A Conversion Account
One man's account of why he left Protestantism for the Catholic Church — and the theological investigation that led him there.
"To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant." — John Henry NewmanRead the Story Browse Essays
The Journey
In the fall of 2023, a lifelong Protestant felt an unsettling suspicion: that Jesus actually established a visible, universal Church. What followed was months of intensive study — the Church Fathers, the Eucharist, the Reformation, the canon of Scripture — and on Easter Vigil 2024, he entered the Catholic Church.
This site is the account of that journey, offered freely to anyone genuinely seeking truth.
"I did not convert because the Church's teaching lined up with my own understanding. I converted because I had a hunger for truth and, after investigation, I discovered that the Catholic Church is the Church."
— Author's Note
Where to Begin
Conversion Story
A first-person account of the five arguments that moved a lifelong Protestant into the Catholic Church — the Eucharist, Peter and the Church, Christian unity, sanctification, and prayer.
Essay · Eschatology & Physics
Modern physics describes a block universe in which past, present, and future all exist with equal ontological status — and classical Christian theology has always said that God sees all of time in a single eternal act. When a soul stands before this God at death, it stands not as a snapshot but as the full temporal pattern of a human life. That is why Purgatory is not an arbitrary penalty but a logical necessity: the soul must become capable of God before it can receive the Beatific Vision. A philosophical and theological argument drawing on Boethius, Aquinas, Ratzinger, and the physics of spacetime.
Essay · Philosophy & Conversion
Eugene McCarraher argues that capitalism is not the disenchantment of the world but its misenchantment — a counterfeit sacramentality that redirects our longing for the holy toward the commodity and the brand. Read together, Plato's Allegory of the Cave and McCarraher's thesis illuminate the condition of the Catholic convert who has seen through the shadows but must still inhabit them. The Myth of Er, meanwhile, presents a pre-Christian structural anticipation of Purgatory that cries out for exactly the theological completion Catholic doctrine provides. A meditation on Justin Martyr's logos spermatikos and the patristic claim that pagan philosophy is not Christianity's rival but its unwitting witness.
Conversation
If you are genuinely seeking, reach out. Every objection listed here was once on the author's own list. He is glad to discuss any of them.
Get in Touch
If you have made it this far, the author is praying for you. The light-bulb moments for you may be different than they were for him — but he is glad to walk through any of it.
steve@pilgrimagetotruth.com