August 24, 2004 Ex-Baptist, Ex-Mormon, Ordained Catholic

by Fr. Steve Seever
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I'd like to first thank everyone in the core team and thanks to those at the Grandview Cafe. Avail yourself of the fine food.

Jen asked me to come here and tell you my story. How is that a person comes from Baptist to the Catholic Church by way of Mormonism.

If you had told me 30 years ago I was going to be Catholic, I would have told you flat out that you were nuts. If you had told me 25 years ago I would have said no way, Joseph smith is the prophet of the living God and I bear you my testimony in that in the name of Jesus Christ. If you told me 15 years ago I would be on the way to priesthood, I would have told you that my wife would have something to say about that. I have had quite a journey.

I would like to give you some highlights of that.


My first memory of Church was a bad one. I remember the girl who was the daughter of the baptist minister hit me in the head with a milk bottle when I was three years old. I should have taken that as a sign. I grew up in church, I was there every time the door was open. Sunday, Wednesday and everyday it was open. We were a faithful family. We did try to practice our faith and were involved in everything there was to be involved with.

As I grew up I got more and more involved in whatever was offered for my age group. My odyssey really took off when I joined the youth group. The youth group was a very active one. I really have to say I don't regret having grown up baptist. It gave me a love for Jesus Christ and Scripture. It was a very faith filled environment. We had an excellent youth leader by the name of Jim Hollers who had a large family and he wasn't afraid to get down with the youth. He taught us how to live the Gospel.

So I got in involved and I went to just about everything they had to offer as well. It was shortly before that when I was 8 years old that I had committed myself to Jesus Christ. About 12 or 13 we started going to the Christian free drive-in on the east side of Columbus. It's run by Jimmy Ray of Jimmy's Electronics. You can go on Saturday and Sunday night and watch the movies and at the end of the movie there would be an alter call with people lighting their light in their cars. We would go as a youth group.

What bothered me was that, there was about 4-5 cars that went and one of the cars always went to the back of the lot. I always wondered what happened in that car, I was never in it just in case you're wondering. So one night I decided to go to the back of the lot to see what was going on and I quickly discovered the makeout/drinking/smoking pot car whatever else was going on. And it bothered me because I have always been somewhat of an idealist. I believe now and then that if you have the truth it's going to change your life. I saw the people that I went to church with smoking pot, etc but professing their their faith in Jesus Christ on Sunday. So this is not an exclusive Catholic problem.


I began to look for answers so I started reading on just about every religion that I could find. At the time I started reading I ran into some Mormons at school. If you know something about Mormons you know they can't keep their mouths shut. Once they found out I was interested, it was all she wrote. I had all kinds of friends I didn't even know existed. They welcomed me, gave me reading material, and invited me to events at church.

I started reading the story of Joseph Smith. You have here a young man at 15 years old who wanted some guidance as to what church was true. He went to the woods and knelt down and began to call out to God. While he was praying the sky opened it up and he saw two figures saying "This is my beloved Son". Joseph Smith asked which church was right and Jesus said none of them were right, but if he followed Him the truth would be from Him. (History of Joseph smith)

Here is a 15 year old boy who had a life-changing experience. All he wanted was wisdom, if that could happen to him, then he's onto something. Very quickly I began to be proselytized to the Mormon faith and my family was very against it. They told me it was a cult but they couldn't tell me why, they knew something was wrong but they couldn't tell me what. But I was the one who did all the reading.

So, I participated on their afternoon services, my parents wouldn't let me be baptized into Mormonism. For a while I was involved in two churches. Talk about religious burnout. About 17 years old they relented and I got baptized.

I was in 7th heaven. I loved being Mormon. For the first time there was a reality between the way I lived and the way I believed. There was a reality in the lives of the people that I knew between what they did and what they said. I figured that I had found the truth. I went as far as I could go in Mormonism. I joke with the guys at the seminary that when I get ordained a priest next June 25 it will be my second ordination. So this will be my second ordination but the only valid one. Suffice to say, I loved being Mormon.


One day I had a friend of mine who challenged me, "Steve if you're really going to be Mormon, you at least aught to know some of the history of the church. Really, if you read the history of the church it will lead you out of it." I said, "You're nuts." I have always been a betting man, so I started reading it to prove him wrong.

The more I read the history of the church written by the men who made it, the more I discovered he was right. Mormon history reveals that Mormonism cannot deliver on it's promises. Around that time I was about 19 years old and I thought, I just need to get away. I let a friend of mine talk me into going to Florida. I continued to study. The more I read the more I discovered that Mormonism was a lost cause.

