Posted on 09/06/2009 3:50:15 PM PDT by NYer
And in a big way. A lot of you have seen the great ads produced by a group called Catholics Come Home. The ads, evidently, are working. And spreading.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento is home to nearly 1 million Catholics. On a typical Sunday, less than 137,000 can be found in church.Curious to see what all the fuss is about? Check out the videos below. And you can find more at the Catholics Come Home link.
Now, using a strategy straight from the secular playbook, its leaders hope to lure back those who have drifted.
The diocese and nearly a dozen others across the country are preparing to air several thousand prime-time TV commercials in English and Spanish, inviting inactive Catholics to return to their religious roots.
In addition to Sacramento, dioceses in Chicago, Omaha, Providence, R.I., and four other cities will launch the “Catholics Come Home” advertising blitz during Advent, the period before Christmas.
Four more dioceses will follow during Lent next spring. Los Angeles is not among the initial group but could be part of a nationwide campaign slated for December 2010.
"I'm hoping that a significant number of people will give us another look," Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto said of the campaign. "Many Catholics have a sense of believing but not always a sense of belonging."
The potential audience is huge.
Only about one-quarter of U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass every week, and a majority go to religious services a few times a year or less, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, which conducts social science research about the Catholic church.
Researchers there also found that two-thirds of Catholics believe they can be good members of their faith without attending Mass regularly.
Inactive Catholics cite a number of reasons for their absence. Many do not believe that missing Mass is a sin, the center reported. Others say they are too busy with family or work, or, as other analysts point out, are more interested in material happiness than spiritual fulfillment.
"There is a strange pattern of people who aren't practicing but still have beliefs and pick up parts of the faith," said Mark Gray, a research associate with the center. "They may give up meat on Fridays during Lent or attend Ash Wednesday services."
And where do you attend church now?
***So how does one avoid this “bibliolatry?” ***
By the interpretation of the institution that put the NT together in the first place; the only institution that Jesus created and the only one authorized to teach.
At any rate, as you can see from some of the other posts, Catholics seem to have the same problem with the Bible that Protestants do with Mary. Donal Anthony Foley is the first and only Catholic I know of who has come out and admitted it.
***So how does one avoid this “bibliolatry?” ***
By the interpretation of the institution that put the NT together in the first place; the only institution that Jesus created and the only one authorized to teach.
Please read my exchange of posts with Alex Murphy to see what I meant.
You Catholics have distrusted the Bible since the Reformation. That's why you are so in love with liberal nineteenth century Protestant criticism and with evolution.
***Touched a nerve, I see!***
Has it made your day?
***What do you care what an illegitimate Christian who follows a man of evil says? What is your concern?***
Unlike the swill of the Daily KOS or the vomit of DU, FR is supposed to hold itself to higher standards and posters are normally required to speak the truth.
***Your posts do not support your claims.***
They normally do. I’ll have to step it up.
***You refuse to use the Bible as the final Word of God in determining what is right and wrong. ***
A Presyterian and a Jehovah’s Witness debating will both use Scripture and will both be wrong. If they cannot, and the Bible tells us that any man cannot, then the only authority left is the Church.
***Tell me that the highlighted parts are not condemnation. Please. It’s also interesting that the burning torment to which the ex-communicated person is judged and condemned (yes, those are the correct words) continues not until Jesus is satisfied, but the church is satisfied.***
The part that you are still missing is that it is the intent of the Church to convince the individual that he is wrong. Notice that the intent is to save his soul. The judgement of the Church is to whether or not the individual is in communion with God, not his everlasting soul. The reason that the Church calls upon itself to be satisfied is that the Church is the authority on earth, authorized by Jesus.
***Jesus claimed the sole right to judgment; apparently, the Catholic Church has taken over that role, and now I - as a follower of the heretic Luther, who has read his writings without the approval of the Pope - am to be punished until the Church - not Jesus - is satisfied.***
Eyes to see and ears to hear. Nowhere does it say that the Church condemns; it only says that those individuals that it thinks have excommunicated themselves are deprived of the Body and Blood of Christ (remember St. Paul stating that those who take Communion unworthily eat and drink destruction into themselves?)until they repent and come back to God.
***Those are the words you posted. Do you deny them? Do you deny they state judgment and condemnation? Do you want to stick with your story that the church does not judge or condemn?***
It is the opinion of the Church that those who are determined to go to hell should not take Communion. Therefore, as long as they are determined and nobody can convince them, then the Church will recognize their decision.
Love it!
I think the problem that I see in many of the “I have left the Catholic Church” posts is the ability to forgive and laziness. They abandon the church for its human frailty and in its illness, to follow their own whims.
They blame “The Church” when the Church is explict in its teachings. They blame everyone but themselves, where were they when their church needed their faithfulness? Where were they the first time a new priest did something stupid, taught something heretical? They need to stay and take care of the patient!
There are many ways to dissent against bad priests and bad doctrine but leaving the faith that Jesus established is not one of them.
It may to you but it doesn't to anyone else...The Iwo Jima statue is a memorial...Of something long past...Those guys are NOT still hoisting the flag on the hill...
It doesn't to me. I was using your logic, such as it is.
The Iwo Jima statue is a memorial...Of something long past...
The Crucifix is a memorial...of something long past.
Those guys are NOT still hoisting the flag on the hill...
