Reason 33

33. Because Protestans who once converted to Catholicism are scandalized to see that the New Mass is the same as the one they attended as Protestants. One of them, Julian Green, asks “Why did we convert?”


First, a personal testimonial: no, it’s not. Every Catholic convert from Protestantism I know finds the New Mass (pretty much the only one most of us have ever attended) to be an experience unlike anything we grew up with. There is not a Protestant assembly (beyond High Church Anglican) that has a Eucharistic tradition anything like any Mass (even the most horrible, horribly abused Masses) I have ever seen.

The Julian Green comment is very interesting. I assume, as no further detail is given, Julian Green (a.k.a. Julien Green) is the American Novelist who converted to Catholicism in 1916, when he himself was only 16 (he lived predominately in Paris, but never was a French citizen). At this point his conversion was very much into the traditional Mass, and this question “Why did we convert?” would not have been raised for liturgical reasons. It is possible he raised the question 60 years later, but he had lived outside the Protestant circle for so long (and had spent very few years there to begin with) his opinion is certainly not all that forceful.

Further, there is strong evidence that Green spent much of his life struggling deeply with mortal sin, and certainly surrendered to it on several occasions (even to the point of leaving the Church for a decade). This does not, of course, automatically disqualify him from being correct, but it does inherently taint anything he has to say on the Church. A man refusing to follow the Church’s teaching in one thing cannot be trusted to be a good voice for the good of the Church in another.

All in all, this reason does not offer a lot in the way of saying anything.