Lincoln convert is leaving ‘bread crumbs’ from his story before surgery takes his ability to speak
By Dennis Kellogg
Director of Communications
Brad Brestel has used his voice to speak out about the truth of the Catholic Church since his conversion to the faith, culminating at the Easter Vigil in 2024. He has shared his faith journey on a podcast and written about it publicly, and he’s lost friends over it. Still, he keeps speaking.
The lifelong Lincoln man, who along with his wife Nancy, also a convert, is a parishioner at St. Joseph Parish in Lincoln. He was baptized in the Methodist Church, though, and spent most of his life as a Protestant, mainly a Baptist.
“I didn’t really know any Catholic people, and it stayed that way all my life,” Brestel said.
At age 50, after attending a church in Lincoln for about 10 years, Brestel was asked to join its staff as one of several pastors. With his background in law, he focused on legal and financial advice, helping families thrive in their stewardship.
Ten years later, he received life-changing news. He was diagnosed with throat cancer.
“That was kind of a showstopper, and it was bad enough that I thought might even die,” he said. “There was a day where I thought, ‘Well, this is it. I’m gone.’”
His health crisis also brought about a spiritual crisis. Brestel said he had shelf after shelf filled with books about Christianity, but he felt God was asking much more of him.
“I was basically told, ‘You know about me, but you don’t love me’ from God. And that just hit like a brick, because it was true.”
Brestel said from that moment he decided to pursue the great commandment to love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. As he struggled with how to do that, it was a book given to him by a fellow pastor that included a few quotes from Catholic saints that led him on a path to true love for Jesus Christ.
“I started looking at the books that these quotes came out of: ‘Interior Castle’ from St. Teresa and ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ from John of the Cross,” Brestel said. “I was reading them going, ‘Oh my gosh. These are exactly what I need. I need to read these books that fall head over heels in love with Jesus…’ And so the mystics kind of lit a candle that’s never gone out.”
Next, he turned to Church history and the early Church Fathers, including Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp.
“I never looked at that before and we never heard anything about that from the stage, from our speakers. It was sola scriptura. All we’re going to do is talk about the Bible… That’s it. No tradition at all,” he said. “So, our sense of history is really short – not 2,000 years. It’s like maybe 50.”
He eventually attended a retreat in Chicago. Then someone introduced him to the practice of spiritual direction, something he had never heard of before. And all along, he kept studying and learning about the Catholic faith. He said he expected to one day find “this terrible thing” Catholics “all believe that blows the whole thing up. Never found it.”
He realized he probably wouldn’t find it, either, when he heard a sermon around Christmas in his church that mentioned Mary. He said her name was rarely ever mentioned.
“I remember our young pastor said something like, ‘the shepherds came and they were around Mary,’ and he stopped in the middle of the sermon and kind of looked at the crowd and said, ‘At least we don’t worship her like some people do.’
“I had just read through some of the Catechism and I thought, ‘they don’t worship Mary. They venerate her.’ I know it’s like a really immense veneration, but it isn’t worship. And I thought, ‘we Protestants don’t know what the heck we’re talking about. We think we know what we’re talking about. We don’t.’”
It was one morning at about 4:30 at his kitchen table, in the middle of his devotions and reading a document from the Council of Trent, when he said he came to a realization that led him to the Catholic Church.
“I am a heretic,” Brestel concluded after reading the documents. “And only a person who believed the Catholic point of view would say I’m a heretic. Reading (the list of the beliefs that are contrary to what a Christian should believe), a Baptist would go, ‘These are right and the Catholics are wrong.’ And it just hit me: I don’t want to be a heretic. It’s over.”
Within six months, he “was gone” from the church he’d been serving.
Brad and his wife Nancy spent a year going through the OCIA program before coming into the Catholic Church last year. Because of his throat cancer, Brad wasn’t physically able to swallow.
“That night, I had to say no to the (host) because I couldn’t swallow it,” he said, “but I was able to take the blood and just touch it to my tongue. It was really moving. Finally, I got to have the Eucharist.”
God didn’t just bring Brestel to the Catholic Church at the age of 70, He also brought him to Catholic Social Services, where he used his legal skills to work with immigrants. He recently retired, but said his time there taught him about God’s mercy.
“We’re feeding people that are living under bridges; breakfast and lunch. We’re handing out toiletries they need and blankets and shoes and gloves, and then running a thrift store and doing all the things in a free grocery store for people that make an appointment to come in and get free groceries. So all this stuff was happening and I was seeing Christianity lived out, not just talked out.”
In retirement, Brad hoped to continue to be a powerful voice for the Catholic faith, sharing his story to help others also discover the truth. That, though, is no longer his reality. On Aug. 11, he will undergo surgery for his throat cancer that will remove his larynx. He will no longer be able to speak.
That’s one reason he wanted to make sure everyone hears his story now, like those from his former church and his family, including his eight grandchildren. He says he’s leaving “bread crumbs” for them to follow. His cancer has brought him suffering, but he said it’s also brought him clarity.
“Today, if you said, ‘Brad, I have a special offer. We can get in a time machine and go back to the day before your surgery where they found the cancer, and it won’t be cancer, but you won’t have any of the spiritual changes that you’ve had,’ I wouldn’t do it,” he said. “There’s nothing that can compare… And whatever happens, I feel like I’ve found the true Church, the Church that Jesus Christ started.”
And while Brestel may soon no longer be able to speak, he will always be a voice for the Catholic faith, delivering the lessons he learned from his lifelong faith journey. A message he wants everyone to hear, even if he can no longer speak the words.
“The Catholic faith, when researched with an honest heart, will be your answer… Although that’s not what’s told anywhere outside the Catholic faith, it happens to be the truth.”
Watch the full interview at the diocesan YouTube channel, @CatholicDiocese of Lincoln.
