Monday, 28 July 2025

Is Anyone Imagining I Would Want to Become a Jew?


For some reason I get this recommendation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcx1C8JYXlE

In converting to CATHOLICISM (starting age 16, completing a few months before 20), there were schedualled meetings, and I usually didn't miss any. With a Catholic teacher. With a group hearing a Jesuit in a city 32 to 41 km awazy, depending on route. And the final year, with a priest in a chapel a few blocks away. I got good at walking.

But there were no updates. However, after converting, I was a regular penitent with that priest up to my military service, for about a year, a regular penitent with another one after military service, up to becoming a trad, and putting the sacramental life (but not the prayer life) on the backburner, and was a penitent with a priest at St. Nicolas du Chardonnet many years later for 2009 to 2011 or 2012, so, two years.

I did not intend to reassess my conversion to Catholicism for a conversion to Judaism in 2009. I don't do so now.

And if any marriage, even to a girl I really like, would involve people telling me to convert to Judaism for her, I'd answer "no, you convert to Catholicism."

I am very far from being fed up with Catholicism, though I have had more than my fair share of runins or other unpleasantness with Catholics, including clergy, and I am even further from being in despair about Catholic dogma being true, I actually find apologetics is one of the hobbies (or actual works, but with a great deal of pleasure) that I'm allowed to do. I'd like it even better if I were allowed to get partners like printers and make money from that work by selling books.

And no, Judaism is not a religion I was raised in to exclusion of others, so my conversion story doesn't even impinge on Judaism that much. In fact, I chose Catholic over Orthodox, somewhat immaturely, the only immaturity of my conversion, partly because Catholics consider unleavened bread (but less crumbly than matzot!) is a proper matter for a sacrament, and Orthodox say, it must be leavened bread to distance us from Judaism. It's in my reversion from Romanian Orthodoxy that I did more proper research into Filioque, Immaculate Conception, and also that Jesus actually did hold a Seder on the Last Supper (Matthew 26:19, Mark 14:12) — Caerularius claimed the opposite. And finally papacy. My teens preference had been partly due to feudal principles. I later doubted, "what if Kallistos Ware was right and papacy is a byproduct of the imperial post of the feudal society?" My historic knowledge now, no, papacy was not invented as a reflex of feudalism. Papacy existed very definitely before Charlemagne (Orthodox will even cite Pope Leo III as a reason against Charlemagne), but feudalism came after him.

So, no, I have no need to convert to Judaism. I really question why the video was recommended to me./HGL

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