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I was brought up in the USA in a strict Evangelical home. We went to church as a family twice on Sunday and on Wednesday nights. Family prayers were part of our routine, and we were taught that to love and serve God was the highest adventure life had to offer.
After college in America I came to England to study theology and prepare for the Anglican ministry. I was eventually ordained and served as an Anglican priest for ten years. In 1995 I, and my family were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. This was the end of a long journey of faith, but it was also a new beginning.
We became Catholics because we were more and more concerned about two things: unity and authority. I wondered how Jesus ’ prayer for unity could make any sense when there were over 20,000 different non-Catholic denominations. Linked with this, I saw so many different opinions amongst Christians and wondered how on earth anyone could decide who was right. How was one to decide the way forward for the Church when huge, complex and controversial questions had to be faced?
The Catholic Church claimed a unity and authority that transcended all the historical, contemporary and personal conflicts that tore apart other Christian communities. I didn’t think the Catholic Church was perfect. I could see lots of human problems with the Catholic Church both down the centuries and in the present day, but I could also see that there was something different—something bigger and stronger and older and more permanent about the Catholic Faith. The more I learned the more impressed I became. Then I came across a quote by G.K. Chesterton—‘Once a person starts being fair to the Catholic Church it is not long before he is attracted to it.’
As we entered the Catholic faith we didn't believe we were rejecting all our previous Christian experience in the Evangelical religion and Anglicanism. Instead we were fulfilling and completing all the wonderful things we experienced there. There is a fullness of Christianity in the Catholic Church we simply didn't find elsewhere, and while being a Catholic is far from easy, we have no regrets and find Christ to be alive and real within the Catholic fold in a more powerful way than we ever could have imagined.
Dwight ’s story is told in more detail in The Path to Rome . He’s written extensively on the Catholic faith today. His website is www.dwightlongenecker.com