©2015 Victor R. Claveau, MJ
By some incongruity, the average devout layperson, rarely attempts to aid a person groping in spiritual darkness to come into the light of the Catholic Church. He does not even seem to be aware of his responsibility or his accountability before Christ to spread the good news to those less fortunate. He considers it the work of the priest or religious, not the business of the average layperson. The result is that ordinarily they not only avoid introducing the subject of religion to a friend, coworker, or acquaintance, who might be interested in learning some point of Catholic doctrine, but rather give unthinking, inadequate answers to questions, or simply pass the buck by telling the inquirer to “speak to a priest.”
Not only does the Catechism of the Catholic Church tell us that evangelization is necessary for salvation (§1816), but also St. James tells us that “If any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (Ja. 5:19-20).
Catholic apathy is in sharp contrast to the zeal and concern of church-going Protestants to entice new members into their denomination or religious group. They demonstrate praiseworthy activity in endeavoring newcomers in the community to work for their church, and in bringing in new members. Certainly, many of these new members will drift away in search of a different denomination, group, or even a particular pastor who teaches and preaches what they want to hear. This fact is directly traceable to the lack of any unity of doctrine, separation from the true Church, and the subsequent absence of avenues of sacramental grace, but not to a lack of missionary zeal on the part of their laity.
The cause of Catholic apathy toward evangelization can be traced, in part, to the lack of any systematic effort on our part to enlist their help in any organized manner. There was a time when the entire Christian world was Catholic. There was an abundance of priests and religious to perform all the ministrations of religion. With the tearing apart of Christendom, by the religious revolt of Martin Luther and others like him, in the sixteenth century and the separation of hundreds of millions which continues to this day, there is a desperate need for the enlistment of every Catholic, if the wounds of Christendom are to be healed and all Christians are brought home to their spiritual mother, and the fruits of the redemption are to be made available to the souls of all.
In 1940, there were 44,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today (2014 statistics) there are 8.2 million, with over 1.1 million in the U.S. The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches statistics listed the Jehovah’s Witnesses as the fastest growing Christian group in the United States for four years in a row (the 2008-2011 Yearbooks), with an annual growth of nearly 2.2%. JWs volunteered 230 million hours of preaching in U.S. and 1.94 Billion hours worldwide in 2013.
Worldwide, there are over 15 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, as they are commonly known. They reported a growth of nearly 300,000 converts in 2013. In the United States, the LDS Church is the fourth largest individual denomination with approximately 6.4 million members. The growth of the LDS Church is exponentially rapid and among the fastest of any denomination on the planet. In the last 50 years, membership has increased ten-fold. For the last 15 years, an average of 800 people have joined the LDS Church daily. Obviously, this extraordinary growth rate is the result of the efforts of between 50,000 and 60,000 volunteer missionaries serving their church by evangelization. Approximately 75 percent of the church’s proselytizing missionaries are young men between the ages of 19 and 26. Where is our Catholic youth?
Conversely, the Catholic Church in the United States, with more than 68.1 million members averages only 340 new members per day.[1] Imagine, what could be accomplished if the Catholic Church in the United States had 50,000 to 60,000 evangelizers serving at any one time? If Catholics possessed a zeal equal to the Mormons, we could change the religious statistical face of the country and of the world. The Catholic Church is the necessary vehicle for social and spiritual reform. Through religious conversion, people will join a larger community bonded together by faith in God. With proper and dynamic leadership, we will be able to harness this spiritual army to the task of bringing Christ and his saving truths to the churchless people of our land, we shall have taken the most important single step in the winning of America for Christ. Evangelization is the best and maybe the last hope for America.
Enlisting the Laity
The enlistment of our laity in the spiritual conquest of America is one of the most imperative needs in our Church today. With more than 68 million Catholics in America, and assuming that half are adults, imagine for a moment that each of these 38 million would bring one person to the Church in the course of a year; the conversion of the nation would take place in less than four years. If only one million Catholics organized into an active evangelization apostolate, and each winning a single soul per year, and repeating the process annually, together with their recruits, the conversion of America would take place within eight years.
The reaching out to vast multitudes of non-Catholics, with the truths of the faith through the voice of a lay apostle could probably find no counterpart unless we hearken back to the days of the early Church.
[1] Matthew E. Bunson, Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Almanac, 2013 Edition, Adult baptisms and new receptions.
