The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How I Left the Catholic Church

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Every person has a different life story, a unique faith journey. Jeff Cavins begins this three part series on his faith journey by explaining why he left the Catholic Church all those years ago. He shares about his lack of understanding and how he felt fed elsewhere. He hopes that his story will encourage others in their faith and to also share their own journey of faith. Snippet from the Show You have a story. Start learning how to share your story of what God has done in your life. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 370, how I left the Catholic Church. Welcome to the show this week. Boy, we had a wonderful, wonderful holy week. And he's risen. risen indeed and we are equipped now to go out and share the good news with people we have been brought into the church and so many people came in this year very exciting i was at a a parish where there was i think 13 people came in which is wonderful to always to see people coming into the church and filled with the holy spirit with confirmation and receiving the blessed sacrament the eucharist now i i get excited about that and as i was thinking about it this last week

at the Triduum on the Easter Vigil, I was thinking about my own story, you know, and I looked over at a couple of people that I was able to be a part of their life, at least, in coming in. And I got to thinking, you know, I haven't even told my story in a long time as far as, not the whole thing, but sort of an abbreviated version of how I ended up becoming Catholic again, I should say, because I was raised Catholic. And I thought it would be good today to walk you through that process of leaving the church and then becoming a Protestant pastor and then, of course, coming all the way back to the church, a revert, as Scott Hahn calls me. You know, so many people, they have their stories

of how they came into the church and there's nothing as powerful as a witness, you know, just nothing quite as powerful as someone saying, this happened to me. It's like what John writes in his first letter in his first chapter of that letter, he says, the things we saw, the things we touched and we handled, we're now sharing with you. And you can't take that away from and say, you didn't see it, you didn't touch it, you didn't handle that. No, no, we did. And I can say my life has been changed by Jesus in a radical way. And I can say, too, that my life has really changed as a result of being in the Catholic Church. So, by the way, this, what I'm going to share with you is really from, not reading from, but it's written in long

form in my book, My Life on the Rock. And that's published by Ascension Press. And I mentioned that because I might have told you a few months ago that there was this story that came out of Minneapolis of a lady who ended up buying my book, My Life on the Rock, and she read it, and she came back to the Catholic Church. She was a part of a family where I think five, four, five of the siblings that all left the church when they were adults. Well, she came back, and then she gave the book, the very same book, to one of her siblings. They read it, came in, then to the third, fourth, fifth.

And so it was an amazing story of how one book traveled throughout one family, and they all ended up coming back to the Catholic Church. And I think there's a reason for that, and that is that, you know, when I tell my story, people start to realize the commonality, you know, that they were experiencing something similar. And they see through my lens in a way. And so it makes sense. and that's what happens. So anyway, I'll put that link in the show notes for you. If you do want to copy of that book, if you want to get it from Ascension Press,

we'll put the show notes together for you there. Speaking of show notes, all you've got to do to get the show notes is send my name, one word, Jeff Kavins, and text it to the number 3377. That's 3377. All right. Now I haven't shared this for a long time,

And I remember the first time that I was told that I should share my story. It was Sister John Dominic from the Dominican Sisters in Ann Arbor. And I remember we were out having ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins, I think, back in Steubenville. And I told her my testimony. And she goes, Jeff, you need to tell that testimony. And so that was really the first time that I sat down and shared my story. And it was with Sister John Dominic. If you see her, big shout out to her.

She's a fantastic, wonderful person. So let me start at the beginning. I'm just going to take you through the abbreviated story of what happened to me. And in the middle of it, I'll give a little bit of theology that might help you along. And if you want to share this with friends or family that have left or are contemplating coming back. Okay, so the start off, I was raised Catholic. And I was raised Catholic in Minneapolis, St. Paul area, born in Iowa, but then from about five years old to out of high school, I was in the Twin Cities. Now, growing up, I would say that I was an average

Catholic boy, and I mean average in that I went to church every week. We never missed, ever, ever. I don't remember ever missing Sunday. Could have been one or two when I was little and sick or something, but I don't remember it. And we would go to all the feast days. We went to confession a couple times a year. We prayed before dinner. We prayed our father before going to bed. And we had First Communion book and a scapular and a rosary in the room and all of our rooms. And that was the way we grew up. So I came from a long line of Catholics on my mother's side from Ireland, and my father was actually a Baptist slash Methodist, and he converted and married my mother.

