TV ad pitch targets Sacramento's lapsed Catholics

The Sacramento Bee ^ | August 25, 2009 | Jennifer Garza

[Alex Murphy]

Sacramento Catholic leaders hope TV commercials will achieve what the diocese has struggled to do for years: bring lapsed Catholics back to the church.

In a series of feel-good commercials promoting the church, diocesan leaders are reaching out to Catholics who may not have attended church in years. It is the first time in recent memory the Sacramento Diocese has launched an advertising campaign.

"There's a large number of people who have left the church and are waiting for an invitation to come back," said Monsignor James Murphy, vicar general of the diocese. "This is their invitation."

The Sacramento Diocese has a Catholic population estimated at more than 950,000, but weekly Mass count is about 136,500.

The $380,000 campaign will specifically target the estimated 800,000 Sacramento-area Catholics who are not attending Mass regularly, according to church officials.

"It does bother me to see so many Catholics filling fundamentalist churches," said Murphy. "I'm glad they're going to church … but we want them back."

At worship services over the next several weeks, church leaders will outline the program and ask parishioners to help pay for the ads.

Nearly 60 percent of the money has been raised, said Mike Halloran, executive director of the Catholic Foundation.

"The money we raise will go to the commercials only," said Halloran. The ads will air in the Sacramento market 1,200 times over the six weeks from Dec. 18 to Jan. 31.

The Sacramento Diocese is one of eight in the U.S. running "Catholics Come Home," which features Catholics talking about why they returned to the church and what it means to them. The campaign, the most recent effort by an organization that has used TV to evangelize since 1998, first ran in the Phoenix Diocese in 2008. An estimated 90,000 Catholics returned to church

[Alex Murphy]

"It does bother me to see so many Catholics filling fundamentalist churches," said Murphy. "I'm glad they're going to church … but we want them back"....

....Catholics account for nearly 23 percent (64.8 million) of the U.S. population, the single largest faith group in the United States. But only 33 percent of U.S. Catholics attend Mass on a weekly basis, according to a 2005 poll by CARA Catholic Poll.

...let me once again share the four-pronged typology that a veteran priest here in Washington, D.C., gave me a few years ago. There are, he said, four kinds of Catholics in this country and, thus, four “Catholic votes” on almost any issue. Any news report that lumps these groups together isn’t worth very much.

* Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats. Cultural conservatives have no chance.

* Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be one of those all-important “undecided voters” depending on what’s happening with the economy, foreign policy, etc. Leans to Democrats.

* Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the Catholic voter that is really up for grabs, the true swing voter that the candidates are after.

* The “sweats the details” Roman Catholic who goes to confession. Is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican, when it comes to matters of faith and practice. This is a very small slice of the American Catholic pie.

Related threads:
Bare Minimum Catholicism
Those consistently complex “Catholic voters”

[Rio]

is this the one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF7Lk271ahI

[wmfights]

...let me once again share the four-pronged typology that a veteran priest here in Washington, D.C., gave me a few years ago.

Interesting breakdown. I suspect the old Evangelical Churches breakdown in a similar way, but the third group is probably those that are leaving and joining non-denominational churches.

"It does bother me to see so many Catholics filling fundamentalist churches," said Murphy. "I'm glad they're going to church … but we want them back"....

I don't see how they will get them back. The Bible is available everywhere, Christian radio is in multiple languages, and Christian cable stations are also available. IOW, those that seek the truth will find that no church controls an individual's salvation only Jesus.

[Fido969]

I am a Catholic (once a Catholic, always a Catholic) who recently joined a fundamentalist church. There are tons of us there. It is a much more personal connection with the Holy Spirit, and a much more active communion with God.

I learned thing exploring my faith though other means then I did those years of attending mass and taking CCD classes. I think I understand the tenets of faith better, and I understand the Catholic church better. I think I may be becoming a better Catholic outside of the church than sitting in the pews.

It occurs to me from time to time that I may want to return someday - with a completely different understanding of both Grace and the Scriptures.

[Carpe Cerevisi]

“It is a much more personal connection with the Holy Spirit, and a much more active communion with God.”

You can’t have a more “active communion” with God than with the Eucharist.

[Campion]

I don't see how they will get them back. The Bible is available everywhere

Great! Since the Bible attests to the Catholic faith in every page, it will be easy.

The problem is getting your average fundamentalist to actually read the Bible, instead of just dismissing "problem passages" as "not applicable to us in the church age" because that's what his minister told him.

no church controls an individual's salvation only Jesus.

Red herring. We don't claim to "control an individual's salvation".

