How to welcome back inactive Catholics

Programs, books, website offer support to those who want to bring inactive parishioners back

Published: February 26, 2011

They might be called inactive, fallen-away or returning. Ex-Catholics or former Catholics. Some call them "episodic Catholics" because they really haven't left the Church; they just have drifted away for some reason.

However they are called, there are millions of Catholics who don't attend Mass on a regular basis. Nationally 32 percent of Catholics rarely or never attend Mass, while 24 percent attend a few times a year and 21 percent at least once a month.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, "Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes. While nearly one in three Americans (31 percent) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one in four (24 percent) describe themselves as Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration."

Many parishes are finding evangelization programs are needed to bring these Catholics back home.

The following are some of the programs, books and websites that are devoted to welcoming back inactive Catholics.

National Programs

Catholics Come Home: Catholics Come Home is a multimedia television and internet evangelization campaign that is conducted across a diocese. It is usually held during Advent or Lent.?www.catholicscomehome.org

Catholics Reaching Out, Paulist Evangelization Ministries: Catholics Reaching Out: Inviting Inactive Catholics to Return to the Church is a resource that enables parishioners to participate in the evangelizing outreach without feeling afraid or uncomfortable. http://www.pncea.org/programs/reach ingout.aspx

Catholics Returning Home: It is an RCIA-like process for reaching out and inviting inactive Catholics to return "home" to the Church and resume an active practice of their faith. It is conducted in a support-group format. http://www.catholics returninghome.org

Landings, Paulist Press: It is an eight-week re-entry program, specifically designed to welcome those who wish to investigate returning. http://www.paulist.org/landings

Books

The We Miss You program is an outreach program to inactive Catholics developed by the Omaha Archdiocesan Commission on Evangelization. It combines the faith journey of the RCIA process with a modern media campaign of invitation. It is documented in a book called "We Miss You: An Outreach Program for Inactive Catholics" by Gary Petri, Nancy Koley and Sister Marian Klostermann, OSF.

"When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics," by Anna LaNave and Melanie Rigney, was published in 2009 by Twenty-Third Publications as a guide for parishes on how to reach out to inactive Catholics.

Website

Once Catholic: The Franciscan program, at St. Anthony Messenger, seeks to help people reconnect with a local Catholic faith community. http://WWW.OnceCatholic.org offers information, opportunities for interaction with others, personal responses and referral to "Come Home" programs within the Catholic Church in the U.S. Eight chat rooms offer a cyber but personal connection with a "companion," a pastoral minister in the Church.

Return to "Lost Catholics welcomed back to parish, faith"