Why would someone convert to Catholicism?
It is a question I am asked from time to time. Most fundamentally, the answer for any convert boils down to the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit through the Church that Christ established. But more specifically, sometimes my Protestant brethren question whether there are any good reasons to leave Protestantism for full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Even though I am a former Protestant, I continue to believe like C.S. Lewis that the orthodox of each Christian denomination have more in common with each other than the heterodox within, which is the basis for a vibrant ecumenism. And I think it is frequently the case that Protestant-Catholic differences are more terminological than substantial. Still, all of this is compatible with acknowledging that from the Protestant and Catholic viewpoints, the other side has sometimes erred theologically and therefore, their reasons for faith are in some respects mutually exclusive. I believe that Edmund Campion’s witness and reasons remain valid today for Catholics to draw upon when fulfilling Peter’s injunction to “always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks for the reason for your hope” (1 Peter 3:15). (And not only because I named one of my sons after him!)
Campion was a rising star in England and the Anglican Church in the 1560s, having distinguished himself for his intelligence and eloquence at Oxford, before obeying his conscience to flee and seek reconciliation with Rome. He went to the seminary at Douay and then Rome to join the Jesuits, and was a priest and professor of rhetoric and philosophy at Prague. He eventually returned to England on a mission to preach, administer sacraments, and confute errors. By the time the Elizabethan Protestant settlement had taken hold, the Catholics remaining in England had been driven underground, and Campion was one of scores of missionary priests sent to minister to Catholics in England who were ultimately tortured and killed by the regime.
Campion boldly declared in a letter to England’s powerful Privy Council that his mission was not political, but spiritual: “I know perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all the Protestants living . . . can maintain their doctrine in disputation.” While he was on the run as a fugitive Campion managed to write and clandestinely print the Decem Rationes (“Ten Reasons”), a tract outlining the reasons for his Catholic faith, upon which he was willing to dispute. As his tract circulated it caused a sensation, and Elizabeth’s agents chased him around England, exerting every effort to silence, arrest, and kill him.
The reasons Campion offered for the Catholic faith were the Bible, its interpretation, the nature of the Church, the ecumenical councils, the testimony of the patristic Fathers and their elucidation of the Scriptures, Church history, the heretical errors of the Reformers, the sophistic tactics of Protestant apologetics, and the many witnesses to the Catholic faith. Campion’s tract was polemical in nature and sought to challenge a number of Lutheran and Calvinist teachings he contended were incompatible with the ancient Christian faith.
Regarding the Bible, Campion contended that Luther unjustly questioned the canonicity of James, which Luther had labeled a book of straw. Campion also took note of the rest of Luther’s so-called antilegomena, the other New Testament books whose authenticity Luther cast doubt upon (Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, Revelation). Meanwhile, other Reformers like John Calvin did not question the canonicity of these books. Yet, Campion pointed out, both Calvin and Luther claimed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. At the same time, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, who also claimed to be guided by the Holy Spirit, affirmed an Old Testament canon that included Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, which are excluded from the Protestant canon. But how can the Holy Spirit—who, as the Spirit of truth, Christ promised would be our teacher and guide into “all truth”—lead different individuals claiming his guidance to affirm rival canons (John 16:13)? How could the Holy Spirit lead at least some of the faithful into falsehood?
Sometimes Protestants answer this question by appealing to the Bible as the criteria to judge who has been led into falsehood. But this begs the question, for Orthodox and Catholic believers contend that the Bible presupposes the ecclesiastical authority of the Church. It is an undeniable historical fact that the Bible was not revealed with a table of contents. The canon was discerned in the course of history, guided by the Holy Spirit working through the universal Church as expressed through Church councils, and therefore in union with the bishop of Rome.
Campion cites the ancient ecumenical councils, particularly the first four (Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon). These councils were directed at condemning the Arian heresy that denied Christ’s divinity, the Macedonian heresy that denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Nestorian heresy that denied Christ’s fully divine and fully human nature were united in his one person, and the Monophysite heresy. Campion focused on these councils because under Queen Elizabeth they were acknowledged by English law to be authoritative. But, Campion contends, to confess the Christological truths pronounced by these councils is to accept the authority of the bishops of Rome, whose approval and representation were considered essential to the councils’ authority. Hence, Campion argued that the Protestant spirit of subjective judgment risked unraveling not only the Bible, but also the authority of the great ecumenical councils and the Christological doctrines they pronounced. Campion quotes Luther’s own words, enunciating a principle that Luther would rather trust two learned and pious men in agreement in the name of Christ than ecumenical councils.
Of the distinctive doctrines affirmed by the Reformers, Campion focused on those that he took to be most egregiously erroneous.
Even though it was not Luther’s intention, this principle has led to unfortunate consequences. Consider the question: Is marriage essentially between one man and one woman? If one polls two learned and pious Episcopalians, the answer is no; but poll two learned and pious Southern Baptists and the answer is yes. In short, Christian head-counting gets us no closer to the truth of the matter. Luther’s principles generated a spirit of distrust of traditional ecclesiastical authority that has resulted in thousands of Protestant denominations who, in the name of Christ, disagree as to the truth about even the most basic matters of faith and morals.
