✣ Highlights from the week online
Are converts a troubling movement? At Commonweal, Massimo Faggioli said that there is a “convert movement” which has “something in common with other ecclesial movements in the recent past, such as Opus Dei, Focolare or Sant’Egidio.” These converts, Faggioli argued, are overly critical and have an unusually large public profile. He described them as “a largely conservative group of converts that seems to have disproportionate representation and voice in comparison to the larger number of recent converts to Catholicism.” Faggioli added that such converts are “finding an easier welcome into a Church that they then go and criticise.” Why converts are nothing special But at Catholic World Report, Carl Olson – a former fundamentalist Protestant – said that singling out converts can be misleading: “I hope that no one who was born into a Catholic family and baptised as an infant thinks he has somehow ‘arrived’ because of his particular origins, or because she was confirmed at the age of 17, or even because he goes to Mass every Sunday.” Olson said that conversion was an ongoing process for all Catholics. “I never thought, and never will think, that in entering the Catholic Church two decades ago, I somehow ‘arrived’ and was set for life. On the contrary, in becoming Catholic I accepted the fact – the fact – that I must work out my salvation, by God’s grace, with fear and trembling, just as another convert, the Apostle Paul, mentioned to the first Christians at Philippi.” The sacrifices of becoming Catholic At cruxnow.com, Fr Dwight Longenecker said that the “immense price” many converts paid should not be overlooked. For clergy in particular, becoming Catholic is a difficult step. “These are men and women with advanced degrees in every imaginable subject, who take whatever job they can get to feed their family. They take a step of faith to follow Christ’s call to join his Church through amazing sacrifices that very few cradle Catholics would ever begin to contemplate. Their courage and commitment should not be ignored.” What Faggioli’s piece missed, according to Fr Longenecker, was “the core reason why we converted”. For converts like himself, it wasn’t discontent with their previous denomination which made them Catholic, it was something much more positive. “There is a bottom line,” Fr Longenecker wrote. “We did not convert because we were miserable in our former Church. Soon after I became a Catholic, someone asked, ‘Well, now that you’re Catholic do you like the Catholic Church?’ I replied, “No. If I were joining a Church I liked, I’d still be an Anglican. I didn’t join the Catholic Church because I liked it. I joined it because it is the true Church.’”
