joy of Jesus' resurrection. We agreed to meet up and discuss our differences in theology, a favorite topic for both of us. 

In our time spent together I realized that I was talking to someone who really did have joy in the Lord, unlike what I imagined about Catholics. I was inspired by the way he carried himself as a person, the language he used, his dedication to the faith, and what was obviously a true and personal relationship with Jesus. 

I left thinking more about our differences and almost felt a kind of remorse over what it would feel like to leave my own church and everything I loved about it. The worship music, the children's programming, the families. I thought again about how rigid the Catholic church seemed, and what a burden it would be to be a part of. 

But something inside of me was shifting, and I started to notice more people around me that had converted to Catholicism. Like a family whose children I ministered to at Sunday school, and who had led their own ministries in the church but were now becoming Catholic. 

Days later I was doing errands with a friend at Whole Foods when he said that he would be happy to chat with me about Catholicism. He said I could bring up any issue I had, because he had also recently converted from the same denomination that I was in. 

In fact all of the Catholics I'd spoken to said that nothing was off-limits or offensive to them, and that it was a good thing that I wanted to be sure I didn't go against what the bible said. 

I brought up the most obvious questions like why they elevated priests and even called them 'Father' when Jesus explicitly forbade it, or why they worshipped the saints like pagans did, why they acted superstisciously with all of their little trinkets. 

He pulled out a necklace of the Virgin Mary from under his shirt and gave it a kiss. Sacramentals? He said. They're meant to be reminders for us, not to be worshipped. 

What's with all of the bowing and standing and kneeling and the procedures that make outsiders feel uncomfortable? I asked, as we walked through the dairy aisle. 

If Jesus were in the room right now, how would you respond? I know if it were me, I would be bowing down at his feet.

I thought about myself, and the nonchalance of my own spiritual practice, the Sunday service that felt like a Christian rock concert with fog machines and lasers. I imagined it akin to giving Jesus a casual wave as he walked by. 

I received his answers without resistance, and that felt like God had all of a sudden opened up a door for me. 

Before you go all gang-busters and join OCIA, why don't you come with me to Adoration? 

What's Adoration? I asked. 

It's when you sit in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. 

I was baffled by the idea.

But Jesus is here with us right now, why would we go and sit in front of a piece of bread? 

That night I went home eager to learn more, watching Catholic apologists on the internet, while at the same time thinking it quite ridiculous. 

I called up the friend that I'd met for lunch days earlier and he warned that going to Adoration might feel intense for someone who wasn't Catholic. That it could seem like idol-worshipping if they didn't understand the Catholic belief that the Eucharist was the actual body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. 

He pointed me to the verses in John 6:53-56, where in the original greek text Jesus repeatedly asks his disciples to chew on his body.

That's an interesting interpretation, I said, recalling a sermon my pastor once gave. I thought that the word 'chew' was metaphorical, that it meant to sit with and really digest the word of God, as in the bible. 

As I said that I thought to myself, on what authority do I or other Christians have, to interpret it that way? 

I like that priests have consistent beliefs, passed down through sacred tradition all the way back to Jesus. Perhaps it shouldn't be the case that any Nancy or Bobby-Sue can derive their own interpretation of sacred scripture.

I eagerly anticipated Wednesday to come, when I would attend Adoration. It would be the first time I'd go to a Catholic church in that context, with an openness to the idea that what they were practicing could have a deep, spiritual meaning. 

When the priest took the consecrated Host and placed it on display on the altar, immediately the tears started pouring out. We sat there, in silence, among thirty or so other believers, all gathered around in awe. I asked God if that was truly him, or if I was worshipping an idol. 

Near the front of the church I saw an old man kneeling with a scrawled out note in front of him. Prayer intentions for his loved ones, I imagined. As I looked at the back of the heads of the people in the pews in front of me, I couldn't help but feel overwhelming love for them. 

Then I began to get very upset. I asked God, as I looked around the church, to the stations of the cross, reminiscent of all the masses I attended as a child when I didn't believe in him, where he had been. Why he wasn't there for me when I really needed him. 

What I heard was that my entire life he'd been drawing me in. That it wasn't an accident that I was born into an atheist family and went to catholic school. That all of it lead me to where I was in that moment. The mural of Jesus outside my kindergarten class. The prayers that came in over the intercom each morning, lunch, and end of day. 

I continued to sob uncontrollably, and then I started to experience a physical pain in my body. And what I can only describe as a feeling of being dirty. That what I was doing was wrong. When the hour was over I left, saying little to my friend about my experience, and went home. 

After I parked the car I heard something fall to the ground. Oh no, I thought, had I left my wallet open for change to fall out? I hoped it wasn't the rosary that my friend had just gifted me. But my wallet was closed and I discovered I hadn't dropped anything, so I went inside. 

In the morning, I separated my car key from the house key as I'd done every morning before going on a run, and my keychain, a souvenir from Assisi with a picture of St.Francis and St.Clare, dropped to the ground. 

When I went to pick it up, the face of St.Clare was missing. I searched the ground and I couldn't find it anywhere. You're kidding, I thought. For the first time after carrying this keychain around for five years, the face of a saint went missing. It felt like I was being haunted.

I remembered my car from the night before and when I went outside, there it was, lying in the gutter under the leaves. 

I considered that what I was feeling, the weird energy since I'd gone to Adoration, could have been a spiritual attack. After all, it had happened to me on the next holiest day of my life thus far - the day that I was baptized. 

The day I was baptized I imagined that the clouds would part open for me and a beam of light would come down and assure me like I never had been before, but that was not what happened. 

Instead, I felt that same 'dirtiness' afterward that I'd felt at Adoration. A voice in my head telling me that I was acting foolishly, that I was wrong, that I was doing all of it for attention. 

Wouldn't it make sense, that as I drew near to this most holy institution, that Satan would try to stop me? 

I let a few days pass and went to Adoration again on my own. This time at a Korean church called St.Gregory, where, while we didn't speak the same language, all of us came together in the presence of the Eucharist. 

There was a different feeling this time. One of peace. I thought about the Saints, and that while they were not gods, they were our brothers and sisters in the faith that came before us, and if we believed in life after death then they could still be with us. 

I imagined that the presence of St.Paul, my favorite writer in the bible, was in that church, and that I might go to him for intercession. 

I started attending the Church of the Good Shepherd and partook in their ministries. This community, it turned out, was perhaps the most fervent group of Christians I knew. I made sandwiches with the women on Friday mornings, and passed them out at Skid Row with the young adults in the evenings. I went to bible study on Tuesday night, Women's prayer group on Wednesday, and young adults ministry on Sundays after evening mass. 

I continued to learn about the Catholic church and realized that the reason I felt so alienated was simply because I did not know what they were doing. But they were eager to show me. 

And contrary to what I once thought, the mass actually was biblical, every part of it. Every psalm sung, every response. And not only that but the mass was what the early Church Fathers were practicing in the first and second centuries, which made me feel closer to Jesus. 

And to my so called "rejection" for receiving the Eucharist. I'm glad for that now, that they view it with gravity and reverence, and that if someone wants to join in they should first understand it.

As I once heard at a protestant bible study, "Christianity isn't exclusive, but it's specific. And if there are any wanting to come inside, the door is right there, and it's open."

So here I am, still seeking, still wanting to go deeper in my faith and understanding. And I don't know what will come of it, but what I am glad about is the deep appreciation I now have for my Catholic brothers and sisters, as I believe that Jesus would have intended.

Thank you Alexi, Nick, and Michael, and to the Young Adults of Good Shepherd.