Can a Convert be a “Real” Catholic and Can a “Real” Catholic be a Convert?

I have mixed feelings about converts to Catholicism. On one hand, I welcome them but on the other I feel a bit suspicious of their motives. This is a topical subject as conversion rates are increasing across the globe, in some cases dramatically.

American media reports state that many of these converts are young adults whose conversion was triggered by the covid pandemic when they often found themselves isolated and in danger of falling victim to the deadly virus. In many cases their initial contacts with the Church were through the Internet. Some of these converts were also celebrities with high public profiles. Experience has shown that what goes “virtual” on the Internet one day is generally forgotten the next. I hope I am wrong and these people are genuine converts and not just some passing trend. It will take decades to see if they were genuine converts as they go on to marry and raise a new generation of Catholics.

There is another kind of “convert” and I include myself in this category. I´m talking about “lapsed” Catholic who returned to the Church after a long time in the wilderness. I left the Church when I was about 15 years old as I was fed up with having religion rammed down my throat at school in Glasgow. For 10 years, from primary to secondary school (high school), I was subjected to what I can only describe as indoctrination. We had to learn our Catechism by rote, have a religious class lasting half and hour every day, attend a week long retreat at the start of every school term, listen to talks by visiting missionaries etc. My high school was run by Marist Brothers so perhaps that explains the rigorous education.

Even then, at that young age, I knew that giving up mass and the Church did not mean I was giving up Catholicism. I flirted with atheism as a teenager but I knew deep down I was still a Catholic. In the ensuing years I only went to mass on special occasions like baptisms, weddings and funerals and even gave a reading at my father´s requiem mass.

I married another “lapsed” Catholic and we had a daughter. We did not introduce her to religion even though we lived in the largest Catholic country in the world, Brazil. My daughter was not forced to have religious lessons although something inside me made sure she was baptized when she was about six. I even considered sending her to a high school in São Paulo run by Jesuits but desisted as I felt like a hypocrite talking to the director about the religious curriculum during the admittance interview.

In some ways it was through my daughter that I started returning to the Church. São Paulo is a vast city with many dangers and I was constantly concerned about her safety and wellbeing. I started dropping into churches, kneeling in front of the altar and praying, asking God to look after her. I was particularly distressed for a long period when my wife and I were having domestic problems and even separated for a number of years before reconciling. My daughter stayed with my wife and I was constantly worried about her. If I was not around to look after her then who would? Occasionally a mass was underway when I entered the church and I would sometimes stay to the end. However, it was not like the masses I remembered. First of all it was in Portuguese and, secondly, the service had changed since my day. The mass was still said in Latin until I was 13 and the priest celebrated it with his back to the congregation.

Nowadays people gave the sign of peace and shook hands. They held their arms in the air when we said the Lord´s Prayer. A young seminarist, as gaunt and emaciated as an El Greco painting of Christ, embraced me once during the sign of peace and that was a decisive moment. I could feel myself being enticed back. I started to feel good being at church and started attending mass on Sundays and then during the week. I made my first confession and received Communion for the first time in four decades. I was back and it was such a joyful feeling. All this happened 13 years ago and I am pleased to say that I have never looked back. I did exaggerate in my devotions at first, as many converts do, but I have never had any doubts that I made the right decision.

However, I sometimes wonder if there are other lapsed Catholics who have come back and then recanted again. If so, I want to reach out to them and urge them to stay. If you´re a real Catholic it doesn´t matter if you´re a new convert or a “reconvert”. We all share the same faith.