17d • Progress Report ⭐️
My Recent Return to the Catholic Church
Dear Friends at Calvary Chapel and Beyond,
Something has come alive in me these past few weeks. I haven’t told anyone yet, but I’m writing now because I believe this needs to be said. Not out of condemnation, but out of conviction. Not to attack, but to awaken. What I’m about to say may challenge what you believe. But it’s not meant to insult. It’s meant to invite.
I've decided to return to the Catholic Church.
Why? Because I’ve come to believe something devastatingly simple: that Protestant churches—including the one I’ve attended—are not real churches. They are playing church. They may be sincere. They may be passionate. But they are not rooted in the original vine planted by Christ. They are branches that broke off—and I believe it is time to come home.
Let me explain.
The word “Protestant” means what it says: a protest. A movement not born from divine commission, but from rebellion. If the Church was truly founded by Jesus Christ—and has continued unbroken since the Apostles—then why would I cling to a movement that began fifteen hundred years later in protest against it?
My faith is not a protest.
I don’t want to build my faith on protest.
I want to build it on Christ.
✠ What Martin Luther Really Did
The man most responsible for that protest—Martin Luther—is often treated like a hero. But when I took a closer look, I saw a different picture.
Toward the end of his life, Luther was sickly, angry, bitter, and deeply dissatisfied with what his rebellion had produced. He referred to the Epistle of James as an “epistle of straw.” He said the Book of Revelation was neither apostolic nor prophetic. He doubted Hebrews. He wanted the entire canon of Scripture rearranged to fit his theology.
Let me say that again: Martin Luther wanted to remove books from the Bible—not just the Apocrypha, but even James, Hebrews, and Revelation.
He succeeded in removing the following books from the Old Testament, now known as the Deuterocanonical books (or “Apocrypha” in Protestant circles):
Tobit
Judith
Wisdom of Solomon
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
Baruch
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
Plus additions to Daniel and Esther
These were in every Christian Bible for over 1,100 years. The early Church used them. Jesus and the Apostles quoted from them. And yet, because Luther didn’t like how they supported Catholic doctrine—especially prayers for the dead, the authority of the priesthood, and purgatory—he threw them out.
This isn’t just a historical footnote. It’s a spiritual crime.
Revelation 22:19 says:
“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life…”
Luther didn’t just protest abuse—he tore pages from Scripture and reshaped Christianity in his own image. That’s not reformation. That’s rebellion.
How is this different from what Joseph Smith did when he added the Book of Mormon? It’s the same sin in opposite directions: Smith added. Luther subtracted. Both distorted the Word of God.
✠ The Eucharist—Is It Real or Pretend?
Here’s where things became personal for me.
At Calvary Chapel, Communion is treated as an ordinance—just a symbolic act that “remembers” Christ’s sacrifice. Crackers. Juice. Tiny plastic cups under the table, some spilled, some forgotten. A gold plate nearby with crumbs of broken crackers. A box of tiny cups sitting like props beneath the sacred act.
But I kept reading Scripture.
1 Corinthians 11:27 says:
“Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”
Guilty of the body and blood?
How could I be guilty of the real body and blood of Christ if what I was holding was just a symbol?
That verse doesn’t make sense unless the Eucharist is truly what Jesus said it was.
“This is my body… This is my blood.” —Matthew 26:26–28
He did not say, this represents my body. He said, this is.
If the bread and wine are only symbols, then saying I’m “guilty of the body and blood” by taking them unworthily is like saying I’ve committed murder by tearing up a photograph.
That is absurd. You don’t go to prison for shredding a picture—you go for killing the person.
Therefore, what is received in true Communion must not be a picture. It must be the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. That’s why the Catholic Church gets this right. It's why I never once took communion at Calvary Chapel. I couldn’t. I believe it would have been fake.
And I don’t play with holy things.
✠ A Tree and Its Shoots
The Lord gave me a metaphor: the Church is a great mother tree. She was planted by Christ. She grew strong, bore fruit, and shaded the earth for centuries. But over time, little shoots began to grow nearby—sucker trees. They sprouted from the roots, imitating the shape of the mother, sometimes bearing fruit. But they are not part of the trunk. They are vulnerable. Wild. Outside the gardener’s design.
And one day, the Gardener—Christ Himself—may clear them away, so the vineyard can be whole again.
Why cling to a shoot when the tree is alive? Why eat imitation fruit when the Tree of Life is still standing?
✠ The Adoration Chapel
I’m not only returning to the Catholic Church—I’m going to serve in Adoration ministry.
In Eucharistic Adoration, the consecrated Host—the true Body of Christ—is placed in a golden vessel and set upon the altar. And we sit in silence before Him. Not thinking about Jesus. With Jesus. Not remembering. Beholding.
His presence is real. His body is here. He waits for His children to come back.
✠ Come and See
I’m not saying any of this to shame anyone. I’m writing because I love you.
I know the Protestant church gave me many good things. Fellowship. Encouragement. Scripture. But something was always missing—and now I know what it was. The fullness. The Sacraments. The real Presence. The unity of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
We’ve all inherited 500 years of division. It’s time to question it. Time to ask: What if the Catholic Church really is the Church Jesus founded?
What if we've been eating crumbs under the table, while the wedding feast is still going on inside?
I’m not asking you to agree with me today.
I’m asking you to come and see.
Come to Adoration with me. Sit before Him. Ask Him if it’s real. Ask Him if this is truly His Church.
Let the Lord answer.
Because at the end of the day, I’m not following a movement. I’m following a Man.
And that Man built one Church.
He gave it His Body. His Blood. His Spirit. His authority.
And I’ve decided—I want to be in that Church.
Not beside it.
Not near it.
In it.
With love,
Brian Korn
✠ Addendum: Questions Worth Asking
If Christ truly founded one Church…
Why are there now over 30,000 denominations?
If He promised the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18)…
Did He fail?
Or have we failed to recognize where that Church still stands?
If the early Christians gave their lives for the Eucharist—believing it was the real Body and Blood of Christ…
Why do we now reduce it to a symbol?
If Paul warned that receiving the bread and cup unworthily makes us guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:27)…
How could that be true if it’s only a cracker and juice?
If the Bible was compiled, preserved, and canonized by Catholic bishops in the fourth century…
By what authority does anyone outside that Church tell us what books belong in it?
If Jesus said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53)…
Why do we treat that as metaphor, when He never corrected the scandal it caused?
If Martin Luther removed books from the Bible, doubted sacred Scripture, and died in despair…
Why do we still call him a reformer?
What spirit animated his rebellion?
If the root of the word Protestant is protest…
Why would I build my faith upon resistance, rather than communion?
If you say, “I follow Scripture alone”…
Where in Scripture does it teach Scripture alone?
If the Church is the Body of Christ…
Can the Body be divided and still be alive?
If you long for truth, for beauty, for something deeper than preaching and praise bands and personality cults…
Why not come and see the Church that has outlived empires, heresies, persecutions, scandals, schisms, and every passing fad?
If there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5)…
Why would Christ give us anything less than one Church?
If Jesus is really, truly, physically present in the Eucharist at every Catholic Mass…
What are you missing by not being there?
And if there’s even a chance—a sliver of a chance—that the Catholic Church is the true Church…
Don’t you owe it to your soul to find out?
This image is a metaphor. The Catholic church is the large, main tree in the image. The Protestant churches are the ones that have sprouted up around it. Notice, some even have fruit. I think eventually, the gardener (Jesus) is going to clean up his garden and get rid of the sucker trees so the main tree can thrive. I’d rather be there.
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My Recent Return to the Catholic Church
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