This article assumes that you already are a Christian, a Messianic Jew, or believer in Yeshua (Jesus). See the last page of this article for links to articles that may be more relevant to you if you do not believe in Jesus.
Perhaps you think that the idea of becoming Catholic is the most absurd idea you have ever heard.
Perhaps you think that the Bible alone is sufficient for you to know God's will for your life.
Perhaps you think that God is not interested in 'religion' or institutions but merely wishes to have a personal relationship with you.
Perhaps you think that the only thing really necessary to be saved is to receive Jesus into your heart as Lord and Savior.
Perhaps you are Jewish and think that to become Catholic would amount to a betrayal of your Jewish faith and heritage.
Perhaps you even hold anti-Catholic views and think that Catholicism is a pagan corruption of the pure biblical faith.
Yet perhaps you feel that there is "something missing" to your faith.
Perhaps you feel that God has "something more" for you, but you haven't quite figured out yet what this is.
Looking back through history, from the first to the twenty-first century, from the ancient Mediterranean world to modern America, countless people have thought like you - either mildly curious, indifferent, distrusting or even despising the Catholic Church... until one day they decided to seriously investigate the Church's claims. Again and again, an inquiry which began out of curiosity or even animosity toward the Church ended as a wondrous love story: the story of a God so passionately in love with us that He offered His only Son to die for us in order that we may have eternal life, and formed his human family, the Catholic (universal) Church for the purpose of sharing with His children His own divine life, most especially in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
In this article, as well as through the other resources available on this website, you can discover how:
- God has never said that the Bible alone is enough to know His will, but rather has set up, both in the Old and New Testaments, a visible, hierarchical institution and endowed it with His own divine authority to guide us and lead us into His way of salvation.
- God is indeed very interested in 'religion' today, just as He was interested in it when He set up the Tabernacle and Temple worship in ancient Israel. A genuine, honest, humble and well-informed personal relationship with the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit should logically and eventually lead you to seek full communion with His Body, the Catholic Church.
- To "receive Jesus as Lord and Savior" by faith alone is not enough to be saved; for Jesus imparts his grace, his power, and his life to us chiefly through the Church, her teachings, her liturgy and sacraments, and her communion of saints.
- The Catholic faith is the perfect and complete fulfillment of Judaism - yet this does not abolish the particular calling of the people of Israel nor the special vocation of Jews who enter the Church. As Rosalind Moss, who is Jewish-Catholic, has said, "you can't be more Jewish than to be Catholic!"
- The Catholic faith is the most biblical form of Christianity, whereas other denominations have generally compromised important gifts that Jesus has given us.
What does it mean to be "Catholic"?
Perhaps you, like many other Christians, consider yourself to be "catholic" with a small "c", in the sense that you are a member of the universal (catholic), invisible community of followers of Christ, but not "Catholic" with a capital "C", in the sense of being a formal member of the Roman Catholic Church.
In a sense, it is true that if you are a baptized believer in Jesus, you are already a member of the Body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit certainly can work through you and your community in furthering the work of the Gospel. As the Church teaches:
All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church. (CCC 818)
Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements. Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity.' (CCC 819)
However, the One Church that Christ has founded truly is the Catholic Church, united and governed by the successor of Peter, the pope. In it alone can be found "the fullness of the means of salvation":
The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him... For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God. (CCC 816)
As we will see below, by remaining outside of the Catholic Church you therefore remain only in partial and imperfect communion with the Messiah's Church, and you are missing out on many of the great blessings that God wishes to give you:
The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter. Those who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. (CCC 838)
Let us now examine some of these blessings that God wishes to give you through His Church. [For an in-depth study of the "fullness of the means of salvation" and "all the blessings of the New Covenant" offered by the Church, see Catholics for Israel's Online Course]
