Conversions, to and from Catholic faith.

April 1, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A New Your Times web story yesterday reports that Newt Gingrinch [cf. John 19:22] has become a Catholic – converting from his native Baptist roots.

Katharine Q. Seelye’s headline is revealing: “Gingrich Gets (a New) Religion.” Is she referencing the fact that a lot of us were unaware that Newt had any religious faith. This was the political pit bull of the 1990s and, IMHO, the role model for Karl Rove. I wonder if Catholicism will bring any compassion, humility, restraint or civility to someone with more of a reputation for confrontational politics.

In the late Richard Neuhaus’ last book Catholic Matters, he makes the claim that (while Protestant churches are shrinking) Americans are converting to the Catholic Church at the rate of 200,000 a year. His book carries no footnotes, so we cannot know the source of his statistics.

Here in the wild west, it seems people are converting to no religion at a faster clip, but Neuhaus’ claim set me thinking. Is the Catholic faith so attractive that, after a strong 500 year strand of Christian tradition, people are leaving the various Protestant folds and returning to Rome?

Neuhaus was a conservative Lutheran pastor for years before he himself converted to Rome and entered its priesthood. His book is passionate boosterism for authoritative Catholic tradition, especially linked to the idea of a prevailing magisterium: the pope, cardinals and bishops as protectors and defenders of the faith. As a historian, Neuhaus is weak, and overlooks centuries of pathetic to despicable behavior on the part of the Roman hierarchy. (Not that any Protestant historical record is spotless.)

Neuhaus’ “growth” statistic stands in relationship to his claim that 63 million Americans claim to be Catholic. It would be more accurate to say that the Church claims them, keep tabs on every infant baptism, for example, but probably is not watching adult defections very closely. Be that as it may, 200,000 conversions would account for less than one-third of one percent growth.

I don’t want to belittle conversion, any time it happens, because it may mean that a person is now taking the new faith more seriously than she or he had taken the old faith. And I don’t draw a harsh or sharp line between Christian traditions. It is the same Lord we put faith in, even if our own faith practices morph or move on to a different expression.

But in the stories I am told — by people coming into my own congregation—the Roman church still expects and requires individuals (for example, who are about to marry a Catholic partner) to become Catholic and to raise the children Catholic. The Protestant “weakness” is that we don’t require any such thing. We don’t lay on anyone a moral obligation to attend Mass, for example, or dozens of other requirements. Maybe we are wimps, but maybe we emphasize God’s grace as completely outweighing church requirements.

But indeed does that mean that 200,000 people a year are quite content to come under a system of obligations and requirements? That they were not content with the freedom of the Christian life under grace? It would take more than a statistical approach to understand what is true here.

In my own parish, more than half of those who are coming into our community are coming from a Roman Catholic background. For one reason or another (divorce and remarriage, conflict because of sexuality and homosexuality, disaffection with church legalism, a personal search for meaning or a very individual experience of pain or abuse) they can’t or do not want to go back to the Roman church. Since Lutherans consider ourselves to be “Evangelical Catholics” we ought to be able to bridge this shift, and to show sympathy and understanding for anyone who is trying to find a spiritual comfort zone in our communion or another.

I am just grateful that the Gospel itself, and the pull of a faith community, still draws many people back from inactivity or lack of spirituality to a deeper sense of self, humanity and God. In an Associated Press story in March carried by 365Gay.com, the number of people with no religion continues to grow. And in the posted comments on the Daily Beast’s list of other well-known Catholic converts, a lot of anti-religious drivel abounds.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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