Why I Left Roman Catholicism

all right everybody this will be part

two of a two-part Series in which I

share with you my intellectual and

spiritual journey in this video I'll be

discussing my time as a Roman catholic

christian in the Roman Catholic church

and ultimately why it is that I chose to

leave the Roman Catholic Church in part

one of this series I discussed my

entrance into the Eastern Orthodox

Church my time as an Orthodox Christian

and why it is that I chose to leave the

the Orthodox church and I'd encourage

you to watch that video If you haven't

seen it

already because the reasons that I give

there for leaving the Orthodox Church

were instrumental in my coming into

communion with the Catholic church so

I'm not going to go over that again here

in this

video now I've sat on sharing as I as I

said in that verse video I haven't uh

shared this story publicly for a long

time uh for a number of reasons but but

most significantly I think because I

still have tremendous respect and

admiration for these

Traditions Catholic and Orthodox

churches are um wonderful beautiful

churches with deep historical roots of

course deep um intellectual and

spiritual Wellspring from which to draw

upon they generally produce I would say

beautiful Christians some of the most

extraordinary Christians I've known

truly have been Catholic Christians very

thankful for the Catholics that I've

known in real life in particular um

they've been very good to me and I trust

treasure those

relationships now I'm sharing this story

I think primarily because in the YouTube

space there's lots of videos about

people who become Catholic or become

Orthodox from a Protestant background

there's not a lot of videos of people

going in the other

direction and certainly not any videos

very many videos as far as I know of

people who have been both Roman Catholic

and Eastern Orthodox and then have

returned to protestantism so my story is

unique and because I know so many of you

are thinking through these issues and

maybe you're a Protestant or maybe

you're a Catholic or Orthodox or

whatever and you're you're wrestling

with some of the issues and you're

wondering where you should go whether

you should stay in your own church your

own tradition or go somewhere else I

empathize with the situation that you're

in it's challenging I know that and

especially in our internet age where

there's so much information and that you

can access there you could just have

access to ridiculous amounts of

information it makes this really

challenging and especially with these

issues that are um they're they're

difficult to work through I I I totally

get it so I hope this video will be a

help to you if only just because you can

hear how somebody kind of thought

through some of these

things so um I do want to be clear

though this video Even though I will be

um it's not pical I don't think but I'll

be critical as of of the Catholic Church

espec especially kind of the C Central

teachings concerning the

magisterium but I I do it with with

great again great admiration for that

Tradition now I entered into full

communion with the Roman Church back in

2013 in March of 2013 right at the very

beginning of francis's pontificate and I

remember the day that he was elected

Pope I like many of you probably was was

glued to my computer screen I was

eagerly awaiting the news of the papal

conclave and to be honest with you I

remember the sinking feeling that I had

in my stomach as I learned that the new

pulp was a Jesuit from South America an

unknown Jesuit from South America I knew

enough about the Jesuit order to have

some concerns right the J did not the

Jesuit order does not have a a a stellar

reputation among Orthodox Catholics at

least in the 19th and or I should say

20th and 21st centuries that's not to

say of course I know there there are

some Jesuit priests who are excellent uh

men of God and faithful Catholics but uh

the order as a whole is kind of pushing

the boundaries you could say so I was

concerned probably again like many of

you um and little did I know of course

the

the disorientation and the confusion

that would come forth from the Francis

pontificate which we'll get into here in

this

video nevertheless I did of course

continue forward with this decision I

had made the decision at the tail end of

Benedict the 16's

pontificate and I still decided to go

through with it and I discovered a small

community of ordinary at Catholics in

Fullerton California I was living in

Southern California at the time and if

you're coming from Orthodoxy which has

arguably the most beautiful lurgical

tradition of any Christian tradition

into novas Oro Catholicism especially in

the LA county and Orange County of

Southern California where the lurgical

went landscape is uh basically a

wasteland generally speaking at least it

was in 2013 I'm not really sure how it

is now but uh the ordinar at Parish was

um an oasis in the desert and for those

of you that are unaware the ordinariate

refers to a jurisdiction within the

Catholic Church specifically designed

for anglicans who wanted to come into

the Catholic Church while at the same

time maintaining some of their lurgical

spiritual patrimony Anglican patrimony

and bringing that into the Catholic

church so there was a small Parish of

ordinary Catholics in Fullerton very

very small Parish like 30 people maybe

we'd meet at a Sunday School classroom

of a local Roman Catholic parish kind of

kind of Rinky Dink but um the Liturgy

itself was quite beautiful of course

with elements from the book of common

prayer which I have come to to love and

cherish but the community there solid

Christian people got to know them well

the priest got to know him well thankful

for his ministry to me very very good

priest and different of course unique

from different from the typical novas

Ordo experience which is like parishes

are on average 3,000 people and ours was

was very small

comparatively now I was of course

keeping up with church news and very

quickly into francis's pontificate

things took a a bad turn so if you

remember July of 2013 the very

beginning we had that that Infamous who

am I to judge statement

and well I'm not in this video I'm not

going to focus on the lony of scandalous

things that have happened under the

reign of of Pope Francis and things

coming from his very mouth or actions

that he's that he's

taken I want to focus on one in

particular I'll get to it in a few

minutes but but just for the time being

that who am I to judge statement is a

kind of a perfect

encapsulation of

the of the of the one of the problems of

the Francis pontificate namely the

confusion and disorientation that swn

through ambiguity right so that

statement if you recall it was ambiguous

and it could be taken in an orthodox

manner or it could be taken in an

unorthodox manner we know of course how

the media took it causing great um harm

it seemed to me upon the reputation the

Dignity of the pap office and the

Dignity of the of the Roman Catholic

church and harm to the Catholic faithful

and this was um a situation that became

pretty pretty normal within my Catholic

experience over the last I should say I

was I left the Catholic church in 2020

so for my seven years of being a cath

formerly left it in 2020 so my seven

years of being a Catholic pretty typical