On Evangelization

Last week in this series on becoming a Catholic evangelist, something we all must do if we expect eternal life, we talked about your two primary obligations as a Catholic. The first was growth in holiness, becoming a saint. 

Your other primary obligation is to share the faith. I get a real kick out of watching people’s reaction when I tell them that. You’d think I just told them they have to go into a terrorist camp and take out all the camp occupants with a broken, rusty-bladed pocket knife and no back-up. The idea of having to share the Catholic faith with other people is the stuff nightmares are made of for most folks. It’s scary and not easy for most people, and I’ll admit that. Nothing worth doing is easy, though. To help make that point, my motto is: Comfort and Conviction don’t live on the same block!

Evangelization is really not that difficult. I realize not everybody can do what I do. I get that. Not every person has what folks call the gift of gab. Even if you’re a complete wallflower, though, you can still play a role in evangelization. And I’ll get to the various means of evangelization in a moment, but first I want to talk about just who all we have to evangelize.

The very first classification of souls to evangelize is none other than your fellow practicing Catholics. Yup, you read that right; your fellow Catholics. First of all, we all need to have a genuine conversion of heart every day. You do, I do, even the pope does. But this actually goes much deeper than that, because cradle Catholics are leaving the Church at an alarming rate.

Did you know…?

• one out of every ten Americans is an ex-Catholic
• if they were a separate denomination, they’d be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists
• one of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic
• 6.5 people leave the Catholic Church for every one that joins
• 50% of young people who were raised Catholic are no longer Catholic today
• and 79% of former Catholics leave the Church before age 23

Do you know why that is? Read what Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke wrote in a letter to me in October 2015.

A gravely defective catechesis which marked the life of the Church in the years following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, though not because of the Council, contributed to the loss of faith, the lack of a devotional life and left the subsequent generations devoid of a concrete way to know the Catholic faith and live it.

His Eminence is absolutely correct. Most Catholics—perhaps as many as 95%—suffer from catechetical illiteracy. That’s a kind way of saying they are completely, or almost completely, ignorant of what the Catholic Church teaches. If they knew exactly what the Church teaches—unvarnished Catholic truth that isn’t watered-down milquetoast—almost all of those listed in the statistics above would still be Catholic. But the simple fact of the matter is that they don’t know the faith; they only think they do. Since you’re reading this, then you’re just the sort of person who can help change that and keep your friends and loved ones from becoming one of these statistics.

This automatically means the next group of people to be evangelized is non-practicing Catholics. You know lots of people in that category; we all do. Perhaps you have close friends or family who are non-practicing Catholics. You’re obligated—under pain of sin—to share the faith with them.

“But, Joe, doing that might soil or ruin my relationship with them.” 

Tough! Who is your first obligation to: your friends and family, or Jesus? Before you answer that, you might want to stop here and read what Jesus said in Revelation 3:15-16. Besides, by sharing the fullness of the Catholic faith with non-practicing Catholic friends and family, you’re showing them they’re a top priority with you. They’ll eventually get that.

Almost every Catholic sitting with you at Mass needs to be evangelized. At this writing, I’ve lived in this archdiocese for about eight years, and the people here know the faith much better than the two dioceses I’d spent the last twenty-six years in. That’s not saying much, though. Of all the Catholic laity I’ve met, I can count on one hand the number of folks who can answer this simple question: “How many sacraments are there, and name them?”

Not even five people in eight years could tell me how many sacraments there are, much less name them. I’ve got a hint for those who can’t answer this simple question: You don’t know your faith! 

Oddly, though, when I suggest the need for catechesis, I get one of two responses. They either say, “I’ll have you know I went to Catholic school” or “I’ll have you know I’ve been a Catholic all my life.” They seem to think that these responses mean they know all they’re supposed to know, but what they’re really telling me is how pitifully, incompetently, and incompletely they were taught. Not too many years ago, it was said of Catholic schools that a child who was educated in them would be Catholic all his life. Obviously, that hasn’t been true for many years.

So it’s our (your) responsibility to find creative ways to defeat the catechetical ignorance our (your) fellow parishioners have. With the world changing the way it is (certainly not for the better), this is more imperative than ever!

In the next piece in this series, we’ll look at the final group to be evangelized, as well as three ways to evangelize.