At that time I became very angry. I thought God had allowed me to be deceived because all I wanted was the Truth. For a few months I rejected everything that had to do with God. I remember at one time I lived in Coral Springs, Florida right at the edge of the everglades. One day I went for a walk and spent about three hours in the everglades literally screaming at the top of my lungs at God. I told him how he could get off, which is a dangerous thing to do! I got everything off my chest, I said, "I want nothing to do with you or anything you stand for, get out of my life."

I figured that was the end. But it wasn't because I could not put Mormonism down. I was looking for something to rescue Joseph Smith so I continued reading. I kept looking for the magic bullet that would save him. A friend of mine kept inviting me to church and I kept putting him off telling him I didn't want anything to do with God. He got me going one night. How many know Dr. D. James Kennedy? He is a Presbyterian minister down in Pompano Beach and a very good guy.

Dave kept after me to come to church because there was a speaker that was going to be there, his name was Dr. Walter Martin and he's an expert on Mormonism. He said I had to come to at least prove him wrong, so I said I would go.

It didn't take me too long to find out that Dr. Martin knew exactly what he was talking about and so afterwards I went up to him. I introduced myself and told him my story. He said, man, you have to come across the street with me, we gotta talk. We had coffee and pie at a diner there and he said to me, I understand where you're coming from and where you've been. But there is a antidote to Mormonism, you're just reading the wrong stuff. I said, "What do I read?"

He said, have you ever heard of the "early church fathers". I said, no, who are there. He explained to me they were the men who had lead the Church after the death of the Apostles. Mormonism was discussed and debated by people like Polycarp and Irenaeus long before Joseph Smith was ever born, and it was refuted. The Church has already been through this. I began to read and it interested me.

And so I continued to read Mormon history and Church fathers and one day I came upon a statement by the early Mormon Church leaders. He was visited by the first Catholic bishop of Utah in the 1870's. Back in those days scribes literally followed around the leaders and wrote down everything they said. And the conversation that went on between the bishop and the leader went like this.

The Mormon looked at the Catholic bishop and said, "I think it has to be between Mormonism or the Catholic Church" and the bishop said, "You know what, you're right, the fact is you Mormons are ignoramuses because you don't know the strength of your own position. Either we have a continuity between the apostles and today or there is no continuity and the Truth was taken from the earth. If the Truth was taken from the earth then someone like Joseph Smith was needed to reveal it. But if there was apostolic succession from the days of Jesus Christ and the Apostles until this time then Joseph Smith was not needed."


I read that statement and it sounded pretty good. It sounded logical, but it's not because you could stick any religious leader in there that you want, but the logic comes out the same. So I thought what I would do is talk to a Catholic priest. I knew several Catholics at the time and so I asked them first if they knew anything about the early Church fathers. That went over like a lead balloon. I figured a Catholic would know their faith. I was wrong.

One night a couple friends took me over to the rectory at St. Philip the Apostle on Elaine Road here in Columbus. I knocked on the door. You can imagine what this is like from a priests's standpoint. Three guys standing on his porch in the evening on a hot summer night. He looks at me wearing a T-shirt, black shorts, black socks (which is always the trademark of a priest) and sandals. You see me in shorts I still have black socks on. So, He's standing there dressed like that with a cigar saying, "yeah?" "I'm looking for a Catholic priest." "Heh, you're in luck, you found one."

Fr. Richard Engle, "bird", we call him. I told him what I wanted and he looked at me and says, "Kid, that's the first request I've had like that in my life." he told me to come back after Mass on Sunday. He gave me all kinds of reading material--good thing to do. He pointed me out to some of the fathers and told me who they were and encouraged my reading and told me to come back Tuesday and we'll talk. I sat in a rectory for an hour and we talked about the Church. I think if anyone other than him had answered that door, I would not be a Catholic today. If they had come to the door with a roman collar on, I would have been scared away.

We talked for several months and finally I decided that I was interested in the Catholic Faith but very scared. I didn't want to get burned again. I remember finally having a conversation with God, I hadn't prayed for months and said God I'm willing to give this one more try. But you better give me answers that I never have to back up on again.

I talked to Fr. Engle again and he called me one night and said, "Do you want to do this here thing?" "what?", I said. "Do you want to be a Catholic?" My answer was, "okay, probably", come over Wednesday night and we'll talk. I brought my sponsor with me and in 6 weeks I was received into the Church just him, myself and my sponsor. Pretty uneventful actually.

It was culture shock to begin with; to experience Mass and Catholic worship and try to fit myself into the mold of Catholic life. I didn't do too well. A few years after that I met my wife. She was raised Catholic and by the time I met her she was a Methodist. She went through Catholic school and she was soured on it. We were married in a Methodist church. I figured it didn't matter. So I alternated between the Catholic faith and the Methodist faith. I went with her, she never went to Mass with me. That whole experience, my marriage lasted for about 8 years and when we got divorced I sensed that there was something missing.

