Mormons make good Catholics
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By Cynthia Gill Bates
I as born in San Antonio, Texas, and lived there until I was sixteen years old. We lived a few blocks from St. Thomas More parish and school, and many of my neighbors attended school there. My father spent his career as Chief Financial Officer at several Catholic hospitals in Texas and Colorado. I remember visiting the motherhouse of the Benedictine sisters who owned the nursing home and hospital where my father worked in San Antonio, and even attending Masses there when I was very young.
My parents raised me as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church. I was raised a TBM (“True Believing Mormon”), devoutly practicing the faith from the time I was very young until my college years. My parents converted to Mormonism when I was a baby, or maybe right before I was born. My uncle—my father’s brother—had converted, and my father and family converted shortly after that.
Growing up Mormon allowed me to experience my teenage years in a safe and secure environment. While our family had periods of being considered “inactive” (infrequent attendance at Sunday church services), for the most part, we went to church every week. I was baptized on my eighth birthday, which I remember being a very special honor. My parents were “sealed” to each other and to my younger brother and me during my junior year of high school in the Dallas, TX, Temple. I participated in many of the milestones of Mormon youth and adolescence, such as Scripture-chasing during my early-morning seminary classes and singing in roadshows (although I was never lucky enough to perform in “My Turn on Earth” or “Saturday’s Warrior”).
When I was in college, I started dating a nice young man who didn’t have a religious upbringing. When we started dating, I made it clear how important my beliefs were to me. He read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover and was baptized, and we continued to date for two and a half years.
It Began with a Book
In the spring of 1992, my boyfriend and I were in a bookstore near a mall in East Texas. I was looking at religion books and was inspired to pick up an “anti-Mormon” book. I can’t remember what shocking revelation in this book made me want to buy it. I just remember that I read something that was convincing enough for me to leave the religion I had believed my entire life.
Here’s the secret of what happens when a Mormon leaves the church: When faith in Joseph Smith is lost, all faith in the truthfulness of the Mormon religion goes, too.
Everything in the entire religion revolves around the teachings and doctrines of the founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith.
Gordon B. Hinckley, a modern-day leader of the Mormon Church, described this concept well:
These great God-given gifts are the unshakable cornerstones which anchor the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as well as the individual testimonies and convictions of its members: (1) the reality and the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God; (2) the sublime vision given the Prophet Joseph Smith of the Father and the Son, ushering in the dispensation of the fullness of times; (3) the Book of Mormon as the word of God speaking in declaration of the divinity of the Savior; and (4) the priesthood of God divinely conferred to be exercised in righteousness for the blessing of our Father’s children.
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon are the cornerstones of the Mormon religion. Take those away, and everything else crumbles. There are only two possible options: either Joseph Smith told the truth, or Joseph Smith lied. Either Joseph was visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ, or he was not. Either the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, or it is not. Period.
My boyfriend and I left the church at the same time. Our calling at the time (a volunteer position assigned by church leadership) was teaching a Primary class. We simply called the church and said we could no longer teach the class and that we would no longer be going to the Mormon Church. We broke up about four months later.
RCIA, Round One
After leaving the Mormon Church in 1992, I briefly started going to the Catholic Church and attending RCIA classes. For a reason that has escaped me at the moment, probably something to do with college parties and other typical co-ed shenanigans, my Catholic catechesis didn’t last for very long. I do remember buying my first rosary, a rosary that I still keep on my bedside table. After college, I became a religious agnostic for many years.
When I turned twenty-seven, I decided to give the Mormon Church one more try. I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to draw closer to God and find out if the Mormon Church really was what it claimed to be. I lived my late twenties as an active member of a Singles Ward (similar to a personal parish, for young single adults ages eighteen to thirty), but after years of not finding the answers I was seeking, I left the Mormon Church for the last time. Soon after I left the Mormon Church for the last time. Soon after I left the Mormon Church for good, in 2001, I met my husband. We were engaged nine months after we met and were married six months after that. As a married couple before my conversion to the Catholic faith, we attended church together only about a dozen times. We attended the Mormon Church with my parents at their home Ward, and we also went to a couple of Catholic weddings. We tried a Unitarian church once, but that didn’t work for either of us.
In October 2005, my husband and I went to the Catholic wedding of one of our neighbors. I remember that, while sitting in the beautiful little church, I was so jealous of people who received the Eucharist. I wanted to experience that. I felt this warmth, this serenity sitting there in the chapel. And then, as God worked within me, switches started getting flipped in my head. I realized that I could do this: I could be Catholic. I could get baptized if I wanted. I could go to a Catholic church every week if I wanted, or even every day! I could be a part of this.
Two weeks later, I was in RCIA. Although I had been baptized as a Mormon, the Catholic Church regards Mormon baptisms as invalid. Joseph Smith taught that:
It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us: yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did . . . God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! . . . In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted [prepared] a plan to create the world and people it. When we begin to learn this way, we begin to learn the only true God. (“The King Follett Discourse”)
Although in a Mormon baptism the Trinitarian formula is recited, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the teachings of the Latter-day Saints:
are not the three persons in which subsists the one Godhead, but three gods who form one divinity. One is different from the other, even though they exist in perfect harmony” (L’Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, Aug. 1, 2001, 4).
For this reason, I was not simply received into the Catholic Church, but baptized on Easter Sunday, 2006.
The Graces of Our Eucharistic Lord
During my conversion process, I participated in a lot of online forums. Many times, Mormons trying to convince me to come back to the Mormon Church contacted me. The following exchange between one such Mormon and shows the profound love of our Eucharistic Lord that I had experienced in my conversion. I wrote this two weeks before my baptism:
Mormon: It’s too bad you didn’t take prayer seriously when you were a member of the true church. If you had taken Moroni’s challenge and prayed “with real intent,” you wouldn’t have taken the path you are currently on. But, prayer in any context is good. So best wishes.