Looking to the Laity
©2015 Victor R. Claveau, MJ
By some incongruity, the average devout layperson, rarely attempts to aid a person groping in spiritual darkness to come into the light of the Catholic Church. He does not even seem to be aware of his responsibility or his accountability before Christ to spread the good news to those less fortunate. He considers it the work of the priest or religious, not the business of the average layperson. The result is that ordinarily they not only avoid introducing the subject of religion to a friend, coworker, or acquaintance, who might be interested in learning some point of Catholic doctrine, but rather give unthinking, inadequate answers to questions, or simply pass the buck by telling the inquirer to “speak to a priest.”
Not only does the Catechism of the Catholic Church tell us that evangelization is necessary for salvation (§1816), but also St. James tells us that “If any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (Ja. 5:19-20).
Catholic apathy is in sharp contrast to the zeal and concern of church-going Protestants to entice new members into their denomination or religious group. They demonstrate praiseworthy activity in endeavoring newcomers in the community to work for their church, and in bringing in new members. Certainly, many of these new members will drift away in search of a different denomination, group, or even a particular pastor who teaches and preaches what they want to hear. This fact is directly traceable to the lack of any unity of doctrine, separation from the true Church, and the subsequent absence of avenues of sacramental grace, but not to a lack of missionary zeal on the part of their laity.
The cause of Catholic apathy toward evangelization can be traced, in part, to the lack of any systematic effort on our part to enlist their help in any organized manner. There was a time when the entire Christian world was Catholic. There was an abundance of priests and religious to perform all the ministrations of religion. With the tearing apart of Christendom, by the religious revolt of Martin Luther and others like him, in the sixteenth century and the separation of hundreds of millions which continues to this day, there is a desperate need for the enlistment of every Catholic, if the wounds of Christendom are to be healed and all Christians are brought home to their spiritual mother, and the fruits of the redemption are to be made available to the souls of all.
In 1940, there were 44,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today (2014 statistics) there are 8.2 million, with over 1.1 million in the U.S. The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches statistics listed the Jehovah’s Witnesses as the fastest growing Christian group in the United States for four years in a row (the 2008-2011 Yearbooks), with an annual growth of nearly 2.2%. JWs volunteered 230 million hours of preaching in U.S. and 1.94 Billion hours worldwide in 2013.
Worldwide, there are over 15 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, as they are commonly known. They reported a growth of nearly 300,000 converts in 2013. In the United States, the LDS Church is the fourth largest individual denomination with approximately 6.4 million members. The growth of the LDS Church is exponentially rapid and among the fastest of any denomination on the planet. In the last 50 years, membership has increased ten-fold. For the last 15 years, an average of 800 people have joined the LDS Church daily. Obviously, this extraordinary growth rate is the result of the efforts of between 50,000 and 60,000 volunteer missionaries serving their church by evangelization. Approximately 75 percent of the church’s proselytizing missionaries are young men between the ages of 19 and 26. Where is our Catholic youth?
Conversely, the Catholic Church in the United States, with more than 68.1 million members averages only 340 new members per day.[1] Imagine, what could be accomplished if the Catholic Church in the United States had 50,000 to 60,000 evangelizers serving at any one time? If Catholics possessed a zeal equal to the Mormons, we could change the religious statistical face of the country and of the world. The Catholic Church is the necessary vehicle for social and spiritual reform. Through religious conversion, people will join a larger community bonded together by faith in God. With proper and dynamic leadership, we will be able to harness this spiritual army to the task of bringing Christ and his saving truths to the churchless people of our land, we shall have taken the most important single step in the winning of America for Christ. Evangelization is the best and maybe the last hope for America.
Enlisting the Laity
The enlistment of our laity in the spiritual conquest of America is one of the most imperative needs in our Church today. With more than 68 million Catholics in America, and assuming that half are adults, imagine for a moment that each of these 38 million would bring one person to the Church in the course of a year; the conversion of the nation would take place in less than four years. If only one million Catholics organized into an active evangelization apostolate, and each winning a single soul per year, and repeating the process annually, together with their recruits, the conversion of America would take place within eight years.
The reaching out to vast multitudes of non-Catholics, with the truths of the faith through the voice of a lay apostle could probably find no counterpart unless we hearken back to the days of the early Church.
[1] Matthew E. Bunson, Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Almanac, 2013 Edition, Adult baptisms and new receptions.
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The United States has 3,144 counties and county-equivalent jurisdictions, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Today, more than 180 U.S. counties lack a resident Catholic priest. Go to: https://glenmary.org/ You can help by donating: https://glenmary.org/donate-to-catholic-missions…/
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