Deepertruth: Catholic converts tell their stories of Eucharistic reckoning

Catholic converts tell their stories of Eucharistic reckoning

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, said during discussion that, speaking as a convert, “It was really the Catholic teaching on the Holy Eucharist, the Real Presence, that drew me into the Catholic Church.” Over the years, many high-profile converts have shared the same. 

Bishop Conley and two other prominent Catholic converts — best-selling author and Scripture teacher Sonja Corbitt and theologian, author and apologist Scott Hahn — share how the Eucharist drew them to Catholicism. 

Bishop Conley was a college student when his immersion i a Great Books program at the University of Kansas got him thinking about the serious questions of life, including the practice of religion.

Raised as a nominal Presbyterian, he had considered himself agnostic when he entered college. Exposure to the transcendentals — truth, beauty and goodness — now led him in search of God.

“I started hopping around to different churches,” he told the Register, listing Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopalian. “Most churches I attended had some form of holy communion.”

“That struck me,” Bishop Conley said, “that Christ is truly present, objectively.” 

He was also moved that the Catholic Church faithfully follows Christ’s command to the apostles, “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). “In other words,” Bishop Conley said, “continue this.”