This Easter a growing number of Catholic converts are joining the flock

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | April 20, 2014 | Lilly Fowler

[rwa265]

FARMINGTON, Mo. • It is a special Easter for Wilma Whitworth, who is undergoing a spiritual rebirth, just a week before her 78th birthday.

Whitworth is celebrating her first day as a full-fledged Catholic this holiday. And she’s doing so in a largely Protestant town that is undergoing a kind of Catholic revival.

St. Joseph Catholic Church, or St. Joe’s as the locals call it, has had 24 children and adults, ages 7 and above, convert to the faith in the past year.

There is no one answer for the rise in Catholic conversion in this town of 17,000 an hour south of St. Louis. Some point to the friendly, welcoming environment at St. Joe’s.

Others at least partly credit the excitement around Pope Francis, or a new emphasis on evangelism that may be behind a broader uptick in adult and youth baptisms across the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

[Old Yeller]

Thank you for being the “turd in the punchbowl” on this discussion thread.

Christianity is not a religion. Catholicism, Mormonism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc. are all religions. Christianity is a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christians trust in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice on the cross for the atonement of our sins. Re-incarnation, purgatory, working your way into heaven, worshiping idols, etc. are what religions latch on to in hopes that it will "qualify" them for an afterlife of their various descriptions. Like a points based system. If the good outweighs the bad, you're good. This is not Christianity.

[daniel1212]

Those same inquiring minds would be interested to know what the 18 Catholic Democrat Senators have done to oppose Obama’s death cult.

Oh them. They are simply dismissed as CINOs to defend the pristine images RCs insist on. Yet Rome treats such as members in life and in death, and overall Catholics are more liberal than evangelicals whom they attack.

[daniel1212]

Why stay in a faith that has a president as a member of that faith

What manner of absurdity is this? RCs attack Protestants as being a diverse faith, but being Protestant means all subscribe to one faith when seeking to impugn all that is called Protestant, while evangelicals are far more conservative than Catholics.

There hypocrites and CINOs.

So you say, but as you have been told and shown, they are treated as members by Rome in life and in death. Thus showing what she really believes. (Ja. 2:18)

[Celtic Conservative]

And what you describe is not what I believe in. Salvation comes freely from God as a gift, and is not earned. If you think Catholics believe salvation is earned, then you need to put down the jack chick comics and learn, REALLY learn about your brothers and sisters in Christ. Now again I say to you, happy Easter. may it be a blessing to you. Please don’t respond to this, as I am loath to fight with my brother in Christ on this blessed day. Peace be with you.

CC

[Old Yeller]

I’ll respond by telling you I was born a Catholic, but born again a Christian. I’m familiar with what I am talking about having gone 12 years to parochial school and still have many Catholic relatives.

[Celtic Conservative]

12 years in parochial school and yet you failed to grasp the true nature of the Catholic faith. Now, that may be a reason so many are leaving the church. failure to teach.

CC

[Mrs. Don-o]

Don't think that Pope Francis has same-sex attraction, but if a catechumen experience this type of attraction, they will learn that Christ, through His Church, can lead them to overcome every king of impurity and to live in chastity as we all must as we obey the Commandments.

I'd say that's a good thing.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I just last week attended a Baptist-sponsored Religious Liberty conference as a Catholic parishioner representing my pastor. We are good allies with Baptists on religious liberty issues. Among the other things I learned that baptisms in the SBC decreased by 5.5 percent over the previous year --- the lowest reported number on record since 1948. If it continues, this trend will see the SBC having a lower membership in 2050 than it had in 1960.

This, again, is part of a larger picture which shows almost all Christian faith families -- the reformed-evangelicals, the "mainstream, Protestants," the Pentecostals and even the non-denom Bible churches --- losing members, while atheists-agnostics-and "nones" are growing faster than any religious faith in the U.S.

(LDS and Muslims are probably exceptions to this.)

I don't see any reason for any Chritian to rejoice in this state of affairs. We are all, no matter what our label, facing the defection of the younger generation from Christ, and the rapid increase of a secularized America which is simultaneously ignorant about, and hostile towards, the Christian faith.

I have no ides why you would rejoice in news of people leaving Christian churches, since most of them are not just going across the street to another church: they're going into unbelief and the loss of their life in Christ.

