How could an ex-Jw become Catholic

by My Struggle 54 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Word

  My Struggle: I am always surprised when an ex-Jw says that they have found the real truth in Catholicism

  I am not

  All the Revelation prophecies that JWs have in the 140 year period between 1874 and 2014 AD

  Catholics have in the 260 year period between 65 AD and 325 AD

  Babylon the Great, The Beast, The King of kings, The thousand years, The New Jerusalem, The great crowd, the great tribulation, The Parousia, The Resurrection and so on

  

  King on Throne in Heaven and Woman standing on moon with twelve stars
• 

  AK - Jeff

  I love all people. I love Catholics.

  I might be partly trying to 'make up' for all the meanness that I endorsed as an active Jw for so long. We demonized them without honest examination as Jw's. I have found those Jw's who joined the Catholic or Orthodox faiths to be kind, caring, decent people. None of them have jumped into the religion without deep investigation. They of course are aware of the failings of former Popes and religious leaders. The Church does not make many efforts to rewrite it's history - it is well known. The honesty of that is refreshing compared to what the Jw's did with it's history.

  Jeff
• 

  BONEZZ

  I am certainly not as deep into religious studies as many of you and have never been. But whenever I had doubts about certain JDub beliefs I was told that the defining experience was "LOVE" among a group...that's how you knew the "approved" group. Well since i have been disassociated I have had much contact with Catholics. Myoffice was located next to a Catholic Ladies Relief office where I witnessed many good-hearted people donate many hours of their time to giving food to needy families. The WTBS would poo-poo that of course but have they, as a billion dollar corporation, made Jesus's or Jehovah's name venerated by ignoring the hunger and needs of those less fortunate.

  I also live next to a Cistercian Monastary...again this group is so UN-LIKE the WTBS it is enormous. At anytime of the day from their opening to their closing, I can walk onto their property without asking permission and go almost anywhere I want without being followed or hounded, except of course the cloistered areas where the monks actually live and sleep. They have a library, stocked with books for loan or sale...and no one is there monitoring it. There's a little box for donations if your see something you like or want. When was the last time you walked around headquarters in New York unaccompanied? The Dubs think the worst (suspicion & paranoia) of everyone. You have to prove your loyalty. The Catholics seem to think the best of everyone. You would have to prove you're not a good person. The monks are very welcoming and hospitable. Yes, most of them talk and are gracious even to the most crude individuals who show up there. It is a true representation of Love. (The fact that they own and operate a terfific little winery has had no effect on my comments...it's just a bonus)

  Plus I have a Catholic aunt who has never shunned us even though my father had many hot Dub/debates with her.

  That's my experience with those "nasty", much-hated-by-the-WTBS Catholics.

  Catholics - 3

  JW's - 0

  -BONEZZ
• 

  Tom Cabeen

  To GGG:
  
  You wrote: Tom, I've read many of your essays and I have nothing but respect for you. You say that you'd never go back to what you thought you had as JWs. However, when you lost faith in the JWs, you lost the security of having all the answers, knowing you were part of an organization which has God's approval, which points to the Bible as proof of that. Now that you found the Catholic church, you again have the security of having all the answers, of knowing you are part of an organization that has God's approval and points to the Bible as proof of that. Only this time, the claims of being God's people come from the Church which assembled the very book you are pointing to as proof! Logically, they would fit the bill.
  
  The proof of the identity of the Catholic church is not primarily biblical, for the very reason you point to. I believe the Bible to be true on the Church's authority, not the other way around. The Bible, authenticated and viewed purely as an historical document, describes a group of people who believed that they had had an encounter with the very Son of God. Other historical documents corroborate the teachings of this man, and also describe how firmly they were believed by so many people, and why these people believed them to be true. They also describe that this man taught that he would found a church that would last until his second coming. I can document historically that a church has been in existence since the first century, and that her teachings have been essentially unchanged for nearly two millennia. The leaders of this church have stated authoritatively that certain books are authentic and inspired. We now call those books the New Testament. So that is why I believe the Bible to be true.
  
