Three months after I returned to the Lord in 1980, I went to my local Christian Light Bookstore that used to be in the center of town. That day, standing at the end of the aisle, in the furthest corner of the bookstore, was clearly a Catholic priest. He was a young man in his traditional black outfit. I walked over to him, intrigued at his Catholicism and began to talk with him about Christ. During the short talk, he said we must be willing to compromise on some things for fellowship between me and him. Somehow his next words carried me along like a song. I thought we were both coming to agreement on some doctrines, and all seemed sweet and rosy and agreeable.

And then I walked out of the bookstore and got on my motorcycle. The bracing, cool fall air suddenly woke me up. I knew that I'd been hoodwinked, but I didn't know how, or why I had been so agreeable all of a sudden. I strapped on my helmet and started my bike.

"Lord, what just happened in there?"

It's the strangest feeling when you know you've been had. You feel like you've been violated, and yet nothing physical was taken. But he played on my conscience, my want for fellowship, and the false assumption that we needed to agree about anything. I directed my thoughts straight at my heavenly Father as I started toward the setting sun down Holt Avenue.

What I realized as I prayed and rode home was this: compromise with a Roman Catholic only goes one way. They never compromise. They just make you think they did while you do all the compromising. I later learned a Roman Catholic motto: semper eadem, "always the same." No matter what they look like, nothing ever changes.