Inactive Catholics, God is waiting for you

Throughout my life, I have met Catholics who, for one reason or another, have drifted away from the Catholic Church. Their reasons vary, yet overwhelmingly, I find that the burdens of daily life have distracted many people from knowing God's love and plan for their happiness.

Recently, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which shows that 28% of Americans have given up their parents' religion and either turned to another faith tradition or abandoned faith completely.

More and more, it seems, secular humanism is replacing God in our lives.

Pope Benedict XVI has warned: "This sad truth manifests itself in a suppression of any public religious expression and the belief that truth is relative only to the individual who wants to believe it." Yet that same study shows that people are overwhelmed by a culture that has failed to offer truth and meaning in their lives.

This gave me hope, because I know the inactive Catholics I meet are looking for answers and purpose in their lives. Recently, with a group of Catholic families and individuals inspired by Blessed John Paul II's call to evangelization, we launched Catholics Come Home media campaigns. Inspired to use our gifts from God, we looked to harness the power of modern media to reach lapsed Catholics through our independent, nonprofit Catholic charity.

In the weeks leading up to Easter, our team at Catholics Come Home launched television ad campaigns in Phoenix, Az., and Lexington, Ky., targeting inactive and lapsed Catholics. The ads offer people the opportunity to learn more about our family in faith: a Church filled with beauty, miracles, heroes, history, love and peace. The commercials and support material can be found at www.CatholicsComeHome.org.

The first ad we produced is titled "Epic." It reminds people of the great history, beauty and spiritual richness of our Catholic Church - the Church started by Jesus Himself 2,000 years ago.

We followed that with another ad called "Movie," which shows various people viewing movies of their own lives; it reminds us that we will have to account for our own life's "movie."

We aired the commercials 1,000 times on major television stations in Phoenix and 367 times on stations in Lexington, including two at prime-time spots during the television program "American Idol."

The response has been overwhelming. In Phoenix and Lexington, nearly 6,000 people inquired about returning to or joining the Catholic Church! Our Web site has been overrun with 31,000 unique web visitors and e-mails of hope and inspiration from over 60 countries.

A woman wrote that she had become agnostic over the last twenty years, yet returned to Church for the first time as a result of seeing just one TV ad and visiting the Web site.

The common theme in all the e-mails has been God's patience and persistence. In most cases people started drifting away from the Church at a young age, but God kept placing people and events in their lives to bring them back. When they saw these ads, they realized that this was a sign from God to come home.

Our lives on earth should be a whole-hearted search for God and His truth. For some, the search is easy and quick, for others it can be long and laborious. The purpose of Catholics Come Home is to make the search for the fullness of truth easier and more fruitful by using the ever-popular contemporary tools of television and the Internet.

The old saying is so true: God loves you. He loves you so much that He sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and rise again from the dead to redeem and save you from sin and alienation. And, as Christ Himself promised, I will not leave you orphans (John 14:18). He established a Church, the Catholic Church, as the shelter from the storms of this life.

God loves you so much that He will not stop searching for you, reaching out to you, and seeking you, so He can bring you safely home. But God is gentle. The choice is yours. *