This program is showing more and more results. We see this blog post from Chicago, I am anxious to see the results of their survey on how effective it has been. As we see in Chicago running the commercials is just part one.
The plan was to air 2,000 television ads in 3 languages over 10 stations in 5 ½ weeks beginning December 16 inviting Catholics to return to the practice of the faith. During the Fall our staff held training sessions for over 320 Parish Contacts, informational meetings for 650 parish receptionists and dozens of presentations at Parish and Deanery meetings throughout the Archdiocese, and we started our website.
Of course Catholics Come Home has an effect on people that were never Catholic in the first place. What is this "Call to Continuing Conversion? I would be interesting to see more details
I saw two interesting articles relating to Catholic converts and those returning to the Church in two places thousands of miles apart.
They show both some exciting news and also show the depressing aspect that in some Dioceses there is a lot of work to be done.
In the Diocese of Nashville the main newspaper there had a very good article on the Diocese and the converts coming into the Church this year.
She is one of about 400 converts in the Diocese of Nashville who will join the church on Easter, a remarkable number for a relatively small diocese of 75,000. That's one convert for every 187 Catholics.
By contrast, Louisville, Ky., which has 200,000 Catholics, has 504 converts joining on Easter, or one for every 396 Catholics. Atlanta, which has around 800,000 Catholics, has 2,062 converts for the year, or about one for every 387 Catholics.
In New York, which has 2.4 million Catholics, the ratio is one convert to every 1,500 Catholics.
In Nashville, church officials attribute the high ratio of converts to a number of factors. Some have rediscovered their Catholic heritage, while still others say they've finally found a spiritual home in the church.
A significant factor is the relatively small number of Catholics in the city. More and more marry outside the faith, creating a ripe crop of converts among spouses.
About half the marriages in the diocese involve a Catholic and a non-Catholic.
The marriage factor no doubt is coming play and I would love if we could see some real stats on converts that are not married to Catholics.
From the Diocese of Tuscon in the Yuma Paper we read
For the first time, the Catholic Church has held a ceremony in Yuma accepting unbaptized converts and baptized members who are reconnecting with the church.
More than 90 people took part in the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion at the Immaculate Conception Parish.
Monsignor Richard O'Keeffe said the ceremony was held in Yuma for the first time because of the unusually high number of participants and the distance to the cathedral in Tucson where it is normally held.
Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, in a March 8 memo, also noted that the "liturgies this Lent were the first not held in the Cathedral since the institution of the modern Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion in the 1970s, because the Cathedral is undergoing a major renovation.
"Yuma is part of the Diocese of Tucson, which Kicanas oversees.Kicanas presided at the March 5 ceremony in Yuma, with representation from five parishes: the Sacred Heart in Parker, St. Jude Thaddeus in San Luis and, in Yuma, Immaculate Conception, St. Francis of Assisi and St. John Neumann.
O'Keeffe explained that the parishioners are continuing the process called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults begun a year ago. The adult converts, called catechumens, and those baptized as children but who are reconnecting with the church as adults, called candidates, studied for a year, learning about church beliefs and how they affect their lives.
Well this is interesting it appears to be the cork of five pages. What is this ? I know that Catholics Come Home is active in the Diocese of Phoenix is it here or is another program?
There seems to be these success stories one can find in a secular newspaper or in a Diocese newspaper here and there. It would be great to see the larger picture.
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