A family of five in Michigan took a winding journey through various church communities, questioning their faith — until finding unity and a haven in the Catholic Church, writes Martin Barillas in the National Catholic Register, August 20, 2025
An interview with the Bingham family of Ann Arbor revealed individual and joint paths of inquiry as they navigated faith communities. Dan and Hannah led their children to fully participate in these faith communities, especially in music ministry, but also in Bible study and group sessions. They also led them to the Church.
The family are pictured with their pastor, left to right: Dan Bingham, Derek Bingham, Father Bill Ashbaugh, David Bingham, Elise Bingham and Hannah Bingham.
Dan is a psychologist, overseeing more than a dozen therapists. He has taught psychotherapy and spiritual discernment to professionals and religious communities and is trained to integrate Christian spirituality and psychotherapy. He had long adhered to a broadly fundamentalist faith, which he professed when he met Hannah while they sang in a Baptist choir in Kentucky. Hannah has led choirs and music ministry, having trained in the field at Ohio’s evangelical Cedarville University.
The Binghams are vocal about their newfound faith. Dan was frank in saying that his spiritual journey towards the Catholic Church was gradual but accelerated as he and Hannah sought more complete marital unity.
Hannah knew Dan had long wished for more frequent communion in the Protestant tradition.
“So, long before this revelation or whatever the Holy Spirit was doing, Dan wanted communion every week, even when we didn’t understand what the Eucharist was,” she recalled. Finally, this led to a spiritual crisis for Dan.
“It was during a service at my former church that I felt a strong yearning for the Eucharist,” he said.
This yearning wasn’t satisfied by the congregations they tried. One of these, for example, offered readings from Buddhist and Hindu books. Moving several times, they tried various churches, including Baptist, Presbyterian and the United Church of Christ.
“Even though we were reading the Bible, we didn’t know how to pray anymore,” Hannah said, as they swung from fundamentalist to liberal traditions. “There was no ground to stand on in the progressive Christian tradition,” she said.
Two events accelerated the process towards the Church. Dan said that while at home battling an illness, he watched a debate broadcast from Franciscan University of Steubenville, featuring Catholic apologist Trent Horn and Baptist minister Gavin Ortlund on the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura (“by Scripture alone”).
“I watched for nearly two hours, and at the end of it, I thought, ‘Trent Horn won that debate,’” he recalled.
The other waystation for the Bingham family was a sermon given by an evangelical pastor at a local Bible church. Describing the pastor as a “closet Catholic,” Dan said that the pastor, who was battling a terminal illness, outspokenly referred to the “Blessed Virgin Mary” to a Protestant audience. Dan also knew that the pastor regularly prayed the Rosary. Before the pastor’s death, Dan consulted him about the pastor’s suffering and exploration of faith.
“Looking back at my experience at Xavier University, I asked him, ‘Do Catholics have a better understanding of suffering?’”
In response, the pastor gave him a list of books by former Protestants who had embraced the Catholic faith, frequently by reading the early fathers of the Church.
“It was an intellectual awakening,” Hannah said, adding that she and Dan often took walks and discussed their faith. They began praying the Rosary as a family. Of the family’s prayer practices, daughter Elise said, “Praying the Rosary brought me peace.”
Reading the early Church Fathers, Hannah said, made her realize that believing the Eucharist is a mere symbol meant they would have been heretics in the early Church. “That was pretty shocking,” she said, but she now sees this revelation was the early Christian teachings and the Eucharist pulling her family into the Church.
While she did not understand a long list of Catholic teachings, Dan’s inspiration was helpful. She told him, “Someone had encouraged you on the way and you found it helpful,” so she decided not to worry about the list of objections, concluding: “It’s all about the Eucharist.”
“That’s what really clicked for me,” she told the Register, recalling her thinking: “I don’t have to know everything right now, but if I believe this is the Eucharist, there’s no turning back now.”
Even so, the family even considered becoming Anglican. However, Dan concluded that only firm authority can establish the verity of the Eucharist and the Bible. Then, Hannah asked, “Can we be anything but Catholic?” The Holy Spirit compelled them, she believes, to receive the Eucharist, which the Church believes and teaches is the Body and Blood of Christ.
In November 2023, the Binghams went to St. Thomas the Apostle to witness their first Mass.
Later that month, the Binghams started attending catechism as a family and entered the Church on Easter 2024, with Father William (Bill) Ashbaugh officiating. Son David was baptized, and all members of the family were confirmed and finally received Holy Communion. As active parishioners, Dan is a Knight of Columbus, and Hannah sings in the schola and has launched the Laudate Youth Choir for area parishes. Son Derek plays piano at the chapel at the University of Dayton, while David believes he may have a vocation to the priesthood.
In August 2024, the Binghams attended the National Eucharistic Congress.
“Being surrounded by 60,000 passionate, devoted Catholics was incredible, especially considering that just a few months earlier, we hardly knew any Catholics,” Dan wrote in an email, adding: “Worshipping God together in the Holy Mass, and being part of such a vibrant, faithful community, was deeply moving. We had the chance to meet Trent Horn, whose book 'Why We’re Catholic' was important in our journey.”
Dan concluded, “What I’ve realized is that my job is to get my family into heaven.”
“Entering the Church and receiving the Eucharist,” Hannah said, “has been a unifying experience for our family. From the beginning, it just kind of bonded all of us together.”
• Martin Barillas is a writer and translator, having once served as a U.S. diplomat in Europe and South America. A lifelong Catholic, he resides in Michigan with his wife Alice and their four children and grandchild. He has written on a variety of topics, including human rights, politics and religion. He is also a novelist. For more from the National Catholic Register go to: https://www.ncregister.com/