My Personal Testimony

"In the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith." - Pope Pius XII

Firstly let me begin by saying that this is not an autobiography. If you know me, you may notice I have left out some items. But I can only say that if I added everything, it would be a 300 page book. Instead, this must be a (long) blog article. I wish I could be more detailed, and might write more at length about certain items in the future. 

I was baptized as a Catholic into a non-practicing family when I was born. My father was a professing Catholic, but his own parents did not take him to Mass every Sunday, so I can only assume they were nominally Catholic as a firm requirement to be Catholic is weekly Mass attendance. My mother was similarly nominally Catholic as I understand it, but through the influence of her sisters she became what I would describe as an non-denominational Christian with Baptist and Charismatic influences. Around the age of 9 or so, my father joined her after attending a Christian concert and revival meeting and committing his life to Jesus, and we all went to a church that was Evangelical Charismatic, as it featured people praying in “tongues,” visits from preachers like Jesse Duplantis (begging for more money of course), and “slaying” people in the “spirit” at certain services. I believe this was a big upgrade over nominal Catholicism, although not fully correct. 

While I was a boy, we also attended Baptist and Calvary Chapel churches in the area, and my mother homeschooled myself and my siblings to ensure we got a Christian education. At the time I did not understand that all these churches had some considerable differences, and I am not sure my parents fully understood their exact theological differences either, they just went with what felt best and was convenient. I learned a lot about Jesus from the Christian homeschooling group we were part of and from Protestant homeschooling materials my mom provided to me, as well as a Southern Baptist youth group called “Awana” that I was part of at a local Baptist church for years. Awana and vacation Bible schools at Baptist and Evangelical churches made the biggest mark on me religiously as a child and teenager. 

Awana is a lot like a co-ed Boy Scouts (although Boy Scouts is co-ed now, so I guess this description is moot), but with less outdoorsmanship and a ton of Scripture memorization. That Scripture memorization proved absolutely pivotal in my life and in keeping me connected to Christianity even when I was going in very wrong directions. The Scriptures always echoed in my mind. I stopped going to church but considered myself to be a Christian when I was a teenager, and my parents stopped going to services. 

In college I met a girl I spent so much time with I essentially lived with her. I was convicted by the Holy Spirit that we had to get married or break up, because our lifestyle wasn’t right. I started attending a church down the street from where my parents lived and got very involved, without actually changing my life despite my convictions. My girlfriend also got involved, and “gave” her life to Jesus, but she did not think it was important to get married, and she never wanted to have children. She also retained a lot of unchristian beliefs on homosexuality, drug use and other matters. 

During an internship in Washington DC at a lobbying firm while in college, I discovered, via YouTube, the Southern Baptist preacher Paul Washer, as well as Evangelical preacher John MacArthur. They really convicted me that I was not living as God wanted, and I repented and refused to be physical with my girlfriend unless we got married. Long story short, it strained the relationship and we broke up a few months after my internship ended and I returned home. 

My pastor at the time really had no good answers after I broke up with her. I wanted to get more involved in his church and even become a pastor myself now that I was a “free man” again, and I peppered him and other pastors at the church with all kinds of very difficult questions. I asked about things like solitary sins, Baptismal regeneration and the Lord’s Supper. I became obsessed with doing the Lord’s Supper correctly, and I started to inadvertently annoy the pastor by talking about it so often. The Last Supper seemed way more important in the Bible than he made it out to be and I started to see it from a more Catholic angle. 

Over time, I sensed that he and the other leaders were providing zero or negative value spiritually, despite being good people and fun to hang out with, and I questioned where they even got their authority from, and I began to believe that I was actually just as much an authority as they were despite not having any official title. That church eventually endorsed gay marriage and other sinful ideas after appointing new, worse leaders that were personally trained by the previous guys. 

I took to the Internet and interacted with a lot of pastors across the US online. Few of them had any decent answers to my burning questions. I never interacted with John MacArthur, but being Calvinistic he had a lot more answers than most on his website and YouTube channel, and led me to John Calvin and the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Over time, I saw that none of the modern Calvinists really followed the Institutes. Modern Calvinists universally ignore John Calvin’s teaching on contraception for example. If the Church was supposed to be the Pillar and Foundation of the truth as 1 Timothy 3:15 claimed, I can’t see how something could be a horrible, clear sin one day, and totally fine the next. Modern Calvinists must admit the Holy Spirit was not guiding Calvin (and every Christian until 1930) or themselves on this matter - one or the other. 

