Truth one Catholic's opinion

  Dear Victor,  

>How does one learn that Christianity is the one true faith?  
>  
>Please respond via e-mail in addition to any post.  
>  
>Thank you for your response.  

I would be glad to respond if you are sincere in your request.  
But first a question: what is your opinion of the Catholic Church?  

Best regards,  
Randal L. N. Mandock  
catechis@netcom.com  

Dear Victor,  
  
Victor wrote: 
> All in all I think I have a fairly high, but reserved opinion:  
> high because of all the good, reserved because of some  
> doctrine which I hold to be incorrect.  
>  
> This is a long, but incomplete answer.  If you have more questions  

It seems pretty comprehensive to me.  

> before you answer, I will do my best to respond to them.  I sincerely  
> want to know how Catholics become Catholic, and I am not going to  
> use this information as part of any anti-catholic campaign. I asked  
> because I am doing a very informal comparative analysis of  
> responses  from the various s.religion.* newsgroups.  

Well, if you have the time, I would suggest that you put your hands  
on some the the recent books that have been written by adult converts  
to the Catholic faith.  Their number seems to be growing exponentially  
these days, but of course my perspective might be skewed because of  
my role as an internet apologist and because I live in "mission  
territory" (the South).  I actually bought one of these books a few  
years ago, but it still sits on my bookshelf gathering dust due to  
lack of time on my part.  As I recall, it is called "Surprised by  
Truth," by Patrick Madrid, and consists of maybe a dozen testimonies  
by recent converts from all sorts of faiths.  I can recommend a  
couple of other decent selections if you would like to take the  
time to review them.  

Unfortunately I cannot give you the type of answer you seek because  
I am a "cradle" Catholic who has not had enough time to interview  
a great number of those entering my Church.  However, I can tell  
you from my experience with a few dozen converts to the Catholic  
faith who populate the Catholic email lists, that to a one of them  
they all feel as if their entrance into the Catholic Church  
constituted a lifelong (but formerly diffuse) desire to "come home"  
to the true faith.  

The one fellow who I actually sponsored this past Easter as an  
incoming catechumen seems to have insisted that I (of all people)  
be his sponsor, even though I was no longer a member of his  
parish.  In fact, I am considered by the director of religious  
education of his parish to be something of an oddball because  
I left her parish to take a post as director of religious education  
in a traditional Latin Mass Community.  The catechumen told his  
RCIA (rite of Christian initiation) class (prior to my briefly  
joining it as a catechist last year) that the reason he had decided  
to consider the Catholic faith as opposed to the "Christian" denomination he had entered a few years ago, was primarily based on (of all things) _my_ posts to soc.religion.christian.  He evidently considered them so compelling that he was willing to go against all odds to have me serve as his spiritual guide (as much as this is possible in human terms) to the fullness of faith in Christ (our doctrine actually puts it in words such as "fullness of the means of salvation").  

If you are interested (and I really need a reason to contact him  
anyway), I can try to get in touch with him and have him email  
you his reasons for entering my Church.  Let me know.  
  
> When I compile all the answers, I plan to put  
> them up on a website on my big brother's server.  

Hmm.  Your "big brother's" first name wouldn't happen to be Bill,  
would it?     :)   :-)  

Randal