And he was from Indiana, Evansville, Indiana, my mother from Iowa. And so as we were growing up, this was just part of my life. we go to church, hello father, hello sister, you know, but to be honest with you, I really didn't know anything about my faith. I knew that we went to church. I knew that there was something called First Communion. I know that I was confirmed, but I was baptized just a few days old in Sheraton, Iowa. But I didn't know what any of it meant, honestly. I really didn't know what any of it meant. And I would have failed a test had I been given one, and I would have failed it miserably. Yet, growing up, I was always very interested in God. I was always interested in God,

and I picked up in, between third and fourth grade, I picked up a reading habit. And from fourth grade on, I was a voracious reader. I read as much as I could about everything. And I'd get in these jags, you know, where I'm going to read about U.S. presidents. I'm going to read about inventors. and I'm going to read about science. I'm going to read, you know, all about westerns, the mysteries. And so I read and read and read, and I used to save my money and go to a place called B. Dalton bookstore, and I'd buy books of every kind, Last of the Mohicans, or whatever it might be, Moby Dick. So I was reading a lot and very, very curious.

Well, by the halfway through high school, I really started turning to the topic of faith. and who is God and who am I? And so I started to read toward my senior year in high school a lot of books on meditation for the Eastern meditation. You know, the Beatles were into that Bob Dylan, not so much, but those were my favorite artists, you know, at the time. And so I was reading the Bhagavagita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Zen and the Art of Modern Cycle Maintenance,

and all these different books, you know, the road less traveled, all of that. And so I was fascinated with it. And then I had an opportunity to go out to California on a scholarship as I was getting ready to graduate. Now, I got a scholarship. It wasn't a huge thing, but I got a scholarship that came out of stand-up comedy. And I was doing stand-up comedy a little bit of that in high school, went to the state meet in comedy. And anyway, I got some offers from that.

And I was going to go out there. But I decided to stay back in the Twin Cities until. I got my prerequisites done, and then I would move out to California with my best friend who went out there. And as I was in my first year of college, I was the editor of the paper in my freshman year. And I went to my second semester class on cultural anthropology. Now, before I went to that class, I had a profound experience, I guess you could say, a profound experience. I was in Chanhassen, Minnesota. It was just down the road, actually, from where Prince is. In fact, my parents live on the same road as Paisley Park, where Prince's studios were. I was there, and I went to the St. Hubert's

church, the old historical one, and I went up into the balcony. It's their typical one, you can imagine. And I sat up there, and I looked down at the altar area, and there was a red light next to the tabernacle. I didn't know what the tabernacle was really for. I didn't really know what the red light was for. I guess I would have guessed something's going on, holy, I guess, at that moment. Anyway, I sat up there,

got off my motorcycle, went up there and sat, and I looked at that tabernacle, and I said, and this is how my book begins, I said, God, I don't know who you are, but whoever you are and I don't care, I just want to know you. Reveal yourself to me. And it was shortly after that,

in that first class second semester that Emily, my now wife, walked in. And man, when she walked in, I was like, whoa, look at her. And I couldn't get my mind on class. It's like, you know, a couple of weeks went by or a week at least went by. And we were studying the Banshee pygmies in South America, I think. Or no, in Africa, there's a book by a guy called Turnbull. See, I got a memory for that still. and I'm not looking at the book.

But anyway, I didn't read the book much because I was reading Emily. And I finally stood in the doorway while she had to come into the class and I said, hi, and she went hi and walked by me. And I thought, yes, I've got her now. And she didn't care whatsoever. Well, I followed her to the student lounge and we talked for about a, I don't know, it must have been a couple of hours. We talked, you know, I brought up the topic.