[Campion]

Please read "Rome Sweet Home" by Scott Hahn and "My Life on the Rock" by Jeff Cavins.

Both are former Protestant pastors. Mr. Cavins left the Catholic church to become a Protestant pastor, then returned.

[notaliberal]

I am a Catholic (once a Catholic, always a Catholic) who recently joined a fundamentalist church. There are tons of us there. It is a much more personal connection with the Holy Spirit, and a much more active communion with God.

Too bad you turned your back the Holy Eucharist--that's the closest you will ever get to our Lord Jesus Christ.

[edweena]

This is a very interesting book about conversion. The author pretty much covered all bases and ended up back where he originally started—as an agnostic.
http://williamlobdell.com/book-excerpts

I think it’s an excellent demonstration of why intellectual appeals rarely, rarely work. Very few people will make a huge life change based on intellectual conviction. Lobdell was influenced by emotion at every turn, from the enjoyment of support and fellowship in the Christian community to the extreme disgust he felt when uncovering the truth about Catholic church’s coverups of sexual abuse of children by priests.

In a culture that officially recognizes every religious and philosophical belief as equal, it’s pretty hard to keep a believer to a particular system when emotions tend to encourage exploration and make the grass look greener on the other side of every other fence.

[gorilla_warrior]

Too liberal. Soft on abortion. Support for Mexican invaders. Pope talking one world government, “social justice”. Homosexual pedophiles, $multi-million hush money payouts. Unhealthy sexual obsession, guilt & prudery. Too friendly with liberal fascist government.

[Pyro7480]

Too liberal.

The Church cannot be defined in the American political spectrum as "liberal" or conservative. Have you ever caught wind as to how the leftists describe the Church, or what left-wing regimes throughout the 20th century did to Catholics?

Soft on abortion.

How can you say that with a straight face? You only have a two-dimensional view of things. Catholic teaching is unequivocal.

Support for Mexican invaders.

Unfortunate stance on a temporal issue, but an issue that doesn't affect eternal affairs.

Pope talking one world government, “social justice”.

Again, you only have a two-dimensional view of the situation. I dare you to read the whole encyclical.

Homosexual pedophiles, $multi-million hush money payouts.

Is your faith community without sin?

Unhealthy sexual obsession, guilt & prudery.

The only thing "unhealthy" is the secular warping of God's plan for sex, which only the Catholic Church has successfully refuted.

Too friendly with liberal fascist government.

Again, how can you say that with a straight face? Read "The Black Book of Communism" for what happened to Catholics from Cuba to Vietnam (and it's still happening in both places).

[wmfights]

We don't claim to "control an individual's salvation".

Then you really shouldn't care if someone attends your church or mine as long as it is Christian.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

“We are just certain that if we do things their way just enough, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah will come flocking back to church.”

[Campion]

Then you really shouldn't care if someone attends your church or mine as long as it is Christian.

That doesn't follow. I care that people attend a church which teaches the whole counsel of God. Can they be saved otherwise? Sure, but God still wishes that they have all the helps he gave for our salvation, not some of them.

[Campion]

Soft on abortion.

Compared to whom? Catholics have been at the forefront of the pro-life movement since it started. We are the only major Christian denomination which is consistently pro-life, because the other ones all allow contraception, including abortifacients like the "Pill".

Unhealthy sexual obsession, guilt & prudery.

Because we defend the Biblical standard? The same people who make that accusation are generally the ones who really are "soft on abortion".

[Fido969]

Too bad you turned your back the Holy Eucharist--that's the closest you will ever get to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Makes you wonder how the first disciples and apostles got into heaven.

[notaliberal]

Your loss!

[Salvation]

You are always welcome to come back to the Catholic Church. Perhaps you can sit down with a priest and get your questions answered about the feelings you have.

How would you solve this Catholic problem. We have no problem at my church because we have wonderful greeters who greet everyone who enters and have a message before Mass about them coming up for a blessing at Communion time.

There are many groups who are leading inactive Catholics back to the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. The one we have is entitled Catholics Can Come Home Again.

[Salvation]

**I don’t see how they will get them back. The Bible is available everywhere**

No, it isn’t. Not the complete Bible.

[Salvation]

**Soft on abortion.** You are sadly mistaken. The Catholic Church has been the ONLY church standing firm AGAIST abortion.

1:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2271  (618 bytes )  preview document matches 1 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2271.htm

97%

2:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2272  (580 bytes )  preview document matches 2 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2272.htm

96%

3:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2322  (290 bytes )  preview document matches 2 From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a "criminal" practice (GS 27 § 3), URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2322.htm

96%

4:	CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2274  (554 bytes )  preview document matches gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2274.htm