Should Episcopalians become Roman Catholic?

I have been asked by a friend to offer some reflections on the question "Why Episcopalians Should Become Roman Catholic." His suggestion was that a number of his acquaintances have been struggling with the question of whether to remain in the Episcopal Church, with the underlying issue being not so much whether to flee, but rather whither and why. The prospect of offering counsel to anyone in these circumstances is, of course, fraught with difficulties. For one thing, it cannot avoid presumption. That I am a convert to the Catholic Faith from a Protestant background, most immediately in the Episcopal Church, may be of some help here. But I cannot begin to know the various particular circumstances of the individuals in question; and even if I did, I could not presume to tell them what they must do. Whatever the negative experience of religious dissatisfaction in which they find themselves, this is not yet the positive experience of religious conviction required to compel conversion; and nothing short of such conviction will do if they want to become truly Catholic. At best, I can offer some reflections on what I believe and what my experience and that of others has been, and leave it to them to draw whatever conclusions they are able. The convert's challenge of explaining his own conversion is already sufficiently daunting without entertaining the question of what others should do. As John Henry Newman (pictured left) is said to have remarked, perhaps with just a touch of impatience, when asked why he had become a Catholic, it is not the kind of question one can answer adequately between the soup and the fish courses.... Read more . . .