I simply stopped going to church once again, and I focused on my final year of college. I joined the school Model United Nations team and got to compete against students from around the world at a competition in Turkey. During the trip we visited the Hagia Sophia, and it had a very profound effect on me. I noticed that they had an infant baptismal font, as well as several holy water cups built into the walls of certain hallways. When I visited, it was officially a “museum,” but since it was also used as a mosque for centuries there was a lot of Islamic decor in the sanctuary. However, it was obvious that the sanctuary was built to accommodate a Catholic-style Mass, not a Protestant service. 

The amazing thing I learned about the Hagia Sophia is that construction began in 370 AD, before the Bible canon was established at the Council of Rome in 382 AD. How could Protestantism be true when people were building grand Cathedrals for Holy Masses, and the leaders from Constantinope involved in building it, were present at the Council of Rome and voted on the Bible canon? Keep in mind, even nearly all Protestant groups believe those men were guided by the Holy Spirit in deciding what was Scripture and what was not. What they were doing at the Hagia Sophia in 370 AD looked almost exactly like what you see in a modern Catholic Church, and the people behind building it played a major role in canonizing the Bible. While I did not think to join Catholicism or Orthodoxy, I at least lost interest in becoming a pastor altogether, because I did not trust that I even knew the truth. The Hagia Sophia, despite being a museum circa 2011, helped lead me to the truth just by existing. It also explains why Protestantism does not do very well around the Mediterranean rim - the people who live there have easy access to ancient Churches and Holy sites. I decided to join the Army Infantry instead, as I did not know what to do with myself, I did not have a serious girlfriend or anything at the time, no clear career prospects, and I wanted some adventure. 

Following Basic training in 2012 I was promptly sent right to the Korean Demilitarized Zone. The most Godly man on base was a married Catholic soldier with a Hispanic background - a supply sergeant. I did not interact with him much, but he left a big mark on me because he did not go whoring on weekends and getting drunk to the point of utter oblivion like nearly all the others. I followed his example while I was there - it was almost like seeing him act Godly gave me a sort of permission to be good too - like there was more than one way to be a Soldier in that unit. I was not perfect in Korea, but I never went to whorehouses or did anything too crazy either. If you are a Catholic or any kind of Christian, you have no idea how just being a good person sometimes has hugely positive effects on people you barely even interact with. 

After a year I left Korea and was stationed at Ft. Riley, Kansas. I dove into my John MacArthur study Bible after arriving, and went to a Baptist service on base, wanting to get closer to God again, but not knowing what to do following my experience at the Hagia Sophia years earlier. After leaving church service, an Infantry officer invited me to attend a Bible study he ran out of the base recreation center one weekend night per week. I really got along with him, and although I now know his ministry was illegal according to US Army rules since he was not a chaplain, I still think of him as a very good man with pure intentions. I quickly became an unofficial teacher in the group, mainly due to my background in Awana, and having read a lot about theological matters. 

This all came to a halt when I was “rebaptized” by him at a local river along with some other Soldiers. I did not know you could not be rebaptized and that the very idea was blasphemous, but afterwards I instantly felt in my heart that something was off. It was not that I had any expectations of something that was not met, it just did not feel right. So, I fell off the earth as far as that group and the Baptist church was concerned. I just never went back, and never said anything to them again. They sent me pictures from the baptism, and I thanked them, but I never wanted to return. Surprisingly, I also never ran into any of them on base again either. 

I started to take issue with a lot of things John MacArthur said in his study Bible. I took extreme umbridge with his “Dispensationalist” eschatology. For those who don’t know, the dispensationalists believe in the rapture and a lot of the things you might find in a Left Behind novel. This really bothered me as the rest of this theology was Calvinist, and John Calvin’s eschatology was similar to the Catholic Church’s and most other Christian groups. Dispensationalism is a very new idea. I sensed MacArthur was just picking and choosing what to believe based on what he felt was best, and he started to come off as a narcissistic sociopath when he preached, with conviction, that dispensationalism was correct. This is because he doesn’t agree with any of the Protestant Reformers, but was sure he was correct, and insulted Catholic stories regarding private revelations, while believing some American and British guys in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s received private revelation regarding the proper understanding of apocalypse that God never clearly revealed until then. 

He’s a very arrogant person, and I now know him to be ignorant of some serious matters despite claiming to be a teacher sent by God. He hates St. Mary so much he now officially promotes a Nestorian Christology - that Christ was born a man and became God afterwards. This is because he really does not want a scenario where Mary can be said to be the Mother of God, despite Luke 1:43. He insists she did not give birth to God, which means Jesus is not God, or that He became God after being born - both ideas that are unacceptable. He thinks Mary only gave birth to Christ’s human nature, which denies that He was always fully God and fully man, even in Mary’s womb, where He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Nestorianism is a heresy so severe that generally even most Protestants would not consider someone who professes it to even be a Christian. It’s like denying the Trinity. 

