Is it difficult to become Catholic? Recently, “Jim” left a comment in the comment box stating that he doesn’t see a major reversion of Anglo-Catholics (Catholic minded Anglicans) to the Catholic Church because most don’t realize the hardships in becoming Catholic. I couldn’t agree more.

I don’t often disclose personal thoughts on this blog, but I feel that this is something that might be helpful for folks on both sides of the Tiber: Ten Reasons why it’s hard to become Catholic.

I have spoken to somewhere between 50-100 men who have become Catholic or are contemplating entry into full communion with the Catholic Church. Most of these are Anglican or Presbyterian. A few have been Lutheran. Over the last several years, I’ve gathered up the big ten that either cause pain or lead to a man saying “No thanks,” to the Catholic Church.

#10 Theological Submission
It’s difficult to say serviam (“I will serve”). Theology is no longer “what I think”. It requires a submission of the mind. At the same time, this a liberation of the mind. Still, it is difficult to tell oneself: “I don’t fully understand the Treasury of Merit, but I will submit my reason to the reason of the Church.”

#9 Priests
Catholic priests are not like Protestant ministers. Relatively speaking, they are aloof, albeit for good reasons sometimes. A Protestant has the experience of a minister smiling whenever he sees you, memorizing your name, and generally going out of his way to make a personal connection. This rarely happens in Catholicism. I admit it – it wounds my pride. I wish that I were greeted and hailed by the pastor after Mass. It’s humbling.

The public persona of a Catholic priest reads like this: “I’m just doing my job (so please don’t ask me to hear your confession right now).” Whereas the persona of a Protestant minister reads like this: “I’m so glad to see you and I want you to know that I care for you (and this is what my church-growth-strategy consultant advised me to do).”

#8 Liturgy
This one again taps on my pride. When I was an Anglo-Catholic priest, people complimented me in the way I celebrated the liturgies. I like clean, tight liturgies. Altar boys making turning on a dime and making a 90 degree right angle around the altar. Synchronized genuflections. Defined signs of the crosses. Corporal folded the proper way (up not down!) You get the picture.

On the whole, Catholic liturgy is less formal. The music isn’t typically rehearsed. Priests often freely interject their own thoughts or words. Altar servers don’t seemed trained. I often sinfully think: “If I were in charge, I could do this better.” Again, I need to be humbled. If it bothers you that much, just close your eyes. That’s what I do.

#7 Dealing with marriage, divorce, homosexuality, contraception, abortion
Some people have irregular marriages, live homosexual lifestyles, or enjoy the comforts of contraception. It’s difficult to allow your divorce and re-marriage to be examined by the bishop’s tribunal. It’s difficult to fess up to sexual deviations. It’s hard to have a minivan overflowing with car seats or to rethink the vasectomy. For some, they have to revisit an abortion that occurred decades ago. These sort of things cut deep to the heart and make us squirm. All this is understandable and I think that these things should be addressed with caution and compassion.

#6 Financial discomforts
If you’re a clergyman you stand to lose your great pension, great health benefits, discretionary fund, and your salary. It’s likely that you haven’t been trained to do anything else that is marketable. I doubt that anyone out there will pay you six figures to write sermons for them or lead a small-group Bible study. It goes without saying that most ministers take a major pay cut when they become Catholic. Their family income goes down. They usually start having more kids. Also, they usually start paying for parochial education – another hit to the pocketbook.

#5 Vocational confusion
It’s difficult to admit that your priesthood was invalid. I wasn’t a priest long, but I heard confessions, anointed the dying, etc. What was I doing? What was God doing? Why did God let me function sacramentally with people who were deeply hurting. I still don’t know how to “classify” those ministerial acts.

#4 Non-Catholic ridicule and estrangement
Family and friends do not understand. Even when they try understand, they will never appreciate the frustrations, study, and heart-searching that goes into becoming Catholic. Some Anglicans still call me “father”, which makes me feel uncomfortable. Others have written terrible things about me. I’ve never been more greatly attacked for anything else in my life.

Tension often arises with parents and siblings. I’ve even heard of converts who were cut out of the inheritance because they became “Roman”.

#3 Catholic ridicule and estrangement
This may seem odd, but some Catholics are suspicious of converts to Catholicism. These come in two forms. Type A is the cradle-Catholic who has all their ducks in a row and suspects the convert of being a crypto-Protestant unschooled in the ways of “being Catholic. If the new Catholic prays extemporaneously, then it’s “We don’t do that.” If the convert quotes Scripture about something, they frown upon this, too. I’ve been “corrected” by several of these people.

Some Catholics also seem to think that it is helpful to ridicule my past as a non-Catholic, as if that would somehow validate me as now “one of them”. Some Catholics just love to hear converts bash their former faith.

Type B is the cradle-Catholic who is less committed to the distinctives of the Catholic faith. They see zealous converts as a threat. These converts are overly-concerned with dogma and truth. And this leads us to obstruction number two…

#2 RCIA (Rite for Christian Initiation of Adults)
RCIA must have been invented so that every conversion to the Catholic Church might somehow be miraculous. It is not a firmly established element of Catholic lore that RCIA is commonly led or organized by someone who is a “type B” Catholic as described above. These people don’t seem to understand how zealous these converts can be. These leaders stress the “feelings” part of Catholicism and not the “orthodoxy” part of Catholicism much to the chagrin of the converts who have had it up to their ears in Protestant appeals to their feelings.

#1 Pride
I don’t know how to say this in a witty way, but pride holds the number one slot. At one point in life I felt that I was too good for all those people who respected the Infant of Prague. Why join a religion where adherents air brush images of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the hoods of their lowriders? (I grew up in Texas…) One gentlemen even told me that he couldn’t be Catholic because it was “the religion of the masses”. I asked him what he meant and the term “Mexicans” was employed in his reply.

It’s just cooler to go to an Evangelcial mega-church that has a pool, basketball gymn, powerpoint presentations, podcasts, and a rocking “praise team”. I sometimes wish that our homilies had really cool cultural references in them or solidly crafted “gotcha” endings. Alas, this is not typical of the parochial homily.