Then there is the interpretation of Scripture. Protestant Reformers accused Catholic interpretations of Scripture to be obscurantist. Campion counterargued that it is Protestantism that distorts the clear meaning of Scripture. He contended that this was evident in symbolic and spiritual interpretations of Christ’s words at the Last Supper and Holy Communion. This is my Body. This is my Blood. The Catholic teaching of transubstantiation—that the Eucharistic bread and wine are really transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus while maintaining the appearances of the former—is simply an attempt to deploy Aristotelian metaphysics in service of the Christian faith, to explain philosophically how Christ’s words could be simply and literally true. Campion’s argument is that, by denying the literal import of Christ’s words, the Protestant interpretation becomes obscurantist.
The testimony of the patristic Fathers is closely connected with the interpretation of Scripture; their teachings function as guardrails for correct doctrine and practice. As St. Vincent of Lérins argued, the faithful Christian faced with the question of whether a teaching is heretical ought to consult not his private conscience, but the consensus of the Church Fathers:
who living and teaching, holily, wisely, and with constancy, in the Catholic faith and communion, were counted worthy either to die in the faith of Christ, or to suffer death happily for Christ. Whom yet we are to believe in this condition, that that only is to be accounted indubitable, certain, established, which either all, or the more part, have supported and confirmed manifestly, frequently, persistently, in one and the same sense, forming, as it were, a consentient council of doctors, all receiving, holding, handing on the same doctrine.
What Campion found was that it was a common trope of Protestants in his day to cherry-pick patristic doctrines they themselves agreed with: “They eagerly seize upon [in the Fathers] what they have learned from us, in common with us, to detest.” Campion argued that all that is true in Protestantism, the Protestants learned from the Catholic Church—and all that they claim to be false in Catholicism, was also taught by their patristic teachers.
Of the distinctive doctrines affirmed by the Reformers, Campion focused on those that he took to be most egregiously erroneous. For example, he points out that Calvin’s discourse on God’s secret providential direction of the actions of the reprobate seems to attribute to God authorship of evil. Campion singles out Calvin’s theory of substitutionary atonement, in which Calvin insisted Christ had to suffer the punitive flames of hellfire. In Calvin’s words, “It was requisite, also, that [Jesus Christ] should feel the severity of the Divine vengeance, in order to appease the wrath of God, and satisfy his justice” (Institutes, Book II, Ch. XVI).
Would this not attribute evil to God the Father, to pour out his wrath upon the Innocent One? As if one drop of his innocent blood would not be sufficient to redeem all mankind? Calvin seems to have been tripped up by his interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Calvin claimed that this meant that the sins of mankind were imputed to Christ. But, as biblical scholars have noted, “sin” here is shorthand for “sin offering,” which Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering servant predicted (Isaiah 53:10). The sinless man bore the curse of sin, offering up his life as a sacrifice for our sins. There was a fittingness in Christ pouring out all of six quarts of blood on the Cross, for, as Peter Kreeft points out, that was all the blood he had to give. But it was not absolutely necessary in the strict sense—God could have saved us in any number of ways. For these reasons and others, it was not necessary for Christ to enter hell to undergo God’s wrath. On the contrary, he entered hell as a conqueror enters a battlefield—to heal the wounded and liberate the prisoners of war.
Campion also identifies a number of sophisms at times advanced in Protestant apologetics. To take logomachia (a debate concerning words) as one example, Protestants sometimes attack Catholics by demanding: Show me the word “Mass” or “Purgatory” in Scripture. Yet, the words “Trinity,” “Homoousios,” and others are not found in the Scriptures, even though they are affirmed in the Creeds. Two points are apparent. First, sound philosophy can be called, like a handmaiden, into the service of sacred doctrine without corrupting it. Second, the Bible is that part of Sacred Tradition that is written down, and to weaponize it against the deposit of faith is akin to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
Campion concludes his Ten Reasons by reciting the testimony to the Faith of a litany of martyrs.
For over a year he evaded Elizabeth’s priest hunters, assuming various disguises and hiding in priest holes. But he was betrayed and captured, thrown in the Tower of London, and tortured on the rack. Plucked from solitary confinement, his body broken, Campion was examined by the learned Anglican doctors. With nothing but his intellect and memory, Campion defended the Catholic Faith so eloquently that his interrogators dragged him back multiple times before the council in a fruitless effort to confute him. When Campion declined to renounce his faith in trade for his freedom and promise of advancement in the Anglican Church, it was determined he must be executed. Demonstrably fabricated charges of treason and scalawag witnesses perjuring themselves characterized his sham “trial.” Campion was sentenced to be hanged, let down before dying, his private parts cut off and his entrails removed and burned while still alive before being beheaded and quartered. The grisly execution was carried out 443 years ago, this December.
