CV NEWS FEED // Secular adults generally decide to join the Catholic Church for a variety of reasons, including profound spiritual moments, a sense of restlessness, or deliberate searching for the truth, according to a research study done by the Diocese of East Anglia in England.
“Analysis of the interviews in this study suggests that the process for an adult deciding to become a Catholic is a largely self-initiated, protracted, complex and multi-dimensional,” the diocese reported. “There were no sudden conversions.”
The diocese interviewed ten adult Catholic converts to identify common themes in their conversions, and discovered six similarities. First, the interviewees experienced spiritual restlessness in their lives, despite being Christians in other denominations.
“It was accompanied by a deliberate quest for this to be resolved and was often a very protracted process over a number of years,” the diocese reported.
The interviewees additionally were driven to investigate other religions based on a desire for knowledge and the truth. However, intellectual rationales were not enough, as the interviewees added that profound spiritual moments were paramount in their journey to the Church.
Everything I was hearing made sense,” one interviewee said, according to the diocese. “I was listening to lots of testimonies…. It was just beginning to build up and I just, I still had, lots of questions. I still was not sure about Mary, purgatory, or praying to the saints, things like that. But I was growing but I couldn’t stop, I just couldn’t stop listening and reading and at the same time I felt drawn to the Catholic Church.”
The diocese also said that the interviewees needed to gain awareness and appreciation of Catholic practices and traditions, which sometimes involved a gradual process of being stripped of prejudices or misunderstandings about the Church. Discovering reverence in Catholic practices was an important moment for the interviewees as well.
Finally, the interviewees generally said that their conversion journey was self-initiated, but that other Catholics were key in drawing them into the Church later on. A parish priest usually played an important role in the interviewees’ decision to formally convert.
“All of these factors have a cumulative effect over an extended period of time,” the diocese added. “These findings indicate a number of areas of consideration and challenge which might help inform evangelisation strategies and practices.”
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Author: Hannah Hiester
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