[RichInOC]

78? From a 49-year-old kid and fellow neophyte, welcome home, young lady.

[Heart-Rest]

"I just last week attended a Baptist-sponsored Religious Liberty conference as a Catholic parishioner representing my pastor. We are good allies with Baptists on religious liberty issues. Among the other things I learned that baptisms in the SBC decreased by 5.5 percent over the previous year --- the lowest reported number on record since 1948. If it continues, this trend will see the SBC having a lower membership in 2050 than it had in 1960."

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(And we will try our very best not to hold this other news story [picture and link below] against our Baptist brothers and sisters also!)

"Obama attends Easter services at personally important Baptist church"

[RichInOC]

Last night, in front of a church full of witnesses, including two Dominican priests, I rejected Satan, all his works and all his empty promises, and said I believed in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth; Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father; the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, and then I was baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And I meant it, with all my heart and all my soul. What more precisely do some people want? My blood?

[Salvation]

30 people at my parish last night, 23 baptized, receive Holy Communion and Confirmation, 7 received into full Communion with the Church.

[RichInOC]

How cool.

[Salvation]

We repeated our Baptismal promises at this morning’s Masses. God bless you and Welcome Home!

[Celtic Conservative]

You done good, Rich And I am proud to call you my brother in Christ Jesus. I don’t want or need your blood. Christ’s blood has already redeemed me. I pray for those who are my brothers and sisters in Christ but yet feel compelled to vilify and attack me. Satan laughs with glee when the church fights within itself. I wish them only good and hope someday We may stand together rather than apart. They think I am going to hell for being a Catholic. I do not feel the same way because they are protestant or evangelical. I am perfectly content to let judgement remain within the purview of the almighty. Pray for me and for them that we may fully understand the will of God better.

CC

[oh8eleven]

I have no ides why you would rejoice in news of people leaving Christian churches
Au contraire, I think it's terrible state of affairs and things may change if/when the Church addresses the reasons why people are leaving - pedophiles, pro-amnesty, etc.
However, if one wasn't aware of the Church's current demise, the article in question is little more than a smoke screen.

[Mrs. Don-o]

First, its Easter: it's an annual milestone for entering the Church, not leaving it. Hence the seasonal, legitimate news hook.

Second, they did explicitly note the rate of people leaving the Church: that makes it a pretty poor smokescreen, if that's what they were aiming at.

Third, if people were leaving because of USCCB policies (like support of amnesty) they would have left a long time ago, since the USCCB left tilt has existed for my entire lifetime, and I'm one of your older adults. (Even my mother's lifetime: did you know the USCCB's predecessor, the NCWC, first endorsed national health insurance in 1919?)

But the USCCB is not part of the teaching magisterium of the Church. I think most Catholics rightly see it as a clerical bureaucracy somewhere in downtown DC that doesn't have much to do with us. Congresspeople ordinarily treat it the same way. Tragic-comic!

No, what's worrisome is the broad cultural Cold Front advancing across America (having frozen out most Christian structures in Europe a generation or two ago.) We should be addressing that.

Not gloating when some fellow Christian faith-family loses membership.

I, a Catholic, mourn when I hear of Baptist decline. It's like hearing that one's neighbor's children are in the ICU with something that looks terminal.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Bless you, bless you, bless you!

The "giving your blood" part is coming. Just so you know.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You have a pretty thorough-going misunderstanding of purgatory. You ought not to comment on it until you can at least re-state the doctrine in a form recognizable to its adherents. Otherwise, you're attacking something no Catholic believes in, so what's the point?

Seriously.

[Heart-Rest]

A feel-good, Catholic propaganda piece, on Easter - who'd have guessed? But at least they included some reality... "According to a 2009 study by the Pew Research Center, 'those who have left Catholicism outnumber those who have joined the Catholic Church by nearly a four-to-one margin.'" Happy Easter.

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So, if a bunch of people turn away and leave some person/group and their teachings, does that mean that that person/group and their teachings simply must be wrong?

For example, when many of His own followers (as shown in the Bible text below) turned away from Jesus because of their own personal disagreement with His teachings, was that because Jesus and His teachings were wrong, or was that because they were making the biggest and most foolish mistake of their entire lives?

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After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.    John 6:66

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Happy Easter!