I was the editor of the paper. She had actually submitted a paper on the swine flu shot, of all things. And, you know, she told me about her life and a little bit, and she didn't say anything about God. And then I told her about what I was doing in motorcycles, hockey, and love to read and all that. And I said, say, would you, can I call you sometimes? She was like, whatever. So that night, I called 4-1-1. You know, see, it used to be that when you wanted someone's number, you had to call 4-1-1.

And then the operator will come on. Yes. Yes, I'm looking for a tobler on Xerxies in Bloomington. One minute, boom, gives me the number. That's how you used to do it, you know. So I called Emily and said, hi, this is Jeff. And she said, Jeff who? And no, no.

I said, I'm the guy you talked to earlier today. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I said, listen, I was wondering if you'd like to go out tonight. And she immediately said no. And I said, what? why not? And she said, well, I have to babysit some neighbor friends. Well, I kept pushing it. And finally, I got her to say yes. And I decided that, you know, nice girls like that would like to go bowling or something. Now, don't ask me why I thought that, because my job at the paper

was to cover major rock groups like Led Zeppelin and Steppenwolf and Heart and Yes and Journey and all of these groups coming through town and Kiss, and I had backstage passes. So I didn't think that she'd want to go to something like that, but maybe bowling, you know. Well, as God has his ways, she ended up having a got a bowling ball for Christmas that year, which I didn't know about. And so she said, well, okay. So I went to pick her up and I was dressed quite a bit different than I am today. I had long hair down to my shoulders.

I had blue jeans with bell bottoms with fabric in there to make them look even bigger. I had a yellow silk shirt. I had a leather headband around my hair. And I came up and I had some pictures of me and kiss, Gene Simmons with his tongue out and blood all over and me. And I thought, well, I'll show her mother. I'll impress her parents, you know. Dumb.

But anyway, I rang the doorbell and I said, she came to the door and I said, I'm Jeff, I'm here to take out Emily, and she kind of looked at me like, what did the dog just bring in? So I stepped inside, and she said, Emily, Jeff's here? Well, to make conversation, I said, well, I'll show you what I do. I'm the editor of the paper. And here, well, here, I got these pictures with me, and I handed her three pictures of me with kiss. And little did I know she was a popular Bible teacher in the Twin Cities. Well, her first thought was, you are not going out with my daughter.

And so she started to go upstairs to tell Emily, you can't go out with this guy. And Emily was 17 at the time. I was much more mature. I was 18. And so she got halfway up the steps to tell Emily, you can't go. And she said, the Lord stopped her and said, let him go. He's going to proclaim the gospel. Now, I didn't know that until about a year later.

So Emily and I got out in the car and I just ready to start the cars. my dad's really cool station wagon with fake wood on the side you would have liked it and i was just ready to turn on the car and she says um out of nowhere do you know jesus christ as your personal lord and savior and i'm like say what and i looked over at her like what what and she said do you know jesus as your savior and i thought i don't know what she's talking about but i know i'm catholic so i said well yeah i'm i'm catholic uh thought man that was a strange way to start the night off, but okay, she's pretty. And then before I could start the engine again, out of nowhere, she said, do you speak in tongues? I tell you what, I had no idea

what she was talking about. None at all. I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. So I said, well, as a matter of fact, I do. And then about two minutes later, I wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about, so I was going to ask her if she spoke in whatever that was. I couldn't remember what was. It had something to do with the mouth. It was tongues, lips, or gums. It was one of them. And I said, so, I tried to act, you know, kind of cool. And I said, so do you speak in lips? I got it wrong. She started laughing. And I said, what? She realized I didn't know a thing of what I was talking about. Well, long story short, that night, while we were bowling, she talked about her relationship with Jesus. I had never heard. heard anybody talk about that before in my life never it really it really had an impact on me and so the next day after school guess where i went went over to emily's house and as i went over there sat down in the kitchen her mother brings out this blue schofield bible i'm looking at it right now in my office here in this in this studio and um she started opened it up and i said oh what's that you know