  Another difference for me now is that I view an organization as a human thing, whereas I see the church as an organic thing, Christ's own body, a temple made of living stones, which he inhabits by Spirit. The Catholic Church of today has all the earmarks of being the continuation of what I see described in the New Testament. I can follow her history down through the centuries in the writings of her members, which hold a remarkable continuity and unanimity, even though for most of her history there has been no possibility of anything like the WT's regular output of enforced interpretations coming from one small group of men in one city in the USA.
  
  Hippolytus, writing in the second century, gave a list of the seventy disciples Jesus trained and sent out, where they went and what they did. Nearly all of them became overseers or bishops of cities throughout the ancient world. This would have guaranteed a unanimity of belief and practice, something his contemporary, Irenaeus points to as proof of the catholicity of the early church. This was long before the days of printing and quick communication.
  
  The business-like WT-style governing of an organization was impossible prior to the modern age of rapid communication and cheap printing.
  
  Thanks for your comments!
  
  Tom
• 

  stillajwexelder

  Tom Cabeen welcome to the board -please in put more. Are you the real deal Tom Cabeen that Randy Watters refers to? If so really looking forward to your input
• 

  Tom Cabeen

  Yes, it is me. Randy and I go back a long way, to the early 1970s. I first talked to Randy about my biblical "discoveries" behind the Wood-Hoe press when I was Pressroom Overseer and he was one of my foremen in the Pressroom at Bethel. We both left Bethel about the same time, in 1980.
  
  Tom
• 

  BlackSwan of Memphis

  I don't mean this to be offensive to any Catholics in any way and believe that they can have true salvation unlike the Jw. Also, I know little about the in's and out's of practicing Catholicism, as I have never had any interest in being one. Regardless I am always surprised when an ex-Jw says that they have found the real truth in Catholicism. To me it seems that they are falling into the belief that they are in the one chosen religion and all other religions and subsequent denominations are wrong. The Catholics also seem to have fairly strict ordinances regarding detailed aspects of your life and are very liturgical....and these things seem to be reasons that some left the Jw's. Catholicism also has it version of the Bible....again something that turned some Jw's off. Catholic history is steeped in 'new light' like teachings and the leaders hold their authority far above the average catholic member, believing that without their direction they would be totally lost on how to understand the Bible....again things that made ex-jw's say 'Wait a minute...you mean to tell me.....'.

  Again I mean no offense, and I am sure that there are plenty of things that I am either off about or just dead wrong. So, please correctly me where I am wrong.

  Actually, truth be told, I have found Fundamentalism to be much more strict, and Catholicism to be based much more on conscience.

  As far as the Catholics considering themselves to be the one and only way, this has been answered pretty well. My studies have shown that the Church tends to be incredibly loving, almost bordering on universalism, but I have been corrected in the past on that.

  As far as the issue of the Pope and Mary being worshipped....yeah, ya know, I have met people that go so far over board on the matter of the Pope and Mary to the point that they completely miss the point, that being Jesus. But for the most part, I really don't see the whole Pope worshipping thing too often.

  How could an ex-JW become Catholic?

  Head trauma.

  Just kidding, ex-JW Mary-worshippers.

  Er.

  I mean Pope-lovers.

  Sincerely,

  Born-only-once-God-nonrecognizer

  funny
• 

  BlackSwan of Memphis

  Tom, I was searching the net for a conversion story into Catholicism for ya, and I can't find one. For some reason, I had thought catholicxjw had one for you.
• 

  Seeker4

  There are a few ex-JWs that I deeply respect, who all became Catholics. Tom Cabeen is one. Barbara Harrison Grazutti is another, and I think AK Jeff (I'm probably off on this, but I'll get it right eventually).

  I completely disagree with their decisions. I've become an active atheist, and see Christianity as just another myth-based attempt to control people and give us a placebo for our fear of death.

  That having been said, for many years, even as a JW elder, the writings of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, were very influential on me, and Merton was close friends with Thich Nhat Han, a Buddhist monk who was even a greater influence on me.

  I'm not too quick to dismiss these Catholics that I've come to respect.

  Tom - glad to see you post here. I think, as I was looking through some old district convention programs a few months ago, that you and I were on the same district convention program somewhere here in New England at one time. Who would have dared guess then where we would be today!!

  S4
• 

  coffee_black

  Hi Tom! waves~ Welcome! Good to see you!

  Coffee aka Debbie Shard