A faith shaped by distance and misunderstanding

He grew up evangelical but admits his understanding of Catholicism was deeply shaped by misconceptions.

“I grew up as an evangelical who was so low-church that I didn’t even know what a Protestant was until my teens. I had picked up a lot of Anti-Catholic prejudices, all the normal things.”

For years, Catholicism wasn’t something he engaged with — it was something he misunderstood from afar.

Even as curiosity grew through studying history, his assumptions remained.

“I still saw Catholics as unwitting idolators in a cult that sometimes knew Jesus.”

But college has a way of making questions unavoidable.

The questions that wouldn’t go away

As he studied history more deeply, something began to shift. Not because of arguments alone, but because of questions about faith, Scripture, and the early Church.

“I was longing for the sacramental and ecclesial relationship with Christ without realizing it.”

Still, he wasn’t ready to move toward the Church—he was still trying to sort it out intellectually.

“So, I began what was supposed to be a brief one week Bible study to separate what the Church obviously got wrong from what little it got right.”

But what he encountered didn’t confirm his assumptions. It challenged them.

“To do them justice, I started actually listening to what Catholics said for themselves for the first time in my life.”

The moment everything shifted

The turning point didn’t come in a classroom or a debate. It came in an unexpected moment of online outrage and curiosity.

“The big turning point for me was the day Roe v Wade was overturned.”

As he watched others respond with anger toward Catholics, something unexpected happened internally—curiosity.

That curiosity eventually led him deeper into Catholic teaching, Catholic voices, and Catholic history.

But even then, he was still searching alone.

The encounter he never expected

Everything changed when a Catholic presence entered his life in a very ordinary place: a dorm hallway.

“Eventually, it took God sending a Benedictine monk to my dorm hall – at an evangelical university! – for me to open up. It was a totally providential meeting.”

That moment mattered not because it solved every question, but because someone finally showed up.

“He listened to my whole story, and gave me solid steps on how to proceed.”

For the first time, he experienced something he hadn’t encountered before:

“I had never actually met a faithful Catholic in my life until that moment.”

That encounter became the turning point between private searching and real community.

From searching to belonging

From there, everything began to move quickly—though not easily.

He began exploring the Church more deeply, wrestling honestly, and eventually moving toward full communion.

“That encounter paved the way for me to join RCIA, and I was eventually baptized and received into the Church on Easter Vigil 2024.”

But even after entering the Church, the impact of that encounter continued to grow.

His faith didn’t stop at conversion—it became a mission.

“Since then, I’ve had the blessings of attending the National Eucharistic Congress… starting a Catholic club at my Protestant university, and now, helping teach high schoolers theology in their confirmation classes at my parish.”

What began as one encounter became a life that now helps others encounter Christ.

The part of the story we can’t ignore

There’s a line in his story that carries the weight of so many students today:

“I had ‘read my way into the Church,’ but had few encounters with the Church with all her real living members (and blemishes!) until then.”

That distinction matters. He didn’t lack information. He lacked encounter. That is exactly where so many students are today (on campuses, in dorm rooms, and in transitions after high school) searching, questioning, and often doing it alone.

Why Newman Connection exists

This is why Newman Connection and the Faith Forward movement exist. Because students shouldn’t have to “read their way” toward the Church in isolation.

They need people. They need community. They need someone to meet them before they feel lost.

This student’s story could have gone very differently if that one Catholic encounter had never happened. That’s the reality for thousands of students every year.

Faith Forward exists to change that: to make sure students are connected to Catholic communities before they arrive on campus and no student has to search alone.

Because sometimes, one encounter is everything.