Charlestown man says journey to become Catholic ‘was worth it’

Guadalupe Godinez, right, smiles with Connor Roberts, left, and Megan Smith as they stand by the narthex doors in the back of St. Michael Church in Charlestown waiting to bring up the wine, bread and water during the Easter Vigil Mass on April 4. (Submitted photo by Jessica Sarver)

By Natalie Hoefer

In Guadalupe Godinez’s 22 trips around the sun, he has gone from being a baptized non-denominational Christian, to an agnostic, to a Mormon, then back to a non-denominational Christian.

“I found it eventually necessary to acknowledge that the Catholic Church was true,” he says.

Godinez’s search for the one, true Church culminated at St. Michael Church in Charlestown, where he was welcomed into the full communion of the Church during the Easter Vigil Mass on April 4.

The young man was one of three people selected to bring up the bread, wine and water during the Mass. Before processing up the aisle, he recalls feeling a sense of awe, looking at “the altar of God” as he stood by the doors of the narthex at the back of the church.

The scene hearkens back to standing at a door in another pivotal moment of Godinez’ faith journey.

He was 16 and inside his family’s home in Charlestown when he heard a knock on the front door. He opened it to find “two very well-dressed young men,” members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—also known as Mormons.

Not ‘about God’ but ‘having friends’

By this time, Godinez considered himself agnostic, not caring “at all” about religion.

He was baptized into his mother’s non-denominational Christian faith. She and his grandmother “tried to regularly keep us going to church,” says Godinez, the middle of three boys. “But we were raised by a hardworking, single mom, so that wasn’t always possible.

“And honestly, as a kid, I didn’t really care at all about going to church.”

When COVID hit, Godinez was about 16, a sophomore in high school and “deeply depressed,” he says. “I lost my confidence to go back to school. I lost my will to do things, [and] I found it hard to even just contact my friends.”

The quarantine restrictions had only just started to ease when he was “shocked to hear people knocking on the door.”

The two “well-dressed” young men wanted to speak with Godinez’s older brother about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His brother wasn’t home, so they spoke with Godinez instead.

He was “skeptical,” but when they invited him to a Sunday service, Godinez said yes. He was soon baptized into the Mormon faith.

“It was less so about God for me, initially, and more so that I missed having friends and talking to people,” he admits, and he “enjoyed several good years [at the Mormon church in Charlestown]. There were so many wonderful people and families.”

Godinez was 18 when he finished reading The Book of Mormon, written by the religion’s founder and “prophet” Joseph Smith.

“I wanted to really know what I believe,” he says, and thought the book was “good.”

Then he decided to read the Bible—and “loved it.” After reading the Gospel of Matthew, he says he “actually for the first time saw the life of Jesus Christ. And I wanted to know more.”

Godinez listened to Christian apologists online, learned of their opposition to Mormonism and started asking himself questions.

“Does The Book of Mormon seem to be true? No. Was Joseph Smith ever a prophet? It didn’t seem like it, based on his life. Was the Church really ‘lost’ after the Apostles died [as Mormons claim]? I couldn’t bring myself to believe that,” he reasoned.

“If none of those things were true, … then Mormonism was just not true. And so, I had to decide, ‘Am I going to stay somewhere I don’t think is true, or am I going to make an adjustment in my life that may not be comfortable?’

“I ultimately decided to make that adjustment.”

‘What is the one thing holding you down?’

His Mormon friend—and former Catholic—who baptized him into that faith was “very resistant” to the decision.

Godinez tried to help him understand.

“I told him the Orthodox, the Assyrian Church of the East and every Protestant denomination have their origins in breaking off from Catholicism,” he recalls. “So, if there is a one, true church, if there is one with apostolic succession and authority, then it has to be the Catholic Church, because it’s the only one old enough to even make the claim.”

Nevertheless, Godinez did not immediately seek to become Catholic. Instead, he returned to his former non-denominational church while “trying to really study Christianity. I became super curious about what are the true beliefs and what is the true church supposed to look like, if there is one.”

He read the works of the early Church Fathers. While much of what he read pointed to Catholicism as the one, true Church, he struggled with other aspects of the faith, such as its regard for Mary.

But Godinez thought “it was important get to know what it was I disagreed with.”

So, he read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and listened to Catholic apologists, and he began to “understand the things that didn’t quite make sense,” he says.

“I was continually finding myself agreeing more and more with the Catholic faith. At a certain point I asked myself, ‘How often does this Church have to be right for me to eventually agree to join it?’ ”

Ironically, the answer came during a sermon at Godinez’s evangelical church on Easter of 2025.

The pastor challenged the congregation to consider “what is the one thing you think is really holding you down in life,” he recalls. “I knew what it was—I wasn’t going to God’s Church.”

Despite that admission, Godinez still hesitated to take steps toward becoming Catholic. His girlfriend, who was raised Catholic and had received the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, was no longer practicing the faith and had no interest in doing so, which “kind of put a damper on things,” he admits.

The two had many discussions, and Godinez shared what he learned in his two years of studying Catholicism. It took several months, but when he enrolled in the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults at St. Michael Parish last December, his girlfriend enrolled as well to prepare for receiving the sacrament of confirmation.

When it came to choosing a confirmation saint, Godinez repeated what he did to learn about the faith—he turned to the early Church Fathers.

‘It made the whole journey worth it’

“I chose St. Augustine,” he says. “He constantly searched for truth and wisdom, and he explored the faith in all its aspects, like, to a microscopic detail. We’re like kindred spirits. I want to understand [Catholicism] as far as it is possible to understand it.”

Godinez recalls two impactful moments from the Easter Vigil Mass. The first was when he stood by the doors of the narthex facing the sanctuary, waiting to process in with the offertory gifts.

“I thought to myself, ‘I’m standing before the altar of God,’ ” he recalls. “And I imagine I’m thinking almost what Moses or Aaron were thinking whenever they were standing before the altar or before the Ark of the Covenant. It was awe-inspiring, just such an incredible thing.”

The second moment was the one Godinez had so long anticipated.

“When Father [Jeyaseelan Sengolraj] said, ‘The body of Christ,’ I was like, ‘I finally get this kind of union that everyone else gets.’ It was an amazing feeling.”

Reflecting on the five months he worshiped at Mass before the Easter Vigil, Godinez says he would sometimes see people “go up to receive Communion almost casually, which is kind of insane to me. This isn’t a symbol—it’s the real body and blood of Christ.”

For him, the experience of receiving the Eucharist for the first time “is hard to describe because there’s too many words to describe it—happy, excited, delighted. So many joyful words, but none of them quite get it right.”

The long wait for that moment was worth it, says Godinez.

“From being a mostly agnostic kid, to Mormons knocking on my door, to going back to the non-denominational evangelical church, to finally kneeling before and worshiping and partaking of Christ himself and becoming Catholic—it made the experience and just the whole journey worth it.” †