February 20, 2010
‘Catholics Come Home’ sees some success in drawing people back to church
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
A banner for “Catholics Come Home” is displayed prominently at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Carmichael. Some returning Catholics who liked the TV ads have said that welcoming banners at churches in the diocese prompted them to attend Mass at that church. Luis Gris/Herald photo
A preliminary survey conducted by the Diocese of Sacramento indicates that some non-practicing Catholics are returning to the church as a result of the recent “Catholics Come Home” advertising campaign to draw lapsed Catholics back to church.
The six-week, $400,000 ad campaign aired in December and January with thousands of TV commercials in English and Spanish in the Sacramento and Chico-Redding media markets to welcome Catholics back to the practice of their faith. Interested people could also contact the diocese and parishes with questions via an interactive Web site at www.welcomehomenorcal.com.
Diocesan officials in late January conducted an online survey of parish staff members and Catholics Come Home parish leaders to find out the initial results of the ad campaign.
One pastor responding to the survey noted that “It’s way, way too early” to look for results, a response echoed by some other pastors. “Give this process time to mature and bear fruit,” the pastor said.
And in fact, a more comprehensive survey is planned after Easter, according to Carson Weber, associate director for new media evangelization for the diocese and the point man on the Catholics Come Home campaign.
The preliminary survey includes responses from more than 125 clergy, parish staff members and Catholics Come Home leaders from 57 parishes. It shows that Mass attendance has increased an average of 11 percent in more than half of the 57 parishes. That number is based on Mass attendance at the end of January 2010 compared with the annual Mass attendance count taken in November 2009.
The number of non-parishioners calling for pastoral attention has also increased, as Catholics thinking about returning contact parishes, according to pastors and parish religious education coordinators surveyed.
In contrast to the process of becoming Catholic which is accomplished through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a formal and documented process visible to the entire congregation, the process of returning to the practice of the faith can be as private as receiving the sacrament of reconciliation and then receiving the Eucharist at Mass. Several parishes have established or are establishing classes for returning Catholics, Weber told The Herald, but most returning Catholics just quietly return to the pews.
Pastors in the survey reported an increase in the numbers of people coming to the sacrament of reconciliation who haven’t been to confession in decades, Weber noted. But, he added, that action is part of an individual’s private faith journey, not discernable to the general population. So Mass attendance and anecdotal testimony from parish faith leaders become the primary means of measuring the influx of returning Catholics, according to Weber.
The parishes reporting increased Mass attendance and anecdotal evidence of returning Catholics tend to be parishes that made a point of reaching out to inactive Catholics and the non-parish community with banners and personal invitations, Weber noted.
The ad campaign was only the opening of the door, he said. The most important part of the campaign was the personal welcome, either through an invitation from a practicing Catholic or through the parish’s warm welcome to all newcomers.
The parishes reporting the largest increase in Mass attendance from November to the end of January are St. Joseph Marello Parish in Granite Bay, reporting a 26 percent increase, and Sacred Heart Parish in Anderson, reporting an increase of 38 percent.
Oblate of St. Joseph Father Arnold Ortiz, pastor of St. Joseph Marello Parish, told the Herald that the increase in attendance at his parish is even more remarkable because his parish is almost entirely invisible.
“We can’t hang banners from our church because we haven’t got a church,” Father Ortiz explained. The congregation of the parish, founded in 2004, meets for weekend Masses in the gym at Cavitt Junior High School in Granite Bay. They can’t hang banners from the public school building any more than they can hang banners at their parish office, located in a business park about five miles away from the school gym, he said.
When asked how returning Catholics can even find his parish, Father Ortiz laughed. “We invite people,” he said.
It helps that the parish office is across the street from Bayside Church, a large non-denominational Christian church whose congregation includes many self-identified Catholics, Father Ortiz noted.
“I know for a fact that 50 percent or more who attend that church registered as Catholics,” he noted. “I think they are looking for us, and I think the ads are making them look.”
At Sacred Heart Parish in Anderson, Trish Viola, coordinator of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, told The Herald several non-Catholics told her they’d found the TV ads “very compelling,” especially the ad portraying people reviewing the actions of their lives.
Father Mathew Marankulam, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, surmises that the 38 percent increase in Mass attendance at his community results from the congregation’s welcoming reception to people who have been moved by the ads to seek a Catholic church.
“We’re always very welcoming,” Father Marankulam said, adding that five or six new people have joined the parish’s Bible study group and 10 people have signed up for a Catholics Returning Home group. But the rest just show up in the confessional and in the pews, he said.
Deacon Mike Evans of Sacred Heart ascribes the dramatic increase in Mass attendance to “the power of positive preaching,” both from the pulpit and by example.
“Father Mathew is very encouraging,” Deacon Evans said. “He tells them that confession is not going to be a big odious thing. He welcomes them to pick up where they left off.”
“The purpose is to help people find their way back to the sacraments, so we want to be as helpful as possible,” he added.
Deacon Evans noted that his parish’s involvement with the Anderson-Cottonwood Christian Assistance food bank has probably also affected the return of lapsed Catholics to the parish. The food bank is an ecumenical effort of several area churches to feed the hungry.
People see Sacred Heart parishioners working with other churches to help people, he noted. “We’re pretty visible in the community.”
