Kurt Speed, 24, grew up in Maine and was raised in the Evangelical church. 

He will enter the Catholic Church at Grove City Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church (OLPH) this Easter.

Speed said three things influenced his decision to convert: the Catholic Bible, Catholic teaching on salvation and the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Catholic faith.

Speed considered himself interdenominational, as he was brought up in the Baptist, Pentecostal and Nazarene religions.

“There was a lot of conflicting theologies there, but I found that each and every church subscribes to two basic beliefs – sola scriptura (by Scripture alone) and sola fide (by faith alone),” he said.

Speed questioned the “once saved always saved” belief that “works have nothing to do with salvation,” which he said was professed in the Evangelical religion, and the Bible being the sole source of authority.

He wondered why all of the denominations claimed the same two beliefs but had completely different interpretations.

Speed left Maine to pursue a degree in biblical studies at Cedarville University, a private Baptist university in Cedarville, Ohio, and planned to become a pastor. While there, he met and married his wife, Kaziah Conrad, who was also raised in the Evangelical church.

Speed dropped out after two years in the biblical studies program after disagreeing with the program’s theology, and he switched to study environmental science.

“I did not feel that I could serve the Lord in integrity and not fear as a Baptist pastor,” he said. “If I had it wrong, I could be leading people toward hell itself, and that really scared me.”

Speed and his wife moved to Grove City, which was home to Conrad, after completing their studies. Speed began to study Christian history and theology of the Scriptures, which he said he found were in alignment with the Catholic Church’s beliefs.

He loved that traditions and beliefs held by the Catholic Church dated back to the beginning of Christianity and were supported by the fathers of the Church.

“I (was) tired of coming to churches where they say, ‘This is a Bible church,’ then their views didn’t develop until 500 years ago, and that they have no other foundation, and that every other church disagrees with them while also saying they are a Bible church,” Speed said.

Speed agreed with the Catholic Church’s views on salvation. He believed that “a person can go out of the salvation pasture of God if they themselves choose to,” where it is possible to lose salvation, depending on the state of the soul at death, rather than be guaranteed salvation through faith alone. 

Speed began exploring Catholic media, and it proved to be influential for him. Matt Fradd’s podcast Pints with Aquinas, Keith Nester’s YouTube channel and Father Mike Schmitz’s The Bible in a Year podcast helped Speed find concepts that were “grounded in tradition and emphasized in the Gospel.”

Reading The Bible Is a Catholic Book by Jimmy Akin, Speed said, changed his perspective on the Bible. He doubted the Protestant church’s authority to remove certain books from the Bible.

“I thought, if we are incorrect on that, then what a terrible sin we have done,” Speed said. “Knowing that the Apostles and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself referenced those as Scripture, it really changed my mind on a lot of things.”

He wanted to explore the Catholic faith further and decided to visit the local Catholic church, OLPH. Upon his first visit, Speed said, he found it offensive that a church building would be named in honor of Mary, rather than for God Himself.

“It was so weird because, when I came in, I had an almost overwhelming anger,” he said. “I wanted to kick down a statue because us Protestants believe that is idolatry. I was like, ‘Kurt, where is this (anger) coming from?’

“I said to myself, ‘This anger is unrighteous. You need to be respectful and come into this with an open mind.’ So, I kept on going, and I really quickly fell in love with the Mass.”

The Mass differed from Speed’s experience of services in Protestant churches.

In the Pentecostal church, Speed said, there is a “Jericho march,” which he described as an “overly disorderly display of worship” with shouting and yelling.

“You feel like you are kind of putting on a show, and you have to watch what you say,” Speed said of feeling judged by church members. “It is actually kind of hard going to church on Sunday, and there’s a lot of gossiping that goes on behind the scenes in a lot of the churches, and there’s a lot of things that are preached by the pastor’s point of view of the Scriptures rather than something that is authoritative.

“And so, coming to the Catholic Church and going to the Mass, I loved that it wasn’t about entertainment. It wasn’t about people worshipping a certain way. … It’s just about people coming together to worship the Lord in a way that is orderly. It’s just about God.”

Speed admired that the teachings of the Catholic Church were “controlled by a Magisterium that enforces theology” and the “liturgy was theologically correct as to what the Catholic Church believes.”

However, he said he had fears and prejudices about Catholicism because of past acquaintances who identified as Catholic but were not genuine in their faith and lived contrary to Church teaching. 

In June 2022, he attended Father John Riccardo’s “The Rescue Project Live!” held at the Ohio Expo Center.

“After the conference, a lot of my prejudices were shattered, … especially when Father John Riccardo was talking so fervently about the Gospel and about saving people’s souls and people being in communion with God as much as I had heard it from the Evangelical community,” he said. “The conference was a huge part in my conversion.”  

In fall 2022, Speed began RCIA instruction.

“I finally feel that I can come into a belief system where I don’t have to worry about the fact that these beliefs started with the Protestant Reformation, started with schismatics, that they have been here for 2,000 years,” he said.

At first, Conrad was against the idea of her husband converting, but after a few months, Speed said, she had a change of heart. Conrad decided to attend RCIA class with her husband.

Speed said he is amazed by the transformation he has witnessed in his wife’s faith.

“I’ve never seen my wife like this now, where she is really fervently and completely owning her own faith,” he said of the way Conrad has embraced the Catholic faith. “It’s incredible. She is more of a Christian woman now than she ever has been, and she was, but she’s owning her own faith in a totally different way now.”

Speed said he and Conrad plan to enter the Catholic Church together at Easter.  

“We are both very excited, and we are relieved that we finally are coming into a Christian tradition that we believe is surrounded in truth, as well as the very beginnings of Christianity in history.

“There are certain things we are scared of – theologies around Mary and patron saints, as well as in persona Christi (a priest ministers “in the person of Christ”) – but we understand better why the Catholic Church believes that, and we understand that simply because we’re uncomfortable does not mean that it’s wrong,” he said.

Speed said he struggled with certain Church theologies, such as in persona Christi and the Blessed Mother being preserved from sin, because of his Protestant background.

“There’s some things that I’m scared about, but it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong,” Speed said. “It just means I need to pray about it, that I need to listen and understand, as well, what the Catholic Church believes when (the Church is) talking about it.”

He is excited to receive the Eucharist, which he said he was first drawn to when he learned about Transubstantiation. 

Speed was confused at first how the Eucharist could be the real Body and Blood of Christ, but he said he came to understand.

“Now I really do believe in what Jesus said when he said, ‘This is My Body and My Blood,’ and why all those people left Him, because that’s exactly what He meant.”