Catholic apologist Dr. Karlo Broussard joins host Thomas Graf to respond to a heartfelt question: Does God really want everyone to become Catholic—even faithful Protestant families? Karlo affirms the Church’s teaching that God wills all to enter the Church Christ founded, but he emphasizes this is not a rejection of non-Catholics. Rather, it’s an invitation into the fullness of grace and truth found in Catholicism. Drawing on Scripture, reason, and the Church’s tradition, Karlo explores what this means for unity among Christians and how God’s love extends to all—but calls each of us deeper.
Transcript:
Caller: Hi, Carlo. You know, there’s just so many wonderful Protestant families out there. Don’t you just think that God just wants to leave them alone? And does he really want everybody to be Catholic? I mean, there’s just so many wonderful families out there. I mean, doesn’t he love the family, so why not just leave them alone? I mean, is he really God, actually? Is he trying to draw everybody to Catholicism?
Karlo: All right, so it’s a good question, Ariel, and I appreciate you calling in and asking it. The short answer to the question is yes. But just because God wills that everyone become Catholic, since we believe that’s the church that Jesus Christ established, that doesn’t mean he does not love those who are not Catholic.
So I agree with you 100%. Non-Catholic Christian families, Protestant families are wonderful families, wonderful people. And in fact, sometimes you have Protestant friends who are more wonderful than your Catholic brothers and sisters because some Catholics don’t love Jesus as much as our Protestant friends love Jesus. And so that’s just a fact. So I agree with you 100%. And they’re lovely families and they love the Lord.
But here’s the deal, Ariel. Our Lord has much more in store for them. So imagine the degree of love that they have for our blessed Lord outside of the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church. Without the riches of the Catholic Church, that love can be even more intense and achieve higher degrees if they were within the visible boundaries of the Church, receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, participating in the traditional spiritual forms of piety and converts.
Ariel, I was just talking to converts last night at a wedding reception that my wife, my family, and I were participating in. Converts sharing with us in table fellowship just how much more they have come to discover within Catholicism. They loved the Lord intensely before their conversion to Catholicism. But with their conversion to Catholicism, Ariel, they have testified to us—and this comes in, you know, Catholic Answers time and time again—that they were able to love the Lord even more and with a deeper knowledge and love and more intimacy.
And I don’t know about you, Ariel, but I kind of think that that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to love the Lord more. And if the Catholic Church is given to us by Christ to assist us in loving him more in order to achieve higher ranks of holiness and sainthood, well, then yeah, of course he would will for those Christians to become Catholic because he wants them to experience all of the goods, all of the gifts, all of the blessings that he has come to this earth to reveal to us and to entrust into the Catholic Church.
So even though there is some good in virtue of which Protestant Christians can experience joy and deep love for the Lord, all the good, so we believe, are in the Catholic Church. And Christ wants his children to experience all of those riches. So that’s what I would say to that.
Thomas: Thanks so much for that call, Ariel. As I mentioned, we do have a lot of callers on the line. We’re going to keep on going up to Nebraska, where David is listening on the Great Spirit Catholic Radio.