Catholics Come Home
There are many worrying statistics concerning the Catholic Faith in the USA. One in ten Americans consider themselves ex-Catholics. In fact, if “ex-Catholics” were counted as their own religious group, they would be the third-largest denomination, right after Catholics and Baptists. As many as 100,000 drift away from the Faith each year. These figures should give us serious pause for thought since, as Christians, we are called to evangelize the world, to witness to Jesus Christ and His Church.
Today I’d like to begin a series of posts which are based on a talk I recently gave at my parish. The talk was entitled “Catholics Come Home”.
Over the next two posts, I would like to tell a little bit my own story, of my journey away from and eventual return to the Catholic Church. I’ve told parts of this story before, but in this retelling I hope to focus on some of the things which attracted and repelled me along the way. In subsequent posts, I’ll attempt to pull these experiences together and distill them into a list of suggestions as to what can be done to draw people back to the Church.
On 4th February at Cafe Coyote in Old Town, Dr. Christine Wood gave the following Theology On Tap talk:
Okay, small rant alert…