As a Protestant - I talked with many people about what drives a lifelong Protestant like me to Catholicism.
So I wanted to show you all my most basic reasoning.
1. Tangibility: The sacraments, the literal implications of things like the Eucharist & the basic concept of the Christian life imputed on to us.
Both body & soul are important & require tangible nourishment. If it's just an idea - what's the value? The word became flesh. Is means is.
That's so important.
2. Unity: I would believe an omnipotent God would want his people, his chosen people unified.
God is not a contradiction - so neither can be his church.
Protestants say - that the Church is body of all believers - but how can God - this God of no failure be OK with theological contradiction, fights & 1000s of different interpretations.
That sounds insane to me - so I must believe there is one full truth out there & it just begs the question: What it is?...
3. Verifiability: Catholicism definitely by most rational standards has history & traditional teachings on their side....
Take out the fallible middlemen, where I say Eucharist is literal & you say not... Who can be right? If we tread it academically, historically by knowledge verification, all points show towards Catholicisms claims at least potentially true - how can you reform something you fan never show was there early to begin with, and the fact that all Protestant denominations are built on disagreeing founders one after another...
4. Contingency:
If you look and start even at the OT - everything from Genesis to Revelation - there was a contingent line of succession built, God chose many humans for their roles:
Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, Mary & Joseph & the Apostles...
They all were handpicked to build a line & do God's work on earth. Special privilege came with lots of responsibility handed out. Leadership & such was given to them.
It shows the Sainthood, that authority, and that it isn't the Reformed Protestant Version of:
Just God - no other mediators as they like to say.
No - time & time again - God's saints & chosen people where selected for the great deeds they did. That's community, sainthood, intercessory & all things Catholics believes verify this to me.
5. Founding
At a foundational level - the Catholic Church existed for 2000 years.. it's strong to this day. And yes - I did struggle with people in the Catholic Church doing bad things... but that is not different in Protestantism either...
But other than Protestantism - the Church survived bad people. The theology & tradition seem to be safeguarded by something...
I think this is what The Bible meant when it said: I will give you theย keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:19)
& โAnd I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.โ (Matthew 16:18)
Now that's foundation, confirmation & at the core given authority....
I have never seen a Protestant being able to give a sufficient answer & apply it to them.
There's more. But this is what it comes down to, too.
(More reasons to come later or another day - these are long & hard to write by hand โค๏ธ๐)