An Open Letter to My Protestant Brothers In Christ

Part 1

My brothers,

I write this letter not from a place of authority, but from a place of love, genuine intellectual curiosity, and because I feel compelled to share some of the reasons why I moved away from being a non-denominational Christian and chose to embrace Catholicism. Even though my time as a Protestant was short, I too held deep reservations against the Catholic Church and refused to submit to an institution which I believed at the time to be deeply corrupted. I had heard of terrible acts done by supposed “men of God”, and I too felt disgust at the fact that some would use the name of Jesus as a facade to hide the most despicable of sins. Suffice to say, I had no interest in joining the Catholic Church, and I did not think I needed anything but my Bible, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and an open heart to develop a relationship with Christ and reach heaven.

I am no expert in Catholic Theology. I am no expert in Christian history nor do I know much about the lives of the Saints. I don’t know the exact history or reasons for the Protestant reformation and I don’t claim to have the most structured historical or theological arguments to support Catholicism. I’m learning, still very early in my process of theological formation, and I don’t intent to convince anyone through rational or historical argumentation. My intention with this letter is to simply open my heart, share with my Christian brothers, in a spirit of unity and honest discussion, why Protestantism suddenly felt insufficient to me from a moral and logical viewpoint, and try to promote a conversation and a desire for the truth in whoever might come across this letter.

My decision to return to the Catholic Church was due to one main problem that I found within protestantism: the lack of clarity and unity regarding various teachings and doctrines. You see, I read the Bible in its entirety. And my faith in Christ was strengthened. I found my Savior, or better yet, He found me. But I still had to wake up every morning and act. Each day, I’d face a thousand choices, big, small, some irrelevant and some critical. Some of them were fairly easy to make, as the moral choice was obvious. But most of them weren’t so clear. I found myself, more often than not, facing decisions that I couldn’t find a clear answer to within the Bible. The 10 Commandments provided some guidance for the more obvious morality I was supposed to live by. The Gospels did too. But very frequently, I found myself navigating “grey areas” in still critical issues, incapable of finding an answer in Scripture.

What about contraception? Is it morally acceptable? How about casual sex? Is there something explicitly condemning that in the Bible? It speaks about sexual immorality, but what does that mean? Does that include masturbation? And on and on it went…

Naturally, I took to the internet and tried to find answers to the various topics. Some protestant denominations were more orthodox, some more liberal, but no answer was definitive. Since there were multiple interpretations, it simply came down to what I wanted to believe. And being sinful and broken, very often I chose wrong. It was just too convenient: as long as it isn’t explicitly condemned in Scripture, I can keep doing it. “Sweet”, echoed the spirit of malevolence within my heart. The more I researched, the more this was strengthened by various other Protestant beliefs: salvation comes from faith alone. Your actions do not matter, as long as you have faith in Christ. And I did have faith. I knew Jesus. So I thought myself saved, no matter what. It’s very easy to think that faith is mere belief, and that Jesus’ sacrifice is a free pass to keep sinning. After all, if works have no bearing on salvation, why should I strive for holiness? I’ll get the same reward anyway, without the hassle.

Bear in mind, I’m intentionally trying to simplify the faith vs works debate, not because I think it to be that simple, but because I’m sharing the thought process I went through at the very early stages of my conversion, and showing how my concupiscent intellect chose to understand faith alone.

Ah, but that’s precisely the point. The concupiscence of our sinful hearts. There I was, reading my Bible, and picking and choosing what rules to follow and how to understand ambiguous statements according to my own convenience. Do not underestimate how much your human nature wants you to keep sinning, after you’ve been at it for a while.

It was underserved Grace which raised in the depths in my soul an awareness of my own incapability to make my own doctrine. How could I, a sinful, wounded creature, take something as deep, meaningful, and pure as Scripture, and think my own interpretation to be the right one? Even more so when every single person who reads the Bible has his or her own interpretation? Was religion something as simple as “believe whatever your heart tells you to believe”?

A single moment of clarity was enough to shatter my prideful misinterpretation of what following Christ truly meant. I simply didn’t have the answers. And I wouldn’t find them on my own. That was enough to draw me away from being non-denominational, and from the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

So I started studying the different denominations. I looked up various protestant Churches to learn about their doctrine, and started filtering through them, looking for the one that best aligned with my interests and beliefs.

Wait a minute. I fell for it again. I was “looking for the one that best aligned with my interests and beliefs.” But who am I in this whole story? Am I looking for the Truth or am I simply looking for whatever doctrine I can follow most comfortably? Why is it that I keep coming back to picking and choosing the supposed truth that’s most convenient? It’s an endless loop. There’s no possible answer to this paradox unless there’s something higher, unmovable and final.

If what reigns supreme is your own intellect, you will always, always choose “your own truth”. There is no way to escape this within Protestantism. Every branch claimed to be the right one. Every denomination claimed to be the one where the actual truth was found. But I could just as well make my own church, based on my own interpretation of Scripture, and claim that to be the true one.

Even old, established branches of Protestantism suffer from the same problem: somewhere along the line, a man decided that he knew better. He saw what was there and had been there since the time of Christ, and felt himself superiorly gifted to determine the final answers of faith and morals. This may be a difficult question to face, but is that not the very same sort of pride that made Satan rebel against the heavenly throne? Thinking he knew better?

I needed something to guide me, not something for me to guide. I needed something final and definitive that I could truly submit to, I needed something that could guide me towards Heaven, undeniably, firmly, and clearly. I needed answers, and not the answers that my sinful nature was conveniently providing.

Protestantism became too easy. Too comfortable. It required zero effort. Zero guilt. I could sin freely, because I believed in Christ. And that was enough.

Something finally clicked. The only way, the only truth, the only path forward has to come directly from God. Not from humans, no matter how well intentioned. No religion made by man suffices, just as my own personal religion won’t either. So that naturally made me ask: what is the Church that Christ Himself founded?

There is one Church that fits that criteria. There’s only one Church which Jesus Himself established. That was the only Church that wasn’t built by the human intellect, but by the Word Himself. So it had to be the True one.

I had finally found the answers to my questions. I had finally found my home. I found something that actually demanded my entire life. It demanded effort, toil and struggle. It demanded self-denial in word, thought, and deed. It demanded me to fight relentlessly against sin, until my very last day. But it also gave me the answers I was looking for. It gave me peace, forgiveness, and faith. It gave me beauty and solemnity. It made all the pieces fit together.

I still had my concerns. What’s the deal with Mary? What if the Pope was a terrible man? What if the Church had been corrupted?

Those questions still lingered, and I was determined to find the answers, but even before finding them, I received a deep sense of moral clarity and certainty in the Institution that has seen the rise and fall of empires, in the institution that has kept the Christian faith alive for centuries, in the One Church which Jesus established, in the only institution where the answers were true, and not up to my own interpretation.

I couldn’t deny that I had found the one true Church of Christ.

To be continued. Part 2 of this letter will be released on Wednesday, the 14th of May, 2025.

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