Thousands prepare to join U.S. Catholic Church this Easter

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- During this year's Easter Vigil Masses, tens of thousands of people across the country will be welcomed into the Catholic Church.

Last year more than 150,000 Americans were baptized as Catholics or joined in full communion with the church during the Easter Vigil.

Those who are not yet baptized are called catechumens. At Easter they receive all three sacraments of Christian initiation -- baptism, confirmation and their first Eucharist. Those already baptized in other churches or who were baptized Catholic but not raised in the faith are called candidates. At Easter they receive confirmation and the Eucharist.

During the first two weeks of Lent, catechumens and candidates across the country gathered -- most often in special diocesan ceremonies led by a bishop -- to participate in a Rite of Election, for catechumens, or a Call to Continuing Conversion, for candidates.

Those who choose to go through the RCIA program are men and women, young and old.

In the Archdiocese of Omaha, Neb., among the 530 people in 54 parishes who are preparing to enter the Catholic Church this Easter is 10-year-old Michael Aufenkamp Jr., who will be joining Sacred Heart Parish in Norfolk. He said he was "very excited" to take part in the Rite of Election and meet Omaha Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss.

"It'll make me feel a little bit more a part of things," he told The Catholic Voice, Omaha's archdiocesan newspaper.

Young Michael said he was initially joining the church because his mom, Kay, is also becoming a Catholic this year. But now he said he is choosing Catholicism because he is "closer to God" and he is "excited to know everything about God and make new friends."

Another young catechumen is 8-year-old Katherine Williams, from Rock Island, Ill., who is credited with bringing her mother to the church. The mother and daughter are among 144 catechumens and 249 candidates this year in the Peoria Diocese.

Katherine's mother, Lisa Powell Williams, who was raised Methodist, said she was inspired by her daughter's faith, rooted in her experience at Jordan Catholic School in Rock Island for the past three years.

Last year when Katherine's class was preparing for first Communion, Katherine decided not to join them and instead to wait for her mother. In an interview with The Catholic Post, Peoria's diocesan newspaper, she said she told her mom: "You and I get to do something special."

In the state of Oregon -- in the Portland Archdiocese and Baker Diocese -- one of nearly 800 people entering the final weeks of Catholic faith formation is 29-year-old Amy Mevis, who was raised Catholic, but as she put it she was "out" of the church for a "really long time."

Mevis, who will be confirmed at Easter at St. Edward Parish in North Plains, Ore., said thinking of the future of her three children -- ages 10, 5 and 3 -- prompted her return to the church.

But it is not always youngsters who inspire candidates and catechumens. Eighty-one-year-old Harold Welch said he always wanted to join the faith tradition of his wife, Juanita, but they never could quite find the time to attend classes. Welch, who will be baptized at Sacred Heart Parish in Warrensburg, Mo., is one of 243 catechumens and 384 candidates in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

"Better late than never," he told The Catholic Key, newspaper of the Missouri diocese.

"We've been married 35 years and he finally decided to be Catholic," Juanita Welch added. "We have the time because I retired to take care of him. There is no excuse now."

In the Diocese of Austin, Texas, Dana Haywood plans to join the Catholic faith his wife recently rediscovered.

Haywood, who was baptized in a Baptist church 16 years ago, told The Catholic Spirit, Austin's diocesan newspaper, that he was repeatedly encouraged by his wife to read books on Catholicism and was particularly impressed with the writings of Scott Hahn, a former Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism.

"I love the Baptist church and its emphasis on Scripture, but now the Bible has a new meaning and richness. I can't wait to make my first Communion," said Haywood, who will be baptized along with his 15-year-old son at St. Mary Parish in Brenham. Haywood is among 351 candidates and 529 catechumens in the Austin Diocese.

Across the country, large numbers of candidates and catechumens participated in the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion services, including 1,000 in the Archdiocese of Washington; 710 in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and 247 in the Diocese of Lexington, Ky. The Diocese of Arlington, Va., expects more than 1,000 to join the church at Easter; the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., will welcome 486 new Catholics; and the Diocese of Manchester, N.H., will have more than 400.

The Chicago Archdiocese has more than 1,400 candidates and catechumens; the Cincinnati Archdiocese, 1,287; the Boston Archdiocese, 543; the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, 208; the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., 370; and the Diocese of Green Bay, Wis., 325; the Diocese of Honolulu, 307; and the Diocese of Rockford, Ill., 174.

The Detroit Archdiocese will welcome 1,489 new Catholics this Easter, 204 more than the archdiocese had the previous year.

Mercy Sister Georgette Zalewska, RCIA director in the Detroit archdiocesan Department of Christian Worship, said the increased numbers from last year's ceremonies show that parishes "are really reaching out with their evangelization efforts."

The numbers also mean something to Kathy Shea, religious education director of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Wilmington, Ill. The Rite of Election at the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet, Ill., included 220 people.

"I think it's extraordinary that so many people are coming into the church now because it shows that we have risen above the scandals and problems that have plagued us in recent years," she told the Catholic Explorer, newspaper of the Joliet Diocese.

"The excitement among people new to the church has a lot to do with finding a new home," said Dominican Sister Mary Buttimer, RCIA director at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Bend, Ore., in the Baker Diocese.

"It is like a discovery, too, an expedition," she told the Catholic Sentinel, newspaper of the Baker Diocese and Portland Archdiocese. "It's when they answer that they are ready for the step of faith that says, 'I don't know what's coming down the pike. I don't know all the politics. I don't know what I'll be asked to do, but it is something I feel called to do.'"

At Rite of Election services in Kansas City-St. Joseph, candidates and catechumens were urged to see the importance of their former religious traditions in forming foundations of faith.

