With all the discussion over Matthew Barrett’s exit from the SBC, you’d think he converted to Rome—but fortunately, he stayed within Protestantism. Barrett’s very public break has understandably come under fire by Baptists for the way he went about it, and for some of the unfair claims he leveled at the SBC. But one positive outcome for Protestants is that he declined to convert to the Roman Catholic Church.

It’s no secret that intellectuals, scholars, and political leaders like Vice President JD Vance have been crossing the Tiber in recent years. Elites becoming Catholic isn’t a new phenomenon. The Holy See announced on Thursday that John Henry Newman, likely the most famous Roman Catholic convert in recent centuries, will become a doctor of the Catholic Church, joining Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Siena.

Media outlets such as the New York Post have been running stories about those who have rejected a wafer-thin form of evangelicalism and converted to Catholicism. In a few cases, those who have some background in historic Protestantism like YouTuber Cameron Bertuzzi and author Casey Chalk went “home to Rome.” A recent piece in The Daily Signal, the online outlet of the Heritage Foundation, which is headed by the proudly Catholic Kevin Roberts, even argues that Catholicism is becoming the new mainline church in America.

But in reality, the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t hold the strong position that’s often implied by these stories in the media or portrayed by various pro-Catholic online boosters. 

At the Catholic Crisis Magazine, its editor-in-chief Eric Sammons discussed a recent Pew survey that shows some pretty devastating news for the Catholic Church: for every 100 Catholics entering Catholicism, 800 leave. “I won’t bury the lede: it’s bad. Really bad,” Sammons lamented. Even more, he noted, “Only 19% of Americans self-identify as Catholic, down from 24% in 2007.” These numbers mirror a similar decline in Protestantism as well, which indicates that the issues Catholicism is facing are widespread across Christian denominations. 

Acknowledging these realities is not typically what you see on social media, however. Instead, it seems awash in the very online idea that the Catholic Church is a powerhouse that’s poised to finally annihilate Protestantism, once and for all. Of course, the claim that Protestantism in America will completely die out soon—a claim made not only by tradcaths but also right-wing political commentators—is patently absurd, especially considering the history and traditions of America. 

An astounding 98% of Americans around the time of the American Revolution were Protestant. Even John Adams, who was not an orthodox Protestant himself, nevertheless wrote to the Rev. F.C. Schaeffer, 

Though it’s been nearly 250 years since the generation of Americans who fought against the British, Protestantism remains embedded in American life, from our laws and public art to pockets of Americans who remain watchful over encroaching tyranny. Quite simply, Protestantism is part of the American DNA in a way other denominations never will be.

For some reason, however, Protestants in recent decades have ceded much of the public space to Catholics. Right-wing Catholic political commentators like Jack Posobiec, Matt Walsh, and Michael Knowles have no trouble openly proselytizing for their denomination. Meanwhile, their Protestant peers are more reticent to talk about their Protestant faith in public (anons like Presbyterian Inn, however, are far more willing to spar with Catholics).

Another aspect of the Catholic will being reinvigorated is the growth of the pop-Catholic apologetics industry, which is clearly aiming to convert evangelicals en masse. Catholic podcasters and writers—most of whom are converts themselves—have been lobbing endless grenades, hoping to turn evangelicals Rome-ward. 

Catholics are regularly outraged when Protestants try to convert them, or talk as if they aren’t part of the one true, catholic, holy, and apostolic church. But these pro-Catholic apologists have no problem with proselytizing evangelicals. Aaron Renn has rightly written that “evangelical leaders seem deeply hesitant to engage in polemics designed to counter Catholic conversionism, whereas the reverse is certainly not true.” Catholic online apologists see megachurches and evangelicalism broadly as a field ripe for harvest—and frequently imply, or even outright state, that evangelicals aren’t even Christian. 

There is seemingly no longer any social penalty for Catholics who treat Protestants as an embarrassing little brother. However, when Protestants, especially in the political arena, question the leading doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church, that’s seen as a social faux pas that will likely get you locked out of the upper echelons of the institutional Right.

Meanwhile, pop-Catholic apologists feel free to spew any calumny about “Protestantism” they want (Where are their bishops?), often conflating the craziest aspects of churches outside of Rome and the East with Protestantism more generally. 

The problem, of course, is that historic Protestantism positions are rarely, if ever, confronted. This crowd seems to evince almost no familiarity with the confessions, catechisms, or teachings of classic orthodox Protestantism. They show no evidence of having read a single book by one of its many gifted theologians. Only the lowest-hanging fruit is discussed, and even then in the most misleading of ways. 

Pro-Rome online apologetics have become chock-full of out-of-context quotes or simplified, two-dimensional versions of what were actually very complex back-and-forth battles over a host of issues, including the power of the pope over the civil realm and the eucharist. The Ninth Commandment, it seems, has simply ceased to exist for too many in this crowd (and to be fair, some online Protestants aren’t that much better).

For example, the idea that a kill shot against Protestantism is that Rome has the sacrifice of the Mass while Protestants have only empty symbols is laughable. While that might be true for many non-denominational churches, and even churches in denominations that once held to a richer eucharistic theology, it is not the case for many other Protestant churches, and especially for historic Protestantism. 

A caricatured modern memorialist approach that even Zwingli would blanch at is simply not representative of classical Protestantism. Which is why converts most often than not aren’t even converting from historic Protestantism, but from a pale shadow of it.

Daniel Waterland, an archdeacon in the Church of England and a master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, certainly had a place for the concept of sacrifice in his magisterial 18th-century landmark text, A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist. At The Anglican Way, Roger T. Beckwith notes 

Read it all in American Reformer