Why I'm (Still) Not Catholic... (w/ @GospelSimplicity)

Summary

The episode is a friendly discussion between a Catholic host and Protestant YouTuber Austin Suggs about how Suggs’s understanding of Catholicism has changed—and why he remains Protestant.

Austin’s changing view of Catholicism

• Suggs began as an evangelical with a non-denominational megachurch background. A Catholic Bible study challenged his assumptions: he met Catholics who loved Jesus and studied Scripture seriously.
• He once thought Catholicism was largely mistaken, with faithful Catholics perhaps following Jesus despite their church. He now believes most Catholic doctrines are true and that he would side with Catholics on many issues rather than with his former evangelical setting.
• He recognizes that his former church experience was only one expression of Christianity. Catholic liturgy, sacraments, and historical traditions initially seemed unfamiliar partly because he had little exposure to other Christian traditions.
• Suggs is now part of the Church of England and describes his online work as ecumenical. He aims to understand a belief before criticizing it, seeing this as an act of intellectual humility and neighborly respect. Careful understanding, he argues, often reveals narrower disagreements than people assume.

Mary and Marian devotion

Suggs’s view of Mary has changed considerably. He sometimes prays the Rosary and includes the “Our Father,” “Hail Mary,” and Creed in his prayer routine. He has found some Marian devotion personally meaningful.

His remaining reservations are narrower than his earlier rejection of Marian devotion altogether:

• He is uncomfortable with forms of “Marian maximalism” or language that seems to portray Mary as a compassionate mediator against a reluctant Jesus or Father.
• He distinguishes devotional practices from formal doctrine. He does not rule out beliefs such as Mary’s bodily Assumption, but is uneasy about the certainty with which such claims are dogmatically defined.

The host agrees that some Marian hymns and devotional language can feel excessive, while emphasizing that understanding Catholic doctrine does not require agreeing with every expression of piety.

Authority, the papacy, and infallibility

The host explains that the Catholic Church’s claim to apostolic succession and authority was central to his own conversion. He sees the Church’s authority as a means of resolving disputes over Scripture, doctrine, worship, and Christian life.

Suggs agrees that church authority is a major issue underlying many Catholic–Protestant disagreements. He also notes that Protestants often rely on an analogous foundational commitment to Scripture’s inerrancy, rather than proving every biblical statement individually.

He considers the Catholic claim to church authority plausible and practically effective. In particular, he sees the papacy as a powerful means of maintaining a worldwide Christian community when political coercion is unavailable.

However, Suggs distinguishes usefulness from truth: an authority should be obeyed only if it is legitimate. He believes the Church and its leaders have real authority, but doubts that the Catholic claims of universal papal jurisdiction and infallibility are sufficiently established. In his view, the decisive question is whether the Church can err in situations where it claims not to err. He sees some Catholic authoritative statements as raising doubts about that claim.

The historic Church and Christian unity

The host describes his own historical reasoning: among existing Christian bodies, he sees the Catholic Church as most closely resembling the Church of the apostles and their successors, despite periods of failure and division.

Suggs agrees that the Catholic Church can trace its lineage to the early Church, but does not think it is the only community with that claim or that it fully represents the whole historic Church. He cautions that history and theology cannot be cleanly separated. Judgments about which groups count as the Church, or which party caused a division, already depend on theological assumptions.

Suggs describes his view of Christian division as a kind of “tragic ecclesiology”: the Church should be united, but Christian history contains real breaks in communion. He sees the persistence of the Church across divided communities as something that must be accounted for, not simply dismissed.

He recognizes the Catholic Church’s remarkable capacity to unite people and sees the papacy as a model that appears to work. Yet he does not believe Catholicism has achieved the full unity prayed for in John 17.

Suggs has no clearly superior alternative to Rome’s model. He would prefer a consensus among equal church leaders, but doubts that human beings can sustain such a system. His difficulty is that he can see the papacy’s practical appeal without accepting the Catholic claim that it is divinely established and part of the permanent deposit of faith.

Miracles and Marian apparitions

Suggs says he is less familiar with the evidence about miracles than with historical and theological debates, and is not ready to make firm judgments. He proposes a careful way to assess claims:

1. Separate the stages of the claim. Distinguish evidence that an unusual or miraculous event occurred from evidence about the message attached to it.
2. Examine how the message was transmitted and recorded. A compelling sign does not automatically establish that a reported message was accurately conveyed.
3. Evaluate the message and its interpretation. Even if an event is well supported, the theological conclusions drawn from it may be less certain.
4. Avoid blanket acceptance or dismissal. Christians cannot consistently say miracles are irrelevant to religious claims while treating the Resurrection as central.
5. Acknowledge the limits of one’s knowledge. Suggs has encountered competing arguments and counterarguments, but says he has only begun to understand the subject.

Some Marian messages make him uneasy when they seem to favor traditionalist interpretations he would not share, while other reported events—such as accounts of people from different religious communities coming together—strike him as moving. Overall, he hopes to investigate further without asserting more than he can justify.

Overall conclusion

Suggs remains Protestant not because he regards Catholicism as mostly false, but because he is unconvinced by its claims about papal jurisdiction and infallibility, and by the idea that Rome uniquely embodies the historic Church. He increasingly respects Catholic teaching, practice, and institutional unity, while retaining specific disagreements and questions.

Speakers featured

• Host: The host of The Cordial Catholic; not named in the subtitles.
• Austin Suggs: Protestant guest and creator of the Gospel Simplicity channel.

People and sources discussed

The conversation refers to Catholic and Christian figures and sources including Saints John Henry Newman, Louis de Montfort, Francis de Sales, and Irenaeus; the Second Vatican Council; John 17; and the Catholic and Orthodox churches. These are discussed or cited, not additional speakers in the episode.