In this clip, Cy Kellett and Catholic apologist Trent Horn dive into a heartfelt question from a viewer grappling with the fear of converting to Catholicism. Trent offers thoughtful insights on the importance of sacraments and the early Church, addressing the viewer’s concerns about faith, community, and personal calling.
Transcript:
Caller: My reason for not being Catholic right now is out of fear mostly. Pretty much my entire life.
Trent: What are you, what are you afraid of?
Caller: Well, losing friends and losing my point of direction. In my entire life, for the past five years at least, I felt this calling towards ministry and I was in the Salvation Army. I felt called towards officership or ordained ministry in the Salvation Army. In mid-December, I really started studying the early church, and that got me interested in the sacraments.
Trent: Salvation Army doesn’t actively practice any sacraments.
Trent: Have you ever been baptized?
Cy: No, I have not.
Trent: Yeah. That’s…
Caller: And I really cut it in my heart. Whenever I was studying Acts and studying the early church, I really cut my heart, the fact that I haven’t been baptized. I love the Lord. I want to follow Him and go by His example. I still feel this call, though, to ordained ministry, towards ministry and telling people about the love of God and all these great things. I want to partake in the sacraments.
I’m terrified of that. Now, my priest, he’s told me he recommended me a book called *The Joy of Priesthood* and all this.
Cy: But this is a Catholic priest.
Caller: I’m just… Yes, he’s a Catholic priest. One that I’ve been talking to for a while. I’m trying to learn. He wants to go one-on-one RCIA with me, starting at the end of this month. I’m just wondering if you could give me any advice.
Trent: On the fear of losing friends? Fear of all of this kind of crazy?
Caller: Yes.
Trent: Coming from someone who converted in high school whose friends were all… Not even that. They weren’t Catholic; they weren’t even Christian. I had friends who were essentially non-religious or atheist when I was investigating the Catholic Church. My family is not Catholic. My mother used to practice the faith; she does not practice it anymore. My father’s Jewish. My siblings varied in their religious views.
So I know where you’re coming from, where it feels like you’re kind of just standing at the edge and there’s like the abyss. You know, you stare into the void and you stare long enough, it starts to stare back at you and you wonder, do I take this leap? Am I going to fall to my doom or am I going to go to something even greater than where I’m at right now?
I would say it seems like God has put a big call on your heart to do a lot of good things with you if He’s calling you to especially to ministry, to wanting to devote your life to spreading the gospel to other people.
But I will give you this bit of advice: you cannot give what you do not have. We need to have a correct understanding of the gospel and the faith first, and then we have to live a life full of the grace of God. The same for myself and the other apologists here at Catholic Answers. Having daily Mass, going to see our chaplain for confession and spiritual direction—if we don’t have the grace God’s given us in the sacraments, baptism, the Eucharist, confession, no matter how much we know, we can’t lead other people.
So I’d say for you that if God’s put on your heart to lead other people to Him, to be to salv, which the Bible clearly teaches, unmistakably that baptism, that salvation begins at baptism. Acts 2:38: “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.” 1 Peter 3:21: “Baptism now saves you.” You cannot give the fullness of the gospel and the saving grace of God to others to lead them to that until you have drunk fully, at least drunk sufficiently of it yourself.
So that’s why I would encourage you first to be rooted in the faith before you go out and choose seminary or ministry, or to go out and teach. I think RCIA through this priest or through a parish would be a really good idea just to understand, learn, and investigate what the Catholic Church teaches to get an understanding of this and to be grounded in it, in receiving the grace of God.
So one, I think that before you would do anything with ministry, because who knows, maybe after becoming Catholic, you could be called to religious life, to the diaconate, to the priesthood. That could very well be, but first, fulfilling the universal call to holiness that we all have.
Second, I would say that on your concern about losing friends and losing other people, at least in my personal experience, when we choose to follow God with our whole heart and give ourselves over to Him, God does take care of it. Like for me, when I became Catholic, it’s not like my friends all shunned me. I was blessed by God; they didn’t. In fact, I still had a great friendship with them for many, many years. I just became the Catholic one in the group.
So if you have friends who are not Catholic, you just may be the Catholic one for them and be that role model and be that witness for them. But I will say this: if your decision does end up severing your relationship with friends or family, I think you should take heart to know that you will be imitating in your life what the very first Christians had to deal with when their Jewish friends and family cut them off.
Jesus knew this was going to happen to His followers, so He gave us His words of encouragement. This is in Mark 10:29. This is what Jesus says: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the Gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers, sisters and mothers, children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life.”
So I would just say that you should follow where God is leading you and that the good things we have in this life, that God will bless us for following Him. Sometimes, though, He’ll give us trials. But no matter what, by coming into the Catholic Church, what gave me solace is knowing that I was now going to be part of a family, an eternal family of Christians who have gone before me, who are praying for me, the body of Christ I interact with every day at Mass.
When you become Catholic, it’s not just you and Jesus; you’re now part of a bigger family of God that Jesus gave us through the Church, and that provides a lot of comfort on one’s spiritual journey. Is that helpful start at least? Do you have any other thoughts on that?
Caller: Yeah, it’s very helpful. Thank you. My other major thing is I’m currently, well, sort of currently the vice president of a campus organization where we get a bunch of international students together, have dinner with them, and then have a Bible study afterwards.
And of course, it’s run by Protestants, Reformed Baptists, specifically. So that’s also something I’m trying to keep in mind. I have to be planning on eventually stepping down, but…
Trent: And you know what’s funny, Johnny, is that this has happened to a lot of other people that enter into the Catholic Church. There are people who are pastors of Protestant churches who had to step down. This happened to Scott Hahn, probably one of the most famous converts today. Francis Beckwith is an awesome Catholic philosopher. He was a Protestant philosopher for a very long time. In fact, he was head of the Evangelical Theological Society. After he converted, he had to step down, which he thought was odd because the ETS’s bylaws are written so loosely that even open theists, people who deny God as perfect foreknowledge, can be a part of it. And yet Catholics can’t join.
So once again, if you have to give up things, including leadership positions among other Protestants, you’d be in very good company.
So some resources I’d recommend: One you’d have to pick up. Two I can send you. One would be, I think you should read Scott Hahn’s conversion testimony in his book *Rome Sweet Home*. I read that thing in a day. I think a lot of people like that.
Number two, my two books I think would be helpful for you: One is *Why We’re Catholic*, and the other is *The Case for Catholicism*. Our call screener, please stay on the line. She will get your information and I will get you those two books. But definitely get Scott Hahn’s book *Rome Sweet Home*. I think it’ll be very encouraging for you.
So would that be helpful?
Caller: Yes, it would. I actually read *Rome Sweet Home*. It took me two weeks, though.
Trent: Still a great book. So I want to send you my books, especially the deeper stuff, *A Case for Catholicism*. I think it might be helpful with who you’re interacting with.
I’m a show-off too, so don’t take it wrong, Johnny. One of my sins, but I’m always boasting of my humility.
Thanks, Johnny. Hey, and we do open forum Tuesdays and Thursdays. If questions come up, give a call.