and she started talking to me about jesus and how he had a plan for my life and how he he loved me and i thought, whoa, and I looked at her Bible and it was all marked up. And I thought, she is serious, but she's not weird. And I was intrigued by this. And so every day after school, I went over to Emily's house and sat with her mother. And she would tell me all about Jesus. And I was, man, I was all excited about this, you know. Well, make a long story short, this went on for a couple of months. And I was learning more and more. And Emily and I would go out to a church here and there or something. And I didn't think of anything as different than my Catholic faith. I just thought it was like, wow, they're serious about this. And so I ended up going home,

about two months after this all began, and I was driving home, and I wanted what that family had. I wanted to be born again. I wanted to be saved. That's the way they put it. That's the way I like it. And I wanted it. And so I was driving home, and I pulled over in a place called Eden Prairie, Minnesota, front of a flying cloud airport. And I pulled over on the side of the road and this long-haired kid with his bell bottoms started weeping. And I just started to cry. And I put my head on my steering wheel. And I said, God, I want what they have. I want to be born again. I want to be saved. Come into my life. And something happened to me that night, which I realized later, was that I was saying yes to my baptismal promises, I was saying yes to that which started in my baptism and confirmation and

weekly the Eucharist. It wasn't something brand new. No, it was it was poking me in the spirit and I responded to it. I responded to it. So that's that's what happened to me on that, on that night. And I went home that night. Oh, and get this. When I pulled over and I said that prayer and was crying, I had this feeling in my gut that I would be doing this that is sharing Jesus with people for the rest of my life. Don't ask me how I knew it.

I just knew it at 18 years old. I went home. Well, things didn't go so well. When I went home, I probably looked like I'd been crying and my mother said, she said, Jeff, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I said, Mom, with a big smile on my face, I said, you're never going to believe what happened tonight.

She said, what? And I said, Mom, I've been born again. And her face really told a story. She said, you what? I said, I've been saved, Mom. I gave my life to Jesus tonight. And I'll never forget what she said. She said, don't you ever say that again.

She said, you were a Christian when you were baptized. And I said, Mom, I don't know what happened when I was baptized, but I'll tell you what. Tonight, I gave my life to Christ. And that started a kind of a widening gap between my parents. and myself and my sisters, and it was uncomfortable after that. And I was sort of taken back, to be honest with you, as to why my parents were not excited about their party going rock and roll, reporting son.

It wouldn't be excited about him wanting to talk about Jesus. It seemed that it was more important to be Catholic than have a relationship with Jesus. And so the very next day, I did something. that I guess is intuitive, I went to a bookstore. And I wanted to get a Bible like Mrs. Tobler. And so I went to a bookstore and I said to the lady, I said, I need to know where your Bibles are. I said, I was born again last night. She went, oh, good for you. You know, like, okay, they're over here. And she brought me over. And all I did, I didn't know there were translations. All I did was look for one the same size. And I ended up with a new American.

American Standard Bible. I'm looking at it right now here in this studio. And I immediately went over to the Catholic Church, had Father Blessed, because as a Catholic, I believe, nothing works unless it's primed. And it's got to be blessed first. And so he ended up doing it. And there I was. I was off and reading and reading and reading and reading that Bible. I read all of it. I could hardly go to class. All I wanted to do was read the Bible. That's all I wanted to do. I went to where the Christians were on campus. I sat with them at all my breaks. I went to hear speakers around the city and evangelist and Emily took me here and there and it was so exciting. I bought a few books and I started to read. I didn't have any plans at all. I had no plans at all about leaving the church.

None. I just knew that something had happened to me. Now, so far, maybe you identify with the story to some degree. Maybe you do. But what I'm going to do on the other side of this, break as I'm going to talk about how I ended up leaving the Catholic Church. And that's the part that is more painful. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. I'm my name's Father Mike Schmitz. I wanted to let you know about an exciting announcement that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the air and the catechism in the year. Ascension has released a new Bible and Catechism app called the Ascension app. No, here's what you get. In this app, you get the entire text of the Great Adventure Bible. Just incredible. You also get the entire text