I started becoming interested in all the Christian denominations besides Catholicism. John MacArthur was extremely anti-Catholic, my mother was and is anti-Catholic, and I had followed many anti-Catholic preachers online over the years. One Sunday morning I went to a Greek Orthodox Mass on base to check it out, and I really liked the liturgy even though I did not understand what was going on. The elderly Priest was a very kind man and invited me to attend Catechism classes off base. I did not take him up on the offer because his congregation was almost entirely older Greek women who were married to US Soldiers, and I was going to deploy soon. I thought it was bizarre that few men attended and I felt they were also converting people to Greek culture in addition to a religion. 

I have nothing against Greek culture, I actually really love it. But I didn’t want to become Greek, just Orthodox. In looking into other Orthodox Churches in the area, I noticed they were all ethnically-based. I felt like you had to pick a group of Eastern Europeans and join their culture, which was difficult. To make matters worse, I discovered there was a lack of unity on doctrinal matters as well, as they have no leader to settle their differences. Not all Orthodox groups are the same, and like the Protestants they do not agree on essential doctrines either. One does not really become Orthodox, they become a specific type of Orthodox, and the groups often fight with one another fostering an ugly ethnic strife. 

Eventually, I was deployed to the Horn of Africa as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2014. Thanks to the Orthodox, I was totally convinced that the true Church of God must be able to trace its lineage to the Apostles, because only Apostles could appoint other Apostles (Bishops). I was also convinced that the True Church had to be global, have existed since the time of Christ, and must claim infallibility because the Bible says the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into all truth, and that the Church was the pillar and bulwark of the truth. At this point, I was convinced that one Orthodox group was correct, but I was open to the idea that the Catholic Church could be the True Church, albeit I thought it was very unlikely. I figured the True Church must also reflect the theology I saw at the Hagia Sophia, which again, started being constructed prior to the Bible’s canonization, and the Church leaders from Constantinople (Istanbul) were behind the Bible’s canonization. 

One night in my barracks room alone on my bed I gave up trying to discern the true faith on my own. I prayed this prayer:

“Dear Lord, you said that if we seek you with all our heart we will find you. I am earnestly seeking you with all my heart, and I want to know what Church is the true church, if any? Please let me know what Church is the True Church.”

I prayed this earnestly and with urgency. I was begging God to show me the truth. I figured He would unveil it to me over time by revealing certain truths to me, but no, God actually spoke to me directly in the moment and said “The Catholic Church.” He gave me a direct answer on the spot. I was in such shock that I just said “ok.” His voice came from inside me, but it was unmistakable. I also knew it was from God because I felt a surge of peace I never felt, and went into a deep slumber right away. The next day I also received a care package from a random stranger and it had, of all things, a rosary in it. 

I resolved to become Catholic, even though I had a thousand reservations about it, because I was sure of what God told me. I sought out the most Catholic Soldier in our unit, who happened to be a personal friend in my platoon. He took me to Mass the upcoming Sunday, and introduced me to the priest. The priest basically appointed him as my catechist. Sadly, tragedy struck. 

This Soldier committed a serious crime, and was sentenced to hard labor and after UCMJ proceedings was ultimately kicked out of the military. As he was essentially a prisoner I could no longer easily interact with him, and I no longer trusted him anyway. His life completely unraveled after and his wife took the children and left him after discovering he had lied about what happened for many months. I believe he lost his faith and “married” another woman without an annulment, so say a prayer for him. 

The priest on base was very busy, although I could have pursued him better to get formal instruction following my loss of a catechist. Instead, I made the grave error of letting the Internet catechize me.

And let me tell you, there are two groups online who are excited to find Internet converts and catechize them - Sedevacantists and “mad trads,” or schismatic Jansenists. Frankly, I hardly learned anything from them of value, but they convinced me Pope Francis was a heretic and the Roman Catholic Church could not be the “True Catholic Church” because the Pope was against the death penalty, which contradicted previous Popes on the topic. In the end, I didn’t believe the sedevacantists were right, only that the Catholic Church itself couldn’t be the true Church for several reasons. 

When I returned State-side, I was unsure that God really told me that the Catholic Church was the true Church given what transpired. So I prayed to Him again to show me what the True Church was, and again He said the “Catholic Church.” This time I resolved to learn through official channels, and since I was leaving active duty in a few months I would just focus on learning the basics of Catholic theology from official sources until I could speak with a priest at a parish back home. 

