Posted on 08/25/2009 7:20:31 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Sacramento Catholic leaders hope TV commercials will achieve what the diocese has struggled to do for years: bring lapsed Catholics back to the church.
In a series of feel-good commercials promoting the church, diocesan leaders are reaching out to Catholics who may not have attended church in years. It is the first time in recent memory the Sacramento Diocese has launched an advertising campaign.
"There's a large number of people who have left the church and are waiting for an invitation to come back," said Monsignor James Murphy, vicar general of the diocese. "This is their invitation."
The Sacramento Diocese has a Catholic population estimated at more than 950,000, but weekly Mass count is about 136,500.
The $380,000 campaign will specifically target the estimated 800,000 Sacramento-area Catholics who are not attending Mass regularly, according to church officials.
"It does bother me to see so many Catholics filling fundamentalist churches," said Murphy. "I'm glad they're going to church … but we want them back."
At worship services over the next several weeks, church leaders will outline the program and ask parishioners to help pay for the ads.
Nearly 60 percent of the money has been raised, said Mike Halloran, executive director of the Catholic Foundation.
"The money we raise will go to the commercials only," said Halloran. The ads will air in the Sacramento market 1,200 times over the six weeks from Dec. 18 to Jan. 31.
The Sacramento Diocese is one of eight in the U.S. running "Catholics Come Home," which features Catholics talking about why they returned to the church and what it means to them. The campaign, the most recent effort by an organization that has used TV to evangelize since 1998, first ran in the Phoenix Diocese in 2008. An estimated 90,000 Catholics returned to church
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Actually, yes the Catholic Church does. It claims to be the one and only "true" church of Jesus Christ and as such all others who profess their faith in Jesus Christ that are not members of the Catholic Church are not "in unity in the holy spirit."
I was born Catholic, raised Catholic, had my Confirmation and was married in the Catholic Church to my (then) Catholic wife. When I left the Catholic church in 1996 and joined one of those "fundamentalist" churches, members of my own family said I was going to hell for leaving the Catholic Church, my salvation was in "jeopardy" for leaving the "one and only true apostolic Church."
Now, I'm not going to engage in Catholic bashing because I don't believe in doing that. My own choice in leaving the Catholic church was intensely personal and based in a desire to go deeper into a relationship with Jesus. I didn't find that in the Catholic Church.
The problem is getting your average fundamentalist to actually read the Bible, instead of just dismissing "problem passages" as "not applicable to us in the church age" because that's what his minister told him.
As for the crack about getting a fundamentalist Christian (non-Catholic) to read the Bible, the funny thing is I know more non-Catholics who actually pick it up and read it on a DAILY basis than I ever met Catholics who did. Members of my own family who are Catholic seldom if ever pick up a Bible to read it, they only knew what they heard on Sundays.
The reality is every Church whether it's Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Christian, yadda yadda yadda has its members that come to be "fed" every Sunday and then there are those who do their best to live the word.
Touche'
There's no dispute that the Catholic Church has a long history of a firm stance against abortion. This is one area where I applaud how forcefully the Church speaks out.
But it's not the ONLY Church that stands against abortion. That statement doesn't hold water. Any Christian based Church that bases its teachings on Christ is going to be firmly against abortion.
Google Jill Stanek, she and I attend the same Church. You'll see what standing against abortion is all about.
Then how about you stop teaching that the Torah is mythology and the Book of Daniel is a pseudepigraph retrojected from the time of Antiochus?
There is ONE Christian Church, under the lordship of Jesus Christ, established by Him for ALL believers. Now, on this earth, the doors may have different names, and the local bodies may observe different customs. Some are even invisible; there may be a lone worshipper in the middle of the African continent. But, he is part of the ONE church, if he believes and has faith in the saving work of Jesus. Man loves to divide, categorize and boast about his “church”; in reality, he is often boasting about his own particular flavor and preference. The flesh has kept the Church divided since the very beginning (read Paul’s epistles), but, thank God, the Spirit preserves the ones He has called. He will unite us all in Heaven, where no Catholic, no Baptist, no Lutheran, No Methodist and so on will exist. ONLY the Church and the angels worshipping forever GOD will be.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me it is the sacramental life that keeps me renewing my faith.
this describes me... i am interested in seeing these commercials... curious...
while i don't agree with what wmfights said, i know many more fundamentalists who do read the Bible than Catholics who read the Bible... i may go back to the Catholic church some day... it is quite possible... but if i do go back, it will be with far more knowledge that i obtained as a Protestant...
I'm sorry to hear that.
I’m sorry you’re sorry.
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