2. Great Numbers Making Their Way Home

In the search for the one true religion it is a remarkable fact, though often only too little known, that great numbers of men and women of every condition in life embrace the Catholic faith, here in the United States alone more than 75,000 a year. Of these a large number are learned and intelligent who reenter the Church only after the most thorough examination of its claim to be the Church Christ Himself founded. They enter it, too, only after having overcome great obstacles in their way, and after having made the greatest sacrifices. As a practical and convincing argument that should challenge the attention of all thinking men and women, the Church can point to the great number of her illustrious converts, among them the best minds in the world, painstakingly making their way back home.

“It is estimated,” says a writer in the magazine called Lamp of the issue of December, 1934, “that of 3,000 converts made in America over a recent period, 327 were Protestant clergymen, 115 were doctors, 126 were lawyers, 45 were members or former members of Congress, 12 were governors or former governors of states, 180 were army or navy officers, 206 were authors, musicians and other persons of cultural prominence. Turning to England we note that since the death of the greatest convert from Anglicanism, Cardinal John Henry Newman, more than 900 Protestant clergymen of England have returned to the Catholic Faith.”

This, in itself, is a striking fact that should not pass unnoticed. A sincere Protestant clergyman is one who out of his religious convictions has dedicated his life to the service of God. He knows more about religion than the average layman. He has more to lose in a worldly sense than others when he embraces a new faith. It must be then, we can safely conclude, that he reenters the Catholic Church only because he is convinced by the evidence before him that this is his duty because it is the true Church of Christ and the only true Church of Christ.

Yet we must not make the mistake of thinking that the Church is meant only for the great ones of this earth, for the learned and the highly educated. It is also for the simple and the lowly, for the average normal human being of whatever state in life he may be. Christ Himself called attention to the fact that one of the marks of the true Church is this, “the poor have the Gospel preached to them.” Christ intended the Church He built upon Peter to be for all men of all nations, and as such, the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Christ. It is the Church of the rich and the Church of the poor, the Church of the poet and the Church of the peasant. Great kings and queens are numbered among her saints, just as men of the lowliest beginnings in life are numbered among her pontiffs. Through the Church Christ founded Christ’s call goes out to all men of all nations. It is intended for you also.