Coadjutor Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph urged them to recognize that the faith they received in Christian baptism "is not being diminished or discarded in any way by your entering the Catholic Church," but would "only be deepened."

Re-read the gospels and the first communion. There is no Catholic copyright, no patent, no FBI Interpol warning on taking the bread of life. To imply that there is, is to make simonizing pagan priests of your own clerics.

I don't think you had any intention of joining the Church, if, indeed, the tale you've spun here has any truth to it at all.

You certainly got nothing out of the two years you spent in RCIA, judging by your statements above.

What does "simonizing" have to do with anything?

How about a church that reprimands a nun for breaking THE FIRST COMMANDMENT?

What difference would it make? You're already off making the Catholic Eucharist the equivalent of every other denomination's understanding of the Bread of Life.

I don't think you had any intention of joining the Church,

Then you are no prophet, nor son of a prophet, because that is EXACTLY what we intended to do until it was made clear that we could not, in fact, do it without violating God's law.

Simonize should have been simoniac. Franchising the bread of life and declaring it out of bounds to non-Catholics should sound repugnant to all but the most spiritually deaf.

Franchising the bread of life and declaring it out of bounds to non-Catholics should sound repugnant to all but the most spiritually deaf.

Name one other religious denomination that believes that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.

The Catholic Church is not "franchising" anything. We have the real Bread of Life, not a symbol of It.

Name one other religious denomination that believes that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.

The Lutherans share that belief with you, but however you interpret "take eat, this is my body" or "I am the vine" or "I am the way," these truths are not Catholic intellectual property. You don't own God any more than the Jews of old owned God. God owns us.

The Lutherans share that belief with you, but however you interpret "take eat, this is my body" or "I am the vine" or "I am the way," these truths are not Catholic intellectual property.

Actually, they don't. The bread and wine is not changed into the Real Body and Blood of Christ. Christ is present, but only through a symbolic presence.

I'm just suspicious of much of what you say, since you seem to be a non-denominational Christian with an axe to grind against Catholicism.

Tell me of any group with millions of people that doesn't have some goof balls. What you saw was completely off the wall and alien to Catholicism. Those people should be reported to the bishop.

Of course, there are a few bishops out there who are off the wall too. If you are in one of those diocese (they are rare, but they are the ones that make the news papers happy) then you have a real obstacle to orthodox Catholicism.

I hope you will have a chance to experience the real thing soon.

Christ is present, but only through a symbolic presence

Christ is present whenever "two or three are gathered" in His name. It never occured to me, as a Catholic in training, that a defender of the Church of Rome would take pride in witholding that blessing from Christians of other denominations. My objection went beyond the nature of the sacraments and directly to the heart of the faith: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me."

That is no small thing, no single incident. It is THE incident.

And because of the Reformation we got a religious civil war that ravaged Europe for more than a century. Don't confuse the pre-Reformation Church with the caricature pained by Protestant propaganda. Luther was a genius but as Richard Marius, a Luther biographer and skeptic, has point out, it would have been better for the peace of Europe if he had been executed for heresy. he served as a tool of German princes and Francis, the king of France, who used his reforms as a tool to defy the Hapsburgs and keep them from consolidating their power in the Holy Roman Empire. The end result was the subordination of the church, in both Protestant parts, to the local ruler, and to leave Europe divided in the face of the Turkish advance into Europe.

Tell me of any group with millions of people that doesn't have some goof balls.

Your point is well taken, and if you read my comments here, you'll see that I believe many of the people we met in the church were sincere believers, whose devotion was to more than just the church; their devotion was to Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the people directly responsible for our catechism, were more devoted to church proceduralism than they were to the gospel. It's a warning any would-be Catholic should at least consider.

NYer is calling you back to THE church, as he puts it. Make sure you find a parish that believes in, and follows, the Bible.

And because of the Reformation we got a religious civil war that ravaged Europe for more than a century.

If that's the price to pay for scripture in the vernacular, it's a bargain.

NYer is calling you back to THE church, as he puts it. Make sure you find a parish that believes in, and follows, the Bible.

By all means, and avoid those denominations that use snakes, have gay priestesses saying mass, make televised pleas for your cash, etc, etc, etc.

One nun saying something about mother earth pales in comparison, don't you think? Your gripe is assinine. There is not a church on earth that doesn't have heretics, or dopes who twist religion against established precepts. Your idignation is a think veil for pre-existing anti-catholicism -- notwithstanding your I-was-just-about-to-do-it bona fides.

One nun saying something about mother earth pales in comparison, don't you think? Your gripe is assinine.

Right. Shut up and do what the Priest tells you to do. That's the drill? That's your version of the faith--even if the priest is telling you bow down and kiss the Beast? No thank you.

You should have reported her to the Bishop, and then fond the next Catholic Church nearest you! Don't let those b*stards keep you from spending eternity with the Trinity.

That's your version of the faith--even if the priest is telling you bow down and kiss the Beast?

Why do you bear false witness about your true experience? You were never considering becoming a Catholic. You use all the right anti-catholic code words. Just say you're against the church's teaching, and drop the I-was-going-to-be-a-Catholic-until... nonsense. I mean, you could have just gone to another parish.

There are morons in all denominations. What denomination are you part of now? If I can find a newspaper article about a nut who shares your denomination, will you seek yet another church? Remind me never to share a fox hole with you. You don't seem up to the fight.

Why do you bear false witness about your true experience? You were never considering becoming a Catholic

I'm beginning to see why some of your religious forebears saw the need to burn their critics alive: you have to lie in the face of an honest narrative about a Catholic horror story. You have no idea what my motives or my intentions were. You weren't there, and yet you accuse me of bearing false witness. Know this: every single word I have written here about one corner of your church is true, and God will call you to repentence for bearing false witness against me.

Viper. Pharisee. Hypocrite.

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