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one thing that makes this app incredibly unique is that it includes special features that make connections between the Bible and the catechism so crystal clear through color coded references and all these links

the hyperlinks are amazing I tried it out and I'm like oh my gosh it kind of has changed the way I read through the catechism kind of changed the way I read through the Bible. These features will help you navigate the Bible and catechism even more seamlessly so you can get more out of your experience. Also, the app provides almost 1,000 answers to Bible questions. The people who listen to the Bible in the year, they wrote in with their questions. Almost 1,000 answers. And those answers come in the form of

audio clips, video clips, as well as resources excerpted from some of Ascension's published works. If you want to download this app for free, super simple. Just go to the app store and search for Ascension app. I am telling you, if learning about the Bible and the catechism is important to you, then this app will change your life. Welcome back, talking about how I ended up leaving the Catholic Church and became a Protestant pastor. Before the break, I mentioned that in my story, I was reading more and more of the Bible. And then it became apparent to me that God was calling me to teach scripture. And so, as there didn't seem to be any obvious Catholic track, I decided to go to a Bible college in Dallas, Texas. And by then, Emily and I were

engaged. And we ended up going to Dallas, Texas. But before we went, something happened. And that was that the night before I left, my dad came into my room and he was, you could tell he was not real happy with my plans to go to a Bible college instead of what other kind of school I'd end up at, either broadcasting or brain surgery, I don't know. But I was upstairs packing, and he came into my room, and he said, Jeff, why are you doing this? And I said, Dad, I just want to teach scripture.

And he said, but how are you going to make a living? And I said, I don't know. I guess God will provide something snapped in our relationship that night. I just cried, and I thought, why does it have to be this way? Why? And he left the room. The next morning, we got in the car, Emily and I did, and we drove all the way to Dallas. And there we were in Bible College, and partway through that, we came back and got married. And then after Bible College ended up in radio and television school, broadcasting school. And I worked at WCCO Radio in Minneapolis. And then when I was done with the school, got my first job in Valley City, North Dakota. where I was on the air from about seven to midnight every night. And I did comedy commercials during the day. So while we were there, I started to double dip. What I mean by that is I started going to the Assembly of God Church on Wednesdays

and then Catholic Church on Sunday. Now, I did that because the Bible college that I was at was largely a non-denominational charismatic environment, very excited people, very turned on empowered people. everybody had a Bible everybody was marking in their Bible so when I was there in Valley City I was going to the Assembly of God Church as I said and there came a day where I had had it with being Catholic I had it with being Catholic and I didn't want to do it anymore and I didn't see anybody excited about their faith and I didn't I didn't hear anyone you know talking about reading scripture or praying with people or witnessing or opening up your home for praise time or anything like this at all.

And the truth of the matter is that the topics were not really the issue. The theology wasn't the issue, to be honest with you. It was a sense of rejection that my family had rejected me, that I was being loved out of the church by the Assembly of God in these non-denominational churches, and it worked. I was loved out of the church. And I remember the day that I left so, so clearly, there was a special meeting with Bishop Driscoll from Fargo coming over to Valley City to hold what was just simply called an open forum night where he would come over and it wasn't a mass. He just came over to field questions and give an update on the church and that type of thing is very nice, packed crowd, St. Catharines in Valley City.

so Emily and I went and she didn't know how much things were really stirring in my heart and so we sat down and he started taking questions from people and as I was listening I cannot tell you how the anger began to just dwell up inside me not towards him but towards the church and my parents I didn't want to do this anymore now in those days when I was in radio there. Every morning I'd go out to the nuns at the outside of town there. I think it was the presentation sisters. I'm right. Correct me if I'm wrong. If you're in Valley City and you know, I can't remember now. But anyway, I would go out there every morning. I'd pray with them. Go to Mass. I'd help them do work around there and then to go back to the city and do my work on radio.

