Who is Right?
An Essay in collaboration with Missio Dei
This post was written in collaboration with Missio Dei. More on them at the end, but if you are interested please check them out HERE!
All my life, I have had this fascination with religion. It was the opiate of the masses, the Sunday duty, the transcendent mystery--it was the question that cut to the core of every individual human experience: Who created us, and why? It wasn't until I was older that I realized "fascination with religion" was really a thirst for Truth. It wasn't until I was older that I abandoned the set of answers I inherited from my family--the answers prescribed by the Anglican Communion--for the solid ground of the Catholic Church.
Everyone is born into a religion, whatever that religion may be. Every act of a parent instructs a child about what is important in life, what moral values ought to guide us, what spiritual principles hide behind our sensory comprehension. The religion I was born into was Anglicanism. This may seem odd, given that I am an American. You may know that the Anglican Communion is another name for the Church of England, and you may also know that the Church of England in America is called the Episcopal or Episcopalian Church. You would be right! Both of those facts are true, but you may not know why neither of those facts is incompatible with me being an American Anglican.
The Church of England is organized in a Communion which is commonly referred to as the Anglican Communion. The Communion is subdivided into provinces, and the provinces/other subdivisions more or less govern themselves. This is very "inside-baseball"--the important thing, insofar as my early faith formation is concerned, is that my family and I were Anglican. To us, that meant that we were more "conservative" than our Episcopalian counterparts.
Churchin' for me, growing up, was a sometimes-on-Sunday thing. I remember hating getting dressed and not understanding why we had to do it. I remember not being interested in what went on at Church but being terrified of hell and overwhelmed by questions of whether or not I am actually a good person. It was a thing we did because sometimes we had to, it was a tradition like consumerism-christmas or a family recipe--we went to Church because we were sentimental about that Church.
This attitude was reflected by the clergy I encountered as well. The priest who gave me my first dose of faith formation before being confirmed in the Anglican Church was only a priest as a side job--during the week he was a nuclear engineer. He was a very smart man and his discussion of linguistics left an impact on me; but he was only a priest on Sundays. I have no recollection of anything we talked about in those faith formation classes. I did briefly serve as an altar server, but I remember thinking it was a hassle I endured for my parent's sake and not for mine own and not for God's.
Because my family was not firmly rooted--Church was a sometimes-food, the priests were half-hearted, the formation was not memorable--when the storms came and the waters rose, my family abandoned their faith. We stopped going to Church, nurtured animosity towards God and religion. I remember acknowledging that Faith was important in some way, but I would figure it out later.
When, years later, under the influence of my cradle-Catholic friend who was also spiritually indifferent at the time, we agreed that religion was important and important enough that we ought to get it right. I set out to justify why I ought to remain Anglican; he set out to justify why he ought to remain Catholic, and we would talk about issues that would come up.
A stumbling block for me on the way back to Anglicanism was this question: Who is right? For example, the Catholics were against homosexual marriage, and had good reason and logic for it. I knew I was against homosexual marriage, and some Anglican sources were against homosexual marriage. But then the Episcopal Church was unequivocally for it. How could both the Anglican and Episcopal branches of the Anglican Communion believe different things, yet still consider themselves the same religion? I believed priests should be men, though I didn't quite understand why; Episcopalians had female clergy. I believed Church should be a quiet, reverent, spiritual experience; Episcopalian priests could be found online dressed as the Cat-in-the-hat reciting "One bread two bread me bread you bread" instead of a eucharistic prayer.
At every turn I kept running into the Anglican Communion contradicting itself by not policing its ordinances or even it's 39 Articles. If you believe one thing, you can almost surely find somewhere in the Anglican Communion someone who believes the opposite. I found my rationalizations for Anglicanism falling and becoming strong arguments in favor of Catholicism. My friend and I read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis together and I found myself dragged kicking and screaming from a begrudging acknowledgement that God exists to an understanding that I owe God some duty of Worship.
It was several more years before I finally converted. My friend dove back into Catholicism first, and continued to feed my curiosity. I remained outside of the Church more out of stubbornness than any good or definite reason. It wasn't until a moment of personal crisis, a desperate prayer, and (to my surprise) a prompt answer, that I promised to give God the worship I owed him--through the Church he made for that purpose. And this time I knew I could do so without any doubt about who was right.
Attending Catholic Mass was not altogether foreign. My Anglican branch had been more traditional, so many of the moves and motions were familiar to me. The liturgy of the Eucharist (but not really--no Transubstantiation among Anglicans) and the Liturgy of the Word remained visually very similar. There were some slight differences to remind me I was not quite at home: In the Anglican recitation of the Nicene Creed, they would say "being of one substance with the Father" instead of "Consubstantial with the Father"--a subtle change which tripped me up for months. I remember remarking to my friend that Anglican service was the same liturgy devoid of spirituality. The key, for my journey, was the Eucharist.
I struggled with the Eucharist and transubstantiation--the belief that the bread is fully and essentially transformed from the substance of bread into the substance of the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. I struggled with this teaching even after resolving to become Catholic. It wasn't until I attended Adoration that I finally understood--this was not just bread. This was God. And more than that--Catholics behaved as if it was God--for Adoration is so beautiful as a devotion, yet so nonsensical if the Eucharist is not God. I didn't struggle with that belief after my first Adoration. Mass suddenly made sense--the Eucharist was the fulcrum around which the whole liturgy was centered. Without it, Church was just a pastor giving a Ted-Talk to a congregation. Without it, communion was just a light meal before coffee, donuts, and chit chat. Nothing about Catholic practice made sense without the Eucharist. Everything clicked once I understood that.
When I said the Anglican service was the same liturgy devoid of spirituality, the difference was the Eucharist, plain and simple. I could relate my spiritual practices and devotions towards the Eucharist; I could relate the sacraments (confession!) towards worthy reception of the Eucharist. I could relate my prayer life to conforming my will to God's, and to understanding the sacrifice which is recapitulated in the Mass. The similarity in thought and practice between some branches of the Anglican Communion was recognized by Pope Benedict XVI, of happy memory. He established the Anglican Ordinariate, which gives good, traditional Anglicans who are hungry for spiritual edification an opportunity to return into communion with Rome. If there are any Anglicans out there contemplating Catholicism or wondering what is so different, I would encourage them to look up their nearest Anglican Ordinariate parish. It is one thing to not wonder who is right, it is quite another to feel like I have found the source of all Truth. I have never felt more at peace, nor more at home. I am confident others will feel the same.
This essay was written in collaboration with Missio Dei. Thanks are due to Chantal LaFortune for suggesting I write about this experience, Jonathon Fessenden for working with me to get this published, and Phillip Hadden for cross-posting this to Missio Dei audiences. Missio Dei is a magazine-style Catholic newsletter which publishes daily scripture reflections and other excellent essays from a huge team of accomplished and knowledgeable writers. Aside from that, they were the first Substack publication I subscribed to, and I have not been disappointed. Please go check them out and give them your support!
Ad Jesum Per Mariam
Beautiful article! Thank you so much for writing this and for sharing your beautiful experiences with us! May God bless you!
This educational and enlightening, and for me proves just how right thecCatholic Church is!