Upon returning home and moving back in with my parents, I started attending Mass at a local Parish. It was of course a Novus Ordo Mass, and I really enjoyed it. I emailed the Church asking for instruction on how to be a Catholic, and a Deacon met with me one day and showed me what to do at Mass. It was May, and he told me Catechism classes would start in September. I was really annoyed to learn I would have to wait until Easter of the next year to become a Catholic, and even September seemed so far off. I wanted to be Catholic immediately, even without knowing everything. I didn’t even fully understand the Eucharist or other basics, I just knew that this was the True Church of God and it would lead me to the truth. 

A few months later I met the woman who would become my wife. I moved out of my parents house, got a job in the Big City and moved into an apartment near it to be closer to her and work. Not long after we moved in together too, and I stopped attending Mass. I attended it once or twice with her, but I was distracted by the situation, my new job and a full-time Masters degree course-load. I let the cares of the world strangle my faith. I didn’t know it was a wrong thing to do at the time, but we got a civil marriage at the local city hall a few months later to avoid the situation of living in sin. We both had a totally pure intent and to this day while I now understand that the government cannot marry anyone, and we had our marriage convalidated by the Church, I do believe we followed God to the best of our knowledge and were acting rightly in doing that and following our conscience. 

We also started attending all kinds of different Protestant services. I had fallen back yet again into thinking that maybe there was no true Church, because the Catholic Church did not seem enthusiastic to get me fully into the Church quickly like any Protestant church would be, and the process seemed long and complicated. This was supreme ignorance on my part and once again I was making the mistake of trying to be my own leader instead of following. I needed a ton of training and instruction - I needed an RCIA class. 

Before moving to Colorado for a job opportunity, a Catholic friend who was also in the Army with me, who lived nearby after being discharged due to an injury, convicted me at a cookout that I was being an idiot by not continuing with the Catholic Church. He said it was the only true Church, and I knew that was completely true in my heart. God spoke to me through a person this time. After moving to Colorado in June 2019, I started attending Mass again and signed up for an RCIA class that began in August. At first, some of what the Priest taught clashed with some of what I learned from the sedevacantists and “rad trads,” but I took a humble attitude and let the Church teach me. God rewarded me greatly for my humility. 

We all know what happened in 2020. I was finally received into the Church and took first Communion in May of that year, despite it being early in the COVID-19 panic. I got to meet the great Archbishop Aquila of the Denver Archdiocese during my confirmation, and made massive progress in learning about the faith. I learned why contraception was wrong and have had every theological question I ever had completely answered in ways no Protestant group ever could. I learned to pray to Saints and how powerful it was to have a holy man or woman, in the presence of God, going to Him on your behalf. I also felt part of a big team. When I watch shows like The Chosen I feel like I’m watching my brothers and sisters. I can talk to Mary Magdalene and St. Phillip right after a given episode if I want to. This is something Protestants really lack that is an incredible blessing. They think these people are dead, which of course is anti-Biblical, as our God is the God of the living and according to Revelation they are pouring out our prayers before God on our behalf. I know this is the Church, and that we are part of it even when we leave our mortal coil. 

There is a Church with 100% pure, correct doctrine, which can trace itself back to the Apostles, which was never hidden or underground for centuries (it is a Shining City upon a hill), and that is worldwide. I do not call it only the Roman Catholic Church, but the Catholic Church, as it is more than Roman - we have several Rites, such as the Byzantine Rite (Eastern Catholics), Syro-Malabar Rite and Marionite Rite. We span the globe and we span history. 

Jesus prayed in John 17:21 that all of Christianity would be one, as Christ and the Father are one. Jesus’ bride is already united. God is so powerful He can easily keep His Church united until the end of time, and according to that verse it is His desire to do so. The big issue I had with both Protestantism and Orthodoxy was their inherent disunity, which is obviously not Christ’s desire. The true Church must claim infallibility as well. If a Church doesn’t claim infallibility on all matters of doctrine it is a de facto claim that it does not believe it is the pillar and bulwark of the truth in accordance with 1 Timothy 3:15, and that the Holy Spirit does not guide it into all truth as John 16:13 mentions. 

Protestants create a problem by narrowing the doctrine of infallibility to just Scripture, as the Council of Rome was obviously infallible, along with the Councils that defined the Trinity, Christology and other matters. If infallibility only applies to Scripture, it’s meaningless without an infallible interpreter to go along with it. So not having an infallible teaching authority in the Church makes Biblical infallibility moot, and it enables a plethora of people to claim they’re teaching “true” Scripture, creating extreme disunity, or forcing a false togetherness where critical doctrines are labeled “non-essential” and church mission statements go from the Westminster Confessional down to a simplistic 2-3 paragraph faith statement like you might see on most Protestant church websites today. Additionally, those key doctrines change every few decades, as in the 1920’s there’s not a single Protestant church that didn’t condemn contraception in the harshest terms. 