Christ is NOT still hanging on the Cross.
***Please read my exchange of posts with Alex Murphy to see what I meant.***
Thank you for the post.
***You Catholics have distrusted the Bible since the Reformation.***
Distrust is not the correct term. Interpretation and the accuracy of that interpretation is.
***That’s why you are so in love with liberal nineteenth century Protestant criticism and with evolution.***
Evolution is a scientifically proven fact - it has been done with haploid plants in the laboratory and has been repeated. Liberal Protestant criticism? In what manner do you mean?
Evolution is the method God used to create life.
Evolutionary theory that denies God is atheist, but recognizing that the science need not deny God is not distrustful of Scripture in any way.
Correct. One of the great things about the Roman Catholic Church is that it doesn’t call for its members to throw their brains completely out the window.
Oooh, what a grammatical train wreck. Let's see:
When evolutionary theory insists on denying God, it is necessarily atheist...
That's much more clear, I hope.
Where Peter is, there is the Church.
Ambrose of Milan - AD389
That was before the split. It still applies.
***Evolution is the method God used to create life.
Evolutionary theory that denies God is atheist, but recognizing that the science need not deny God is not distrustful of Scripture in any way.***
Very well put. Science is supposed to be the discovery of now the universe works. Period. That does not preclude evolution, nor super string theory, for instance.
Those who believe that the earth is as it is now was at the beginning of Creation are the equivalent of the Sierra Club who want to freeze the landscape as they imagine it was 200 years ago. Let the Luddites leave us alone.
It is also a scientifically proven fact that human beings cannot be born without fertilization of the mother by a male, that people can't walk on water, that bread and wine don't change into flesh and blood, that dead people stay dead, that five loaves and two fishes can't be magically multiplied to feed thousands of people, that the sun doesn't "dance" in the sky . . . need I go on? No, your evolutionism is based on an allergy towards "those people" who live in trailers and have names like Billy Bob.
- it has been done with haploid plants in the laboratory and has been repeated.
So you're saying that the fact that people got plants to evolve in a lab is scientific proof that everything in the universe evolved without any Divine "interference?"
Liberal Protestant criticism? In what manner do you mean?
Oh, you know . . . JEPD, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are didactic mythology drawn from ancient Mesopotamian and Canaanite mythology, and your beloved Darwinism.
This is why the Catholic Church is collapsing in on itself. This is why you have Obama at Notre Dame and a secular canonization of Ted Kennedy. It all goes back to a rejection of G-d's veracity based on an intellectual pridefulness that "we aren't like those awful people who live in Arkansas."
You people deserve the J*sus Seminar and that guy who pierced a consecrated host with a nail. You're hypocrites and you brought it on yourselves. And who would want to join or rejoin such a church?
***Where Peter is, there is the Church.
Ambrose of Milan - AD389***
Wait a minute; anyone who quotes anyone who supports the Church needs to be whipped into a Protestant frenzy and beaten with tongues.
I'm still waiting for an answer.
??? Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else. When did I ever say that? What I have said, though, is the Bible states that there are "oral" teachings and traditions that are to be carried on to the present-day (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Timothy 2:2; Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:24-25). I have also said that the Bible doesn't state anywhere that it is to be taken literally word for word. The Bible was written by different authors with different literary styles at different times in history and in different languages. Therefore, the writings should be interpreted with these circumstances in mind. The Bible is a religious book, not a scientific or a history "textbook."
***Evolution is a scientifically proven fact
It is also a scientifically proven fact that human beings cannot be born without fertilization of the mother by a male,***
Give it another five years and you’ll be wrong.
***that people can’t walk on water***
Well, Jesus was fully God and fully human; Peter was fully human and did so for a short distance.
***that bread and wine don’t change into flesh and blood,***
They did for Jesus.
***that five loaves and two fishes can’t be magically multiplied to feed thousands of people***
Nothing is impossible for God. Where did the manna come from? The local kosher store?
***No, your evolutionism is based on an allergy towards “those people” who live in trailers and have names like Billy Bob.***
Please don’t take this wrong if I ask you just what in the world you are talking about. What does an allergy to Billy Bob (or anyone else of any name) have to do with physical reality, whatever you mean by it?
***- it has been done with haploid plants in the laboratory and has been repeated.
So you’re saying that the fact that people got plants to evolve in a lab is scientific proof that everything in the universe evolved without any Divine “interference?”***
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin. Evolution is the idea that life forms can spring from different life forms. Period. That has been proven with haploid plants. It most certainly does not address anything about God or Creation. Get a grip.
***Liberal Protestant criticism? In what manner do you mean?
Oh, you know . . . JEPD, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are didactic mythology drawn from ancient Mesopotamian and Canaanite mythology, and your beloved Darwinism.***
What is JEPD? I don’t have a beloved Darwinism. I never claimed Mesopotamian or Canaanite mythology had any influence. Where are you getting this from?
***You people deserve the J*sus Seminar and that guy who pierced a consecrated host with a nail.***
I think somebody needs a hug.
***You’re hypocrites and you brought it on yourselves. And who would want to join or rejoin such a church?***
I think that somebody is feeling a little twinge of guilt and is speaking loudly to cover up that little voice inside...
Then it's impossible for you to re present the actual sacrifice that He made...I'm glad you finally cleared that up...
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