Posted on 08/26/2009 9:31:17 AM PDT by NYer
.- Hoping to encourage at least 100,000 non-practicing Catholics to return to church, the Diocese of Sacramento is preparing a “come home” advertising campaign for this December and January.
At Mass over the next several weeks, church leaders will outline the program and ask parishioners to help pay for the ads. The ads are produced by the Catholics Come Home project.
"There's a large number of people who have left the church and are waiting for an invitation to come back," Msgr. James Murphy, vicar general of the diocese, told the Sacramento Bee. "This is their invitation."
The diocese has an estimated population of 950,000 Catholics, but only about 136,500 attend weekly Mass.
Msgr. Murphy said he was bothered to see so many Catholics filling fundamentalist churches.
“I'm glad they're going to church … but we want them back,” he said.
According to the monsignor, parishes throughout the diocese are preparing to address questions and concerns by returning Catholics.
Mike Halloran, executive director of the Catholic Foundation, told the Sacramento Bee that nearly 60 percent of the money for the $380,000 campaign had been raised. The money will go to the commercials only.
The ads will run in the Sacramento market 1,200 times over the six weeks from December 18 to January 31. Officials hope they will encourage 100,000 Catholics to return to church.
Eight other dioceses are running “Catholics Come Home” ads. They feature Catholics talking about why they returned to the Church and what it means to them.
In a 2008 interview with CNA, Catholics Come Home, Inc. founder and president Tom Peterson explained that the ads are designed to take people to the website, CatholicsComeHome.org. There they can find answers to questions about Church teachings and also can learn how to contact their local parish to be led home to the Catholic Church.
“The website provides answers to questions about Church teachings, and why strong faith is important in today’s busy and confusing world. The site also offers an overview of the faith, with additional resources and a local parish finder,” Peterson told CNA.
Catholics Come Home, Inc. was recently awarded the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management's 2009 Best Practices Award. Receiving the award, Peterson said his group was “blessed by God’s grace” and thankful to be recognized for its work.
He reported that the organization has now helped bring over 100,000 Catholics and converts back to the Church.
The “Catholics Come Home” ads first ran in the Diocese of Phoenix in 2008. During the campaign an estimated 90,000 Catholics returned to churchgoing. Ryan Hanning of the Diocese of Phoenix told the Sacramento Bee the diocese witnessed a 12 percent increase, the largest single year increase in the diocese’s history.
Hanning said that surveys of returning Catholics showed that most had left the Church because they had gotten too busy with daily life. A much smaller percentage cited church teachings on marriage and homosexuality as reasons for their absence.
Though Catholics make up an estimated 23 percent of the U.S. population, only 33 percent of them attend Mass on a weekly basis.
Looking forward to seeing the results!
“Come home” to what?
A church where an unrepentant murderer, adulterer, and drunkard who supports state-funded infanticide is allowed to receive “Holy Communion” and a “Catholic” burial?
No thanks.
They talk about lapsed Catholics but in my view the church lapsed against us in about 1963. And we were warned at Fatima that would happen. Fortunately, the thread of legitimacy is still intact and we can find traditional or eastern rites that have stayed true.
What’s the church’s current position on purgatory. Are they still clinging to that?
I’m in an ELCA church, and I’m evaluating my options.
I can’t teach my kids about a purgatory that is supported NOWHERE in scripture. I already have that problem in reverse in the ELCA, where they are rewritting the Bible to turn sins into lifestyle decisions.
I've never known a church that didn't contain sinners, or a good priest or minister who didn't labor to reclaim them.
And there are always a few backbiters who were at the vineyard early, and gripe that the master paid them the same wages as the guy who showed up at the eleventh hour.
Kennedy had fair warning of his impending end. Hopefully he made a good confession, repented of his sins, and received absolution. But that's between him and God.
He did a lot of harm, but so do we all, and as C.S. Lewis said, one man may be placed so that his anger kills millions, and another so that his anger only makes people in the office laugh at him . . . but the sin is the same.
Methinks the Church is finally waking up to the importance of outreach and (re)evangelization. Would it be too bold to thank Mother Angelica for putting the wheels in motion while the Bishops dawdled?
I would add that I noticed that Kennedy did NOT present himself for communion to the Pope, even though Pelosi did.
I hope he made a good confession and received absolution.
2. Sacred tradition and the early Church Fathers confirm the existence of Purgatory. St. Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria. Sacred tradition is present in all churches, Catholics just acknowledge it and conserve it.
3. Purgatory makes sense, if you are very clear on its actual meaning -- it is not forgiveness of sins committed in life, but a "purgation" or cleansing from the temporal stain/consequences of sin. C.S. Lewis said it very nicely:
Our souls demand Purgatory, don't they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, 'It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy'? Should we not reply, 'With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleaned first.' 'It may hurt, you know' - 'Even so, sir.'
I'm a refugee from the Episcopalians, who went stark staring mad before ELCA did. We prayed fervently and did a lot of reading before we made the decision to cross the Tiber. We have never regretted it - we have a wonderful, orthodox, faithful parish where there is No Compromise on God's Word.
Did he know at that time that he was fatally ill?
What you say is completely true, and I agree 100%.
Hope the Senator did find peace.
However, I highly doubt that he would ever consider voting for the murder of babies a sin.
Only God knows for certain, though.
It's quite true that the Church (like every other institution inhabited by real flawed human beings) tends to give too much deference and the benefit of the doubt to the rich and powerful. But that seems to be changing - the Notre Dame controversy certainly brought it into the sunlight.
Even Martin Luther said that purgatory was an "uncertainty".
Jews, Catholics, and Orthodox all believe in prayer for the dead. That makes sense only if there is some intermediate state or condition where the dead can be helped by our prayers. Prayer for the dead is directly supported in 2 Maccabees 12:38-46. (The Book of Maccabees was ruled to be canonical scripture 1,000 years before Luther was born.)
It seems to me that you're thinking of it more as a place than a state of being. Purgatory is when/where God finishes the job of actually REMOVING all our tendencies towards sin. How hard we try to overcome our sinful tendencies here affects whether He just buffs up our souls with a nice soft flannel or whether He gets out the wire brush. But no imperfect thing enters Heaven, so those tendencies WILL be removed.
I don't understand how a person could make a sincere and comprehensive confession in a situation like this unless they also made a public statement repudiating their previous position. We don't know the situation between Ted and God, but if it were me I would have mumbled in my last moments: "Tell them (the public) that abortion is murder and is WRONG", in the hopes of preventing a few future killings. Since there seems to be no public statement, I have to assume Ted didn't confess, didn't repudiate his position as a leading spokesman of the Culture of Death, or possibly did privately but had too much pride to announce it publicly.
I really got my hopes up that he would repent publicly when he spoke at the convention last year.
We’re justified by faith, not works. Biblically, this is pretty standard an understanding of Salvation at this point.
While I believe that we are accountable for our sins, and that we will be called to account for them, I also believe the full price of that sin has been paid by the Blood of the Lamb.
I’ve not been able to find any scriptural basis for anything resembling a rehabilitation of the soul prior to our salvation.
Additionally, I also believe that our actions here determine our place in Heaven, in that you can achieve one of the four crowns, or the references Christ made in the Sermon on the Mount, to the Heavenly regard that is made toward the meek, toward peacemakers, etc.
Moreover, it appears that we will retain free will somehow. How that relates to our ‘tendencies’ after we die is likely speculation.
While I believe that we are accountable for our sins, and that we will be called to account for them
That "accounting" is pretty much what purgatory is.
And where, exactly, in the scriptures can I read about that?
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