Seven Suggestions When Engaging with Roman Catholics

Resources are helpful, but a caring heart is more necessary. A family member or friend in Roman Catholicism is not a debate opponent to be defeated. They are a soul to be loved and ministered to in love. Our witness to the glory of Christ is brightest when it reflects Him most; when we speak the truth in love. Prepare for warm, patient, gospel-centered conversations. The following suggestions should help.

1. Aim at Christ, Not at Rome

The goal is not to make a Catholic into a Protestant but to bring a sinner to rest wholly on Christ. A person can abandon every distinctive of Rome and still be lost. Keep the target fixed on the person and work of Christ received by faith alone. The rest, by the grace of God, will follow in due course.

2. Lead with the Authority of Scripture and Justification by Faith Alone, Not with the Periphery

Mary, purgatory, indulgences, the papacy, and statues are the branches. The root is twofold: where final authority lies, and how a sinner is accepted before God. If those two are settled from Scripture, the others resolve on their own. If they are not settled, arguing about the branches produces heat and nothing else.

3. Name the Common Ground Honestly

Roman Catholics confess the Trinity, the true deity and humanity of Christ, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, and the bodily return of Christ. Saying so out loud early costs nothing and buys an enormous amount of credibility. It also sharpens the real disagreement rather than blurring it.

4. Let Rome Speak in Her Own Words

Nothing carries the weight of a person reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the canons of Trent for themselves, in their own edition, and comparing them with an open Bible. Second-hand characterizations of Catholic teaching are easily dismissed. Primary documents are not. This also protects you from repeating claims about Rome that are inaccurate, which can injure the trustworthiness of your witness.

5. Put the Bible in Their Hands

More people have left Rome over an open Gospel of John than over any argument. Offer to read a Gospel together, a chapter a week, with no agenda beyond the text. This is, after all, exactly what Tyndale died to make possible.

6. Aim at Assurance

Rome cannot offer settled assurance of salvation, and Trent formally excluded it. Many devout Catholics carry a quiet, lifelong unrest about whether they have done enough. That unrest is the point of contact. The gospel answers it, and no other system can. Ask gently what they would say if God asked them why He should receive them.

7. Expect a Long Conversation

For most Catholics, leaving Rome means grief: family, heritage, identity, the funerals of parents and grandparents. Understanding that cost will make you patient. Conversions out of Rome are typically measured in years, not days.

Scripture to Read Together

Give a readable and trustworthy translation and offer to read it together. Actively resist red herrings and avoid debates over the canon. Gently prioritize reading. “All Scripture is breathed out by God,” but not all Scripture is equally accessible and clear. God has been pleased to grant us special clarity on the matters at hand in the following passages. It is no wonder why these have done the most work historically.

• On justification: Romans 3:19–28; Romans 4:1–8; Romans 5:1–2; Galatians 2:15–21; Galatians 3:1–14; Ephesians 2:1–10; Titus 3:4–7.
• On the finished sacrifice: Hebrews 7:23–28; Hebrews 9:11–14 and 24–28; Hebrews 10:1–18. This last passage is the most difficult in Scripture for the Roman doctrine of the Mass.
• On the one Mediator: 1 Timothy 2:5–6; Hebrews 4:14–16; Acts 4:12; 1 John 2:1–2.
• On assurance: John 5:24; John 6:37; John 10:27–30; Romans 8:1 and 31–39; 1 John 5:11–13.
• On Scripture and tradition: Mark 7:1–13; Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 3:14–17; Colossians 2:8 and 20–23.
• To read straight through: the Gospel of John, then Romans, then Galatians or Hebrews. A chapter a week with no agenda beyond the text is more powerful than it sounds. Remember where the power rests.

Recommended Resources

To Read

These are books for you to read in order to better equip you to witness to Catholic family and friends.

Chris Castaldo, Talking with Catholics about the Gospel: A Guide for Evangelicals (Zondervan, 2015)

Castaldo was raised Catholic and worked in Catholic ministry before coming to evangelical faith, and he writes with real affection for Catholic people. It is a book about how to have the conversation, not merely what to say in it. Originally published in 2009 as Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, which remains excellent and is the better version to give a Catholic reader directly, since it is testimony rather than strategy.

Leonardo De Chirico, Tell Your Catholic Friend: How to Have Gospel Conversations with Love (B&H Publishing, 2025)

This is a clear, gracious, and practical guide for Christians who long to see Catholic friends and family members come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Rather than encouraging argument, De Chirico helps readers understand Roman Catholic beliefs, identify the decisive differences between Rome and the biblical gospel, and engage Catholics with both conviction and genuine affection. It equips believers to move conversations beyond religious identity and tradition to the necessity of the new birth, the authority of Scripture, and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

To Give

These are the books to hand a friend or relative. They are short, charitable, and free of caricature. Nothing here will feel like an attack.

Recommended Resources for Roman Catholics

A Suggested Sequence

Where relationship allows and interest is genuine, this order tends to work better than handing over everything at once. The order may vary depending on the person and your relationship with them.

• Read a Gospel Together. Offer to read John together. Ask questions rather than making assertions. This may occupy months, and that is fine.
• Give a Published Testimony. A person who will not accept a Protestant explanation of Catholicism will often listen to a former Catholic describe what changed and why. Lower defenses before raising doctrine. Consider Castaldo’s Holy Ground or Gilbert’s Stepping Out in Faith.
• Address Assurance. Ask what they would answer if God asked why He should receive them. Consider Bonar’s God’s Way of Peace, or Ryle’s tracts.
• Introduce the Doctrinal Question. Only now does the comparison of systems become useful. Consider Sproul’s Are We Together? or Reeves and Chester.
• Go to the Primary Documents. Trent Session VI and the relevant Catechism sections, read alongside Romans 4 and Hebrews 10.

A Closing Word

The convictions at stake here are the same ones for which Tyndale gave his life. He did not translate the New Testament in order to win an argument with Rome; he translated it because he believed that if the plowboy could read the Scriptures for himself, the Word of God would do its own work. That confidence should govern this task as well.

No book on this list has converted anyone. The Word of God, carried by the Spirit of God, has converted a great many. Use these resources to clear obstructions and to put Scripture into a friend’s hands, and then pray and love with much patience.

Roman Catholicism