Will Herrmann
When I was 13, I went on a church youth retreat and felt strongly that God was calling me to be a pastor. I was Lutheran and imagined that after going to college, I would go straight to seminary.
But when the time came, I was struggling with my faith. In particular, while I believed the Bible was the infallible word of God, I struggled with how to know if my interpretation of the Bible was correct. If we all read the same text and came to mutually-exclusive interpretations, what then?
I was also troubled by seeing so many Protestants disregarding two millennia of teachings regarding sin and morality in favor of novel interpretations. An especially poignant example was when I had asked a Lutheran pastor about something the Apostle Paul had written and was told: “We’re Christians, not Paulites. If Christ didn’t say it, then we are not bound to follow it.”
There came a point where I felt like I couldn’t be Lutheran, or any form of Protestant, because I had no way of knowing if it were true. Faith just felt like a matter of consensus. I started wondering if God was a matter of consensus, too, and for a time, I wrestled with atheism. But the inevitable nihilism of life having no purpose and nothing beyond absolutely terrified me. As Dostoevsky wrote: “I can’t understand how an atheist could know that there is no God and not kill himself on the spot.”
Unable to accept atheism, I began reading Christian writings throughout the ages, in particular Justin Martyr, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. What I found looked rather Catholic. I was drawn to the consistent liturgy, consistent theology and morality, and consistent leadership through the popes succeeding from the Apostle Peter, commissioned by Christ.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “A theology which denies the historicity of nearly everything in the Gospels to which Christian life and affections and thought have been fastened for nearly two millennia … can produce only one or other of two effects. It will make him a Roman Catholic or an atheist.” While he meant it as a warning, he was ultimately right. After a year and a half of attending Mass at St. Bonaventure in Bloomington, I formally entered the Catholic Church in Easter 2019.
Only nine months later, I accompanied Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Cozzens on their January 2020 ad limina pilgrimage to Rome. The most moving moment for me was when our bishops led Mass directly in front of the tomb of St. Peter. The Gospel reading was: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.”
And I realized that not only is this Christ’s Church, but it’s my Church, too!
Hermann, 32, is a member of St. Bonaventure in Bloomington, where he coordinates the eucharistic adoration program. His hobbies include board games, bicycling and creative writing.
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