Fook_me_honda

I just threw a CEL. Pulled the code, and it was 420, forgot the offical description of the code but its the catalytic converter from what ive searched for. My question is, would a bad cat cause my car to hesitate? Today at a stop light my car completely shut off, and was hesitating as if i was launching from 5th gear from a dead stop.

Car is a 98 Civic DX, auto.

Thanks guys.