Me: I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I begged, I pleaded, I cried for an answer to whether the Mormon Church was true. I prayed and begged for the simple answer promised in Moroni [from the Book of Mormon]. You know the one:
Moroni 10:4: And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
This is one of the very first scriptures that Mormon missionaries share with investigators. Pray for the truthfulness, and you will receive an answer.
So why didn’t I receive an answer? I did everything I was supposed to do! I prayed, I tithed; I went to church every single week. I read the entire Book of Mormon cover to cover . . . I was a good Mormon for years and did what I was supposed to do and never received the testimony that simple investigators are encouraged to find.
. . . I found out recently what I was missing, though. I wasn’t asking for mercy. I wasn’t asking for God’s love to come into my life. I never asked to let God mold me into what he wanted me to be. Honestly, I didn’t ask for forgiveness, except to ask forgiveness for not being “good” enough.
Today, I understand what was missing. If all I had were a Catholic church and a priest and the Eucharist, my soul would still leap with joy.
The Eucharist! Oh, my God, how unworthy I am to be in the presence! And yet every time I go into a Catholic church, there he is. In a little over two weeks, I will be able to receive the Blessed Sacrament, our Eucharistic Lord on the altars and in the tabernacles, to have the most intimate communion with God that a person can have on this earth. There is nothing in Mormonism like it. Have I mentioned I’ve been to the temple? Being in the temple doesn’t compare to simply sitting in front of the tabernacle in a Catholic church, praying to God and feeling his love wash over me.
So you see, you are wrong about me. The God of Mormonism did not give me an answer to the truth of the Mormon Church because God instead revealed himself to me in the Consecration of the Blessed Sacrament at a Catholic Mass. Through this grace, I have found him as he truly is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have found him in the heart and soul of the Catholic Church. My joy now is profound.
Mormons Make Great Catholics
I distinctly remember a story heard many times in my youth, told by a leader of the LDS church, LeGrand Richards:
Many years ago a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I became well acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science, and philosophy. One day he said to me: “You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the Gospel from ancient times or the restoration of the Gospel in latter days.” (A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, 3–4.)
I remember this story as being the reason why people said that Catholics make great Mormons. Since my conversion, I’ve discovered that Mormons make great Catholics as well. In reflecting on the faith of my childhood compared to the Catholic faith that I now practice, I see many virtues that I held as a Mormon that have carried over to my Catholic faith. One of these virtues is generosity of service, which is one of the fruits of our relationship with Jesus Christ. As a Mormon, I always felt I was most pleasing to God when I fulfilled the callings given to me to serve my church. As a Catholic, I have a much better understanding of the importance of offering the sacrifice of my time and resources in service to others. I fulfill this call to serve God in my faith by volunteering at my parish, and by working for my diocese in the Communications department.
Give Me That Old Time Religion
I love everything about being Catholic, and that includes all of the riches contained in the beautiful history and traditions of Catholicism passed down through the millennia. When I go to a Catholic church, I want it to be as Catholic as possible. I want to see Mary statues and people praying the rosary before Mass, and beautiful stained glass windows. I want lots of candles and incense and pews and altar rails. I want crucifixes and statues of saints and beautiful Stations of the Cross. I want old school confessionals, the kind I always see in movies, with kneelers and a screen between the priest and me. I want priests in cassocks and processions and Eucharistic adoration and all of the rich treasures of my faith. I want to experience the faith of my spiritual fathers in traditions that have been passed down from centuries of saints. I want to know with all five of my senses that I have entered a special place, a holy place set apart to experience and worship God.
While I attend Novus Ordo Masses frequently, I find comfort in the unique style of worship and traditional Catholic devotions I find at my parish, which offers the Mass in what is commonly known as the Extraordinary Form (Latin Masses celebrated in the Roman Rite in accordance with the liturgical books of 1962). I find peace in listening to the Gregorian chant sung by the choir. I loved Gregorian chant long before my conversion and owned quite a few Gregorian chant CDs years before my baptism. I enjoy the feeling of being transported into another world when I see women in chapel veils and hear the bells rung at the Consecration and smell the incense at the High Mass on Sundays. I appreciate the sense of modesty and reverence of the parishioners in the chapel. The priests at this parish are good and holy men, and I have learned much from them on how to grow in holiness and how to truly live my Catholic faith. And, yes, they wear cassocks.
Thankful and Contrite
I thank God every day for the grace to be a daughter of the Church, and for the blessings he gives me to become more fully united to his holy will. I often pray for the conversion of souls and for the sanctification of priests. I spend time with our Eucharistic Lord as often as I can, consoling his most sacred heart in the stillness and darkness of the tabernacle as I kneel before him. I unite my prayers with those of the priest at the altar when he prays in contrition, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”
I offer thanks and praise for the sacrifice Christ made for me at Calvary. I pray in thanksgiving for the love and mercy he freely gives me, unworthy as I am of these gifts. I ask him humbly for the grace to love him as he deserves to be loved, and for a holy death so that I may spend all of eternity praising his holy name and gazing at the radiant beauty of his holy face. And I pray daily for the strength to deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow him.
Cynthia Gill Bates is the digital media strategist for the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. She served with the USCCB Communications Committee’s social media response team in Washington, DC, New York, and Philadelphia during the historic 2015 US Papal Visit. She lives with her husband in Irving, TX, and is a parishioner of Mater Dei Latin Mass Parish.