Well, that night, when the bishop was fielding the questions, I raised my hand. And Emily looked over me and over at me like, what are you doing? I said, and I shouldn't have said that, but that was the mood I was in. And he pointed to me, said, yeah, a young man. And I stood up in the aisle, in the middle aisle. And I looked at him and it all came uncorked. And I said, I didn't know what to call him. I didn't know whether to call him, Your Highness or, or Monsieur or, sir. That's how badly I was, I was catechise. I'm glad I didn't say, monsieur, you know. But I said, sir, I gave my life to the Lord in February of 1977. And since then, I started making stuff up. I said, since then, there's no place for me in the Catholic Church. The Assembly of

God says, we can use you. Catholic Church says you're married. Assembly of God says, you need more, you know, you can come in and work with us. Catholic Church says, you need more education. I started making stuff up. And I finally got to the point where I looked at them and I stopped my feet. I clapped my hands and I looked at and I said from this day forward and then I screamed I am not Catholic and I turned around and started walking out and Emily poor Emily is trailing behind me looking at the people we know with her arms up and her shoulders shrugging like I don't know what happened and she's following me and I get to the back door of the church and I hear this one person clapping I turned around and it was the bishop. And he said, I want to talk to you later. I said, I don't know. And I just left. Well, I couldn't

sleep that night because, as you know, as a good old Catholic growing up, I thought to myself, I am going to hell. You don't just scream at a bishop and try to sneak by St. Peter, grab you by the ear and say, hey, does Valley City mean anything to you? And so I didn't sleep that well. And I knew the next morning I needed to go out to tell the sisters why I did what I did because they were there. And I went out there and I knocked on the door and guess what? Bishop Triscoll was there. He stayed overnight in the priest's quarters and he gave me a wave to come on in. And I'm nervous. He said, sit down. I want to hear your story. And so I told him my story. And after I told him my story, he said, he said, listen, I'm going to tell you three things.

number one, the journey you are on is of the Lord. And I thought, wow, praise God. That's the first time the Catholic has acknowledged that maybe God was doing something in my life. And he said, number two, I'm going to call you little Newman. I had no idea what that meant. None. I thought he was talking about Al Newman from Mad Magazine. I said, what?

And he said, Cardinal Newman, you'll remind me of Carlin. Cardinal Newman with your hunger for scripture. And then he said, number three, and he looked at me and he pointed right at me, and he said, you mark my words, one day you'll return. And when you do, you're going to teach your people, the Catholic Church. And I said, I don't think so. And I stood up, shook his hand, walked out, and that's how I left the church. Needless to say, my parents were not real happy with that, not happy at all with it.

but I meant what I said, and I left the church. I left the Eucharist. I left the Blessed Mother. I didn't know what either really were. But I left and started going to the Assembly of God, and then I ended up moving from North Dakota to Pella, Iowa, to a new station, a Christian station. I was the program director,

and it was in Pella there that I had a morning show from about six to nine or ten in the morning there, program director. and it was there that I started to really thrive as a young Protestant away from the church. And I ended up going back to school in Florida coming back and I was ordained a Protestant pastor. I think that's a good place right there to take a break. And I can see right now this is officially a three-part series. Because today I just gave you a little idea of where I came from and how I ended up leaving the Catholic Church. Next week I'm going to share with you how I ended up coming back to the Catholic Church and the reasons that I came back.

Share this with your friends or family. Anyone who is questioning, I would really encourage you to share this now three-part series with them if it's of any help. And I'll put my life on the rock book connection to that for Ascension Press. I'll put that in the show notes for you so you can get a hold of that. Well, may be interesting, may not to you, but it's my story. the only one I have, but I don't have another one. And I would encourage you as well, you've got a story. Start learning how to share your story of what God has done in your life. You might say, well, God hasn't done anything. I've always been a good person. Well, that's a pretty good testimony

right there. Look what God has kept you from. So let's pray. And next week, I'm going to tell you how I came back to the Catholic Church. And then after that, I'm going to tell you how I've changed. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you. Oh, I love you. Lord, and thank you for the good work you're doing in our lives. Lord, I pray that you will use this as a tool to a gift to help people work through where they're at in their life or for those that are listening that perhaps they have left and are looking for reasons why they should come back. Lord, I pray that you would use this for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love you. I really do pray for me. Look forward to telling you.

how I came back to the church next week.