Appendix 5: "But I Haven't Felt The Call"

Why don't you feel God's call to Rome? What about Protestant ministers?

This appendix is for two groups. First, Protestants who are puzzled about why, if God desires that all Christians enter communion with Rome, they have not felt His prompting on the subject. Second, those who, beyond not hearing a call to Rome, have heard calls to various Protestant communions and service. Nothing will be said here that doesn’t immediately follow from what I said about the stupid/wicked dilemma, but recent conversations with intellectually honest, spiritually earnest, deeply Protestant friends have shown me that it needs to be treated explicitly. 

First things first. Predictably, I am not about to say that those who have not previously felt a spiritual tug to Rome are fools, or that they’re spiritually inattentive. I know Protestants who lean in to catch the whispers of the Holy Spirit with a yearning and submission that would impress the greatest Catholic mystics. No, in the vast majority of cases, I take the Protesting status of most Protestants to be entirely blameless, because, as I’ve said elsewhere in this sprawling document, they come by it honestly. For most Protestants, Rome has simply never been on the radar. 

But why doesn’t God implant a general call to Rome? I think it has to do with the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, God shows us that He is willing to enter into the confines of human frailty, what we might even call a concession to our weakness. He could zap a complete knowledge of all true Christian doctrine into our minds at the moment of conversion. He could send angelic apparitions to every local parish whenever its beliefs start to go awry. But He does not. He chooses to send human teachers, who learned from their teachers, who stretch back in a line to the Great Teacher, Christ Himself. He, even He, taught with stories about family, farms, and small businesses. The God who created all from nothing chooses to carry out His action in the world using the good things He has made. Christ accepted the limits of His merely human interlocuters and limited His infinity to their finite experience, using the familiar items and words of everyday life to reveal things spiritual and eternal. 

Taking on limitations, though, means taking on limitations. It is no trick. God always takes you as He finds you. Step by step He leads you deeper into His inner life, starting with where you are. Have you ever heard someone say, “I know God is calling me to study something, but it’s some subject I’ve never heard of.” Of course not! Just the opposite: we tend to think that God arranges for us to hear about something precisely so we can realize our call to it. Remember: the two disciples travelling to Emmaus found their hearts burning when the Scriptures were exposited to them, and not before. As the Ethiopian says, “How can I understand, unless someone explains it to me?” You ask, “Why has He not called me to Rome?” And I respond, “He has been at least from the time you started reading this document.” It is up to you now whether you will ignore the extremely uncomfortable feeling that this might all be true. 

Even if I’m right, why did God wait so long? Why didn’t He bring it to the attention of so many spiritual greats, or all the millions of Protestants who lived and died loving God beyond Rome’s walls? I do not know. I don’t know why He brought me into contact with good Catholics but not my grandfather, who once audibly heard the voice of God command him to leave the Freemasons. I don’t know why now or why me. But that is quite another question. We are asking why He takes on these limitations at all. And the answer is that He created us in our human nature and does not intend to bypass it in the story of our redemption. How He carries out this redemption is something angels long to look into—it is certainly above my paygrade. 

As for those who have discerned the call to Protestant ministry or missions, we should again stress that it is likely not a case of spiritual obstinacy. Think of it rather as a “provisional” call. God calls us to serve Him as best we can given what we know. If someone’s impression of Catholicism begins fatally garbled and is perhaps confirmed by education in a Catholic high school, it is understandable that it would never occur to them as a live option. Provided, then, that a Protestant is nonculpably noncatholic, God may call them to all manner of work in His kingdom, work with an organic connection to their life. If you have truly discerned this sort of call on your life, you were not wrong about God’s desires for you. It is part of the rich tapestry of His love in your life, and should not be treated as second rate. Perhaps it is part of what led you here. But now that you have encountered a serious exposition of the Catholic Faith, your call may be caught up into the full sacramental life of grace. God permits nothing to be wasted. Just like my six years and thousands of dollars spent studying Protestant theology is an unerasable part of how I will live and serve the Catholic mission, so to is your own history with the Lord. 

I need to speak now to those one step more invested, who have at some point discerned calls to join a given local Protestant church, seek Protestant education, or enter vocational service in a Protestant communion. Taking me seriously here threatens to upset many things you would rather hang on to. You have my full sympathy. Assuming for the sake of argument that Catholicism is in fact true, you have two and only two legitimate paths in front of you, and, sorry to say, neither will be easy. Some unsentimental pro/con analysis will be necessary. 

First, you could enter communion with Rome. You gain the unalloyed good of the sacraments, and (though I can only put it in embarrassingly mawkish terms) will feel the mantle of two thousand Christian years settle on your shoulders. You gain a patron saint, a confirmation sponsor, and the complete system for letting Christianity soak into your years, your months, your days and hours. There will also be blessings that come with substantial cost. You may lose a network of ministry contacts (even if they still love you, they are not very likely to fund or platform you), and you may lose a church family. These you will find over again in the Catholic world, although admittedly most parishes have less family mentality than the average Protestant church. You may have to give up what you presently understand your calling to be. Protestant ministers will certainly lose their job, and if they have children this will seem an insanely irresponsible choice. 

That said, remember also that the Catholic Church is very interested in welcoming and utilizing whatever talent it finds. Men ordained in noncatholic communions should reach out to the Anglican Ordinariate to inquire whether they are eligible for becoming Ordinariate priests, as it would allow them to remain married and receive ordination in the Catholic church. There is also the Coming Home Network, a Catholic organization that chiefly helps Protestant ministers and academics return to Rome by providing community, networking, and information about financial/occupational resources if necessary. Beyond that, though, I pose an annoying question: Don’t you believe in God? He has promised that you will not starve in His service. You will never wreck your life because you trusted God. It might seem to fall apart, and you might even lose it. But your life will never be better off in rebellion to His will on any point. If God is a God of truth, then it follows He will not punish you for upending your world to conform with His will.

Second, you might help prepare the way for the union of communions by leading your Protestant church to petition Rome for admittance. The Anglican Ordinariate did not come about ex nihilo. There is a history of Anglican parishes petitioning admittance to the Roman Church. It took former Anglicans to prepare things on the Catholic side and current Anglicans to supply the demand. It is of course my preference that Baptists/Presbyterians/Lutherans etc. would develop channels for reunification without erasure after submitting to and entering the Catholic Church, but petitions from outside asking for admittance would certainly not be wasted. Lest you think this an easy way out, remember that it involves trying to convince Protestants to ask Rome to let them in. That is probably not going to make anyone happy. It means accepting the theology and ethics found in the Catechism, and acknowledging that any bread and wine (or, more likely, grape juice) you receive will not be true Eucharist but only a stand-in. It means thinking seriously about what it would mean to build a liturgy with your tradition in mind. Of course, if you’re a pastor these are probably enough to cost you your job anyways, but I’m just laying out the options. 

Remember that nothing will be wasted. For all you know, your life with God has been preparing you for this moment, to recognize the fullness of Christianity found in the Catholic Church. If it is, do not fear that everything prior was only a ladder to be kicked out once you’ve climbed up. God will make excellent use of everything you’ve offered Him, and He can redeem whatever you have not. Only give it to Him now, and let Him work. Simply put, “Fear not: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”