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Patheos Prompt: Why I’m Catholic?

Patheos Prompt: Why I’m Catholic?

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:41 pm by Sam Rocha

Patheos Prompt: Why I’m Catholic? 2015-02-04T18:41:31-06:00 Sam Rocha

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Patheos wants to know why I’m Catholic, in 200 words.

The most honest answer is this:

I don’t know—who really knows why they are who they think they are?

I don’t have evidence or arguments, just a hodgepodge of experiences and feelings and thoughts and circumstances and guesses and doubts and fears and beautiful things and love and my family and pain and suffering and stories and fortune and hope.

The better, shorter, and even less satisfying one-word answer:

Grace.

(You should read Unamuno’s “My Religion” if you’re into this stuff; I’d quote him here if I wasn’t writing with word rations.)

And why assume that I am Catholic?

“Why I’m Catholic” sounds too much like “Why I’m the universe.”

There’s no such thing as being Catholic in an individual unit of one.

Catholicism is a we thing.

Trinity, Church, communion.

For Augustine, becoming Catholic was a struggle where even the self becomes a community.

“My inner self was a house divided against itself.”

I am not Catholic in some static, fixed sense of being.

I cannot be Catholic, I can only become Catholic.

Conversion.

New question.

Why are we becoming Catholic?

It’s a mystery, that’s why.

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