Steve Ray interviewed “Why These Catholic Converts Remain”

But now that she has professed faith in the “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church,” the California film producer said her concerns about the Church she entered in 2000 won’t cause her to leave.

“What keeps me in the Catholic Church is having learned devotion to the Holy Spirit,” said Turicchi, who grew up going to a Pentecostal church and went to a megachurch and an Episcopal church before converting to Catholicism. “The Holy Spirit will always give us cover, no matter how upset we are, how mad we may be about what is going on in the Church.”

Turicchi and other converts from Protestantism, many of whom have made great sacrifices to join the Church, agree that in embracing the Catholic faith, they have come home and that “to protest,” as they might have done in the past by turning to another Christian tradition, is no longer an option.

“You can go to the best of Protestant churches and get the best of the word of God there … but the Catholic Church is the only place where you can get the word of God, followed by eating and drinking the Body and Blood of the Word of God,” said Jeff Barefoot, an attorney, CPA and founder of a wealth management firm in Perrysburg, Ohio. “Like Peter said in John 6, ‘Where are we going to go?’”

To leave the Church because of something the Pope or any priest said or did or because of a crisis that strikes at the truth of the faith, he added, is simply not feasible….

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“Since entering the Church in 1994, former Baptist Steve Ray of CatholicConvert.com said he has remained because of one thing: “It’s true. … The Catholic Church teaches all truth to all people, in all times, in all places. No other can come close. I’m home, and I’ll defend her to my death.”

This is not to say, however, that he doesn’t have concerns, among them recent efforts to resurrect Martin Luther as something of a saint.

Ray — who recently led a tour in Germany to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, during which he refuted Luther’s arguments — cited, for example, the depiction of Luther kneeling at the foot of the cross on a Vatican stamp issued in the reformer’s honor. Although when he was a Protestant, Ray considered Luther a hero, he said he now sees him as a schismatic, heretic ex-priest who damaged the Church.

Ray said he can stay in the Church because, as he looks at history, he sees far-worse situations than those occurring today.

“The beauty of it is the Church is 2,000 years old and it has weathered all these things, and still it’s there and is still the biggest group of Christians in the world. It’s still strong, and people are still converting in droves into it. I knew what it was when I came in.”

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