Why I want to be Catholic

It has to do with the love of the Father, drawing me. I write about it at the Anglo-Catholic.

Here's the heart of my post:

Though I knew the TAC was in informal talks about communion with the Holy See and I was already a big Cardinal Ratzinger fan in 2004, (we were all rooting for him in the conclave in 2005) I still had a basically Protestant theology of the Church and of the Body of Christ as a mystical entity, an unseen fellowship among believers that transcended any earthly institutions. What mattered was a shared faith in Jesus Christ–and of course, a personal relationship with Him. It took a few more years for me to begin to grasp a more Catholic ecclesiology. I thought I was already Catholic because my faith was more catholic than most Catholics I ran across. I had a lot to learn.

But it has not been doctrine that is drawing me into the Catholic Church. I am content with the doctrine I get at our little bastion of sanity at the Cathedral of the Annunciation. We receive great teaching from our priests. And our worship is beautiful.

Why I yearn to be Catholic goes way beyond doctrinal assent or a desire to be obedient on principle–it's a deep-seated passion, from the heart, because of the love of the Father, drawing me through faithful Catholic bishops like Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast and our previous Nuncio, Archbishop Luigi Ventura, who is now in France.

I love them. I want to be able to receive Our Lord from their hands. I want to be in heaven with them and take my whole family with me. And all my friends.

They have revealed to me in profound, personal ways how alive and well and beautiful the Catholic Church is at the level of her institutional, earthly structure. I yearn now to be connected because of them. And I could not began to name the many beautiful priests and lay Catholics I have come to know and love. There are many more bishops who I do not know as well, but who have also been loving and kind to this journalist who is still an outsider.