I was driving by St. Theresa's over on Broad street and I got this strong urge to go pray. I did and knelt down and poured my heart out to God. I couldn't take my eyes off the tabernacle, I couldn't do it. All of a sudden it hit me, you idiot, that's what's missing. And from that point forward, I literally again dedicated my life to Jesus. "I will go where you want me to go, I will believe what you want me to do, I will do what you want me to do, just show me."


I started going back to Ohio Dominican. I wanted my bachelor's in Theology. I had to be able to do something, I thought. About the same time I got involved in the RCIA program at St. Pius, my parish. The more I got involved the more I studied, the more I realized that the Catholic faith was really a precious gift. People kept after me telling me to be a priest, "You'd be great at it!". "People already confess to you!" I kept putting them off, "God wouldn't do that to the Church, he loves the Church". One day my English teacher stopped me and said, "You know you really have the gift of priesthood." She had never had a religious conversation with me ever but I knew she was a daily communicant at Ohio Dominican. So I couldn't just sluff it off.

I thought perhaps God's been saying something to me and I wasn't listening. I began talking to the vocation's director of the diocese and began heading to the priesthood. I graduated from Ohio Dominican in 2001 and entered seminary that August. I am now just embarking in my fourth year and Lord willing, I'll be ordained June 25, 2005. That's basically the jist of the story.


I just want to mention a couple things, one of the hazards of telling my story is the fact that it's my story, it hasn't happened to any of you. So what it does is put the focus on me. I want to take the focus away from me and just wanna give you a couple things you can take away from my story that will apply to you.

The first among those is that the Catholic faith and especially the Eucharist is a precious gift. Nobody, convert or cradle Catholic, comes to the Catholic Faith without the grace of Jesus Christ, it is a gift. If you try to trace the dots in my story and tell me I would end up Catholic I would have told you you were nuts. I did end up that way by the grace of Jesus Christ. We sometimes ignore the fact that our faith is a gift, we have a duty to love and respect that gift. So it's impressed me how much the Catholic faith is a gift.

Learn to appreciate it consciously.

The second thing is that we really have a duty to know why we believe what we believe and we also have a duty to teach why we believe what we believe to our children. I was raised three times a week in the Baptist church and I didn't know what I believed. I talk to Catholics who don't know the Faith! Going to church and just sitting there listening to homilies will not impart the Faith to you. It's a start but it's not the whole story. If we don't know why we believe what we believe, then Mormonism is there to give answers why and what and the answers, for a while, make sense. In a day and age where people are looking for answers people will believe anyone who can provide those answers.

We gotta know why and what so we can provide answers. Because the Catholic Faith has the answers and we've had them for 2000 years. Along with that goes a responsibility to live our Faith and know it.

On the other side, don't let the bad example deter you from your Faith. You should also communicate that to your kids.

I'm going to shut up and let you ask some questions or throw tomatoes or other vegetables. I would ask you to raise your hands.


Question: I am a cradle Catholic and I was one always seeking for answers and I always needed to know why. Thank God few years ago I was reading apologetics books which helped me learn about the early Church fathers and why there was disagreements between Protestants and us. Lately I know I still miss something and I met some friends from Zenos and they study the bible which is great. I have no desire to convert to that, I'm going to stay Catholic. There are tough questions that have came up, one is "I am saved and that's what bothers me about being Catholic. I coulnd't live knowing that I wasn't saved." I just what to know what they meant by that.

Wonderful, I want you all to notice a historic event has just occured. I have been handled a pamphlet on salvation by a Catholic! It's a great question, what do you say when someone says, "Are you saved?" We have to stop being afraid of the vocabulary.

They are wanting to know is if there was anytime in your life have you committed your life to the Lord. Now I can't answer that question for you, obviously, perhaps you haven't, if you haven't you should. You don't have to go outside the Catholic faith to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we have the best alter call in the world, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

I tell them, yes, absolutely, I have given my life to Christ. But you know what, Jesus Christ loves me so much that He's not willing to allow that relationship just to be in my heart. He loved me so much that He died for me, and then every time I go to Mass, He makes that sacrifice real again, the gives me His own Body and Blood and feeds me Himself, and gives me the evidence of that relationship every time I got to Mass.

Jesus Christ doesn't want me to have that relationship, He wants to feed you with His own Body and Blood. Turn the tables on them. It's okay for us to say that. I guarantee they'll be stunned because they got witnessed to by a Catholic.