If Catholicism is not true, then we cannot know the truth. We can only read the Bible and hope that we are interpreting it correctly. This is a Bible that does not even tell us which books belong in it on its own. If Protestantism is true, then the church was not a shining city upon a hill for roughly 1550 years, but very hidden, weak, and with few if any clear members. If Protestantism is true, then we cannot know for sure that the Bible we have is what God intended, and God allowed people to read seven “apocryphal” books for 1.5 millennia thinking they were the Word of God. If Protestantism is true, God only came primarily for literate societies, and the West was not even literate until recent history. 

If Protestantism is true, then one denomination is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth,” and this pillar and bulwark was missing for 1550-2000 years, and we can only hope to God we accidentally stumble upon it. If Protestantism is true, then God the Father ignored Jesus Christ’s prayer that we all be one. If Protestantism is true, the Bride of Christ was abandoned after its initial leader St. Peter died, or at some point shortly after his earthly existence. If Protestantism is true, God is the God of the dead, and the Saints aren’t alive and are no longer part of the Church with us. 

If Catholicism is true, we can read the Bible and know exactly what it is saying by referring to Magisterial teaching, which is infallible as the Bible is. If Catholicism is true, we can know for sure which books are in the Bible, and we know the guys who canonized it followed our religion and did the same things at Church that we do at Mass. If Catholicism is true, the Church is a Shining City Upon a Hill and has been for 2000 years. If Catholicism is true, the Bible canon was settled in the 300’s with the Council of Rome, not by men acting on their own in the 1500’s (and coming up with different canons, as Calvin, Luther, Zwingli and the Anabaptists disagreed). If Catholicism is true, God came for both literate and illiterate peoples. If Catholicism is true, the Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth, and therefore the sole rule of faith and morals. If Catholicism is true, death cannot separate us from the Body of Christ and we have a living Mother and living Brothers and Sisters to help us, and we can act like they are alive instead of acting like they’re dead. If Catholicism is true, we can be sure of the Gospel and we can be sure it was never hidden for 1500 years. 

I will leave you with this one last thought. Has Protestantism ever converted a country or continent successfully? It seems to me that Protestantism only grows at an appreciable rate among populations that were already Catholic at one point. Catholicism converted all of Europe and South America, and much of North America, especially Mexico and Eastern Canada. Protestants did not put a lot of effort into converting North American native Americans like Catholics did in the Americas, but instead sought their total genocide, which is why native American bloodlines are far more prevalent among Mexicans and South Americans. Similarly, the Protestants carried out a mass genocide of Aboriginals in Australia, while Catholics were converting the entirety of the Philippines and East Timor as equal peoples. 

The Protestants bought Apartheid to South America, while the Pope mandated the allowance of interracial marriage in all Catholic countries centuries prior, claiming that Catholics are considered to be one race. Protestants banned interracial marriage in the US until the 1960’s, and the Protestant Klan killed Catholic Priests for performing interracial marriages in the South. Catholic converts were known for freeing their slaves historically, and the Catholic Church formally banned the practice altogether in the Middle Ages, and stamped it out in the Americas when Spanish and Portuguese capitalists implemented it, and then evangelized the slaves and forced their former owners to allow them to marry into their families when a couple desired it. Protestants implemented brutal chattel slavery in the United States, which even the pagan Romans banned because of its propensity to cause uprisings and civil wars. 

Protestantism tends to corrupt Catholic populations, and has few if any Saint Juan Diego-type stories of converting an entire pagan country. Protestant churches in America were mostly racially segregated until very recently, with major Protestant college Bob Jones University banning interracial dating until the year 2000. Nearly 1 in 5 white Evangelicals still believe interracial marriage is a “bad thing for society, with only 10% of white Catholics sharing that view, almost the entirety of which belong to independent schismatic groups like the SSPX which are not in communion with the Pope. Ask yourself - does official Protestant teaching on racial matters over the years seem guided by the Holy Spirit? Why are the ancient Popes so far ahead of Bob Jones University in 1999? Why were the Southern Baptists in the 1990’s just coming around to the Catholic position on race, and why were they largely pro-abortion until the late 1980’s? 

The Catholic Church is the Pillar and Bulwark of the Truth mentioned in 1 Timothy 3:15. The House is built upon the Rock of St. Peter already, and we simply have to go into it.