It all began with a startlingly frank question David Bates posed to a colleague at work one day.
“What religion are you and what do you believe?”
Not exactly your standard water-cooler conversation, but that’s when things got interesting. Neither one of them knew it then, but Joe Bashford’s answer would spur a two-year journey that would lead to deeper faith for both men — and their wives.
“I told him I was Catholic,” Bashford said. “And then he goes, ‘Oh. So, you’re not saved and you don’t believe in Jesus.’
“I was kind of shocked that somebody actually would have that view of Catholics.”
But Bashford, a cradle Catholic, didn’t flinch. Instead, he asked what Bates believed.
“I told him I went to a non-denominational church. I didn’t know there were all these other denominations out there,” Bates said.
Bashford explained that Catholics are, in fact, the original Christians and that other Christian denominations and churches had split off from it.
“He goes, ‘You need to look up Church history and really start digging in on this,’” Bates recalled.
That was near the end of 2023. Bates and his wife Christina were both active at their non-denominational church. David had even been on a two-week mission trip to Brazil with his fellow believers.
But cracks in his affiliation began about 10 years ago. He was involved in Bible study at the church and started to ask wider questions. What about books outside of the Bible?
“It was all hush-hush,” David said. No one seemed willing or able to address his questions. And he began to wonder.
The challenge Bashford gave him to study history got him thinking.
Christina remembers what happened next. She herself had been raised in a non-denominational church and met David when they were both students at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix..
“He went all in,” Christina said. “He did the research to really understand all of the different parts of the theology. And then it just leads you to Jesus.”
Bashford didn’t simply tell David to figure it out. He pointed him in the direction of renown Catholic theologian and convert Scott Hahn. He also recommended Scripture scholar Brad Pitre.
“That got me down the path,” David said. “I made up my mind I was going to become Catholic.”
As it became clear that David was going to convert, Bashford told him to check out area parishes and see about signing up for the Order of Christian Initiation (OCIA).
First though, David spoke with Christina.
“I was like, ‘do you think I’m crazy?’ Because I trust her judgement too. I started laying out all the concerns I had. And the Catholic Church has the answer to all of them.”
Christina had been drifting a little in her faith at that point. “I was already spiritually kind of lethargic but not removed. I always had my own worship time with the Lord and my own adoration time with God.”
When David spoke to her about how he felt called to become Catholic, Christina’s initial reaction was, “That’s nice for you.” But then, something inside her shifted.
“Literally, Jesus started opening up my heart,” Christina said. She began to listen to what the Lord was revealing to her about all the standard objections to Catholicism, things she had been told since childhood.
“I really started digging in on my own. My heart became more open to it.”
She’d gone her whole life, she said, not knowing about the Eucharist.
“I read it in Scripture a million times and then I read it one more time when we were learning about it and I was like: ‘that makes sense.’
“The lightbulb went on and I said, ‘I want more Jesus.’ It’s so beautiful. That’s what drives me,” Christina said.
The most wonderful thing of all, she said, was what the discovery of their newfound beliefs did to their marriage.
“We’re growing together which we’ve never done before.”
The couple found out early in their journey toward Catholicism that they needed to prepare for and receive the sacrament of Matrimony. For nearly two years, they’ve been working their way through marriage prep and OCIA. Just before the Easter vigil this year, they will be married in the Catholic Church. At Easter, both will receive their First Eucharist and Confirmation.
Next up: having their 4-year-old daughter and 4-month-old son baptized. “That’s like my main drive now,” David said. “Now I see and understand — they need to be baptized.”
Probing questions
Joe, the man who patiently answered David’s first question back in 2023, reflected on what it meant to him to see David and Christina become Catholic. Joe and his wife Lisa — herself a convert to Catholicism — have sponsored the Bates’ journey to Catholicism.
“I had gone through my own period of searching through other religions earlier in my lifetime and came to the conclusion that Catholicism was the fulness of the faith,” Joe said.
Still, David asked probing questions as he began to consider Catholicism. Those questions had Joe doing research so as to be able to explain things. It made him think about his own journey home to the Catholic Church.
Joe credited listening to Catholic radio as one of the factors that caused him to return to Catholicism some years ago. For a time, he’d been attending the Presbyterian Church with Lisa who was raised in that tradition.
Lisa didn’t convert to Catholicism until 27 years into their marriage. By then, she had stopped going to the Presbyterian Church and began attending Mass with Joe. She told herself she was going to go with an open mind.
Joe recommended that she start praying the Rosary. Lisa began to do so every day before work.
It wasn’t long before her mind was made up.
“I told him, ‘I want to go through OCIA,’” Lisa said.
“I about fell over,” Joe chuckled as he recalled the moment.
“Joe still thought, ‘there’s going to be some things that Lisa’s not going to agree with,’” Lisa noted. “But no. I went through OCIA and I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh! All these years I’ve been missing all this!’”
“I think Lisa praying the Rosary every day was a major, major part of her conversion. It’s what got me back to the Church, too,” Joe said.
Joe was Lisa’s sponsor when she entered the Catholic Church several years ago. This year, he’s sponsoring David while Lisa is sponsoring Christina. Joe says his own faith grew as he saw the Bates’ journey unfold.
“They’re a beautiful young family. To me, just the fact that David and Christina were so open to God — the Holy Spirit just takes over and works.
“It’s been a joy to watch them.”