Purgatory, the other part of your question, is there because of the love of Jesus, you can't go to Purgatory without being saved. It is the last act of God's love towards us. It's not a place, it's an event. You see Him face to face and realize what you could have been and weren't. And he looks at you and He says, "causes you pain, doesn't it?" You say, "Yes", and he says, "That's okay, you're mine" and He burns off all that is not of Him.

That's where I want to go.

Follow up: What do they mean that they're saved?

The mean they have this relationship with Jesus Christ. It's a buzz word.

Question: You mentioned you were married but I don't remember hearing that you got divorced.

I am divorced I am also annulled. I was divorced the normal way and went through the annulment process, and I can sympathize any of you who have been there.

Question: Why do you think God calls some people through a direct route and other people take this route like you did. Do you think that's reluctance or God's plan?

God knows our reluctance and plans for our reluctance and builds experiences into our lives to plan for our vocation. I think in many ways I'll be a better priest because of my experiences. Were all of them good? No, but for some reason my delay was part of His plan. I'm sure He took everything into account. I think it's a play on grace and human freedom, there is a fine line, which is which? The mystery of God is that you can't always tell and that's I think how He designed it.

Question: You had mentioned in your talk, by reading history of Mormonism you realized it didn't have the Truth. Can you elaborate on that?

The place I started reading was Joseph Smith history of the church. He penned most of his own history of the church. From the very early days they were avid record keepers. Joseph told of his entire life. As I read, I found 9 different versions of that. In one version it said, God the Father and Jesus Christ showed up as two persons, in one version it wasn't God, it was an angel. In another version it was just Jesus Christ. In another version it was God the Father. In another version it happened in a dream. In another version it was a white salamander.

When you look at things like that, you use reasoning that God gave you. If I was a 15 year old buy in New York and God the Father and Jesus Christ told me this, I would remember. Perhaps I am nuts but I would remember it. I wouldn't screw it up later. I would know the answer to that question. That was a blockbuster, the fact is that Mormonism rests on Joseph Smith being truthful. And if the first thing wasn't right, it the whole thing is a lie.

Question: My question is last week it was reported in the newspapers and radio, that a girl wanted to have Communion and she suffers from a gluten intolerance. She is unable to take the host because of the requirement that it contains gluten. I have seen the newspapers, etc, they all leave so much out. I understand there was a lady who's son who had a similar situation but because of the intolerance he does take communion through just the blood. I haven't heard anything else though other than the mother trying to get the ruling changed. Do you have any information on this? The press is saying that the Church is being legalistic; similar to the pharisees. We're denying this girl's relationship.

I don't think the bishops are defending because they don't see the need to. I happen to know that in this place, the girl is in texas. (From the Crowd: "New Jersey") Oh, same state. Anyway, the girl she was offered just the blood, her mother turned it down. So, we're certainly not being legalistic. You can have a valid communion under the form of wine. Either way it's valid.

Are people going to be judgemental? Yes, they will. The only thing that I would say is that Jesus said very strongly "do this in memory of me." not do something else, what He was doing was fulfilling the Passover. It's like saying, can we not have lamb for the Passover. They would say, "Are you kidding?" are they being narrow-minded? No, they're being faithful.

Question: When I talk to my Mormon friends they bring up back in the day with Joseph Smith, there was gold tablets that the angel Gabriel came forth with the Mormon faith. But the tablets have never been found. I told them if they found them I'd be the first one to join. Do you know where they might be?

Actually I do. No, actually, and that's a very important issue in Mormonism. Finding of the gold plates on which the book of Mormon was supposedly based. The gold plates don't exist and never did, in fact there is an excellent book out called "Inventing Mormonism" in which H. Michael Marquardt who is a former Mormon put together a solid case that Joseph Smith at one point did actually have plates manufactured. He traced down the goldsmith shop where the plates were made. You mention Gabriel, but it was supposed to be angel Methi, but he changed it to Moroni. And again, you'd think he'd remember who it was.

Question: I was baptized as an infant and confirmed. And I really don't know what that means. I have asked several Catholics and nobody seems to know. What takes place during those things?

There's two things, one, there's what happens when the Sacrament is performed. At Baptism, you become a new creation in Jesus Christ. You can't feel it, it doesn't happen at the level of your emotions. When the priest says "This is my Body, this is my Blood" it doesn't matter how you feel, it either is or it is not.

At your confirmation it is a strengthening of your service. On a personal level, not much happens, but sacramentally, there is a change. There is something that comes into you and it orients your life.

Follow-up: You become a new creation, at that point you receive the Holy Spirit. And you said something about the spirit at confirmation.

The Holy Spirit acts in different ways for different people. When I am ordained, He will give me the grace to be a priest. That grace wouldn't fit very well for someone who is not a priest. It's not different spirit, it's a different way of acting.