Stay informed about Catholics Come Home!
Check out this article from Green Bay’s The Compass.
“I’m learning what it’s like to be part of a church community for the first time,” he [Casey] added. “For me, it was always kind of a Sunday thing where you just kind of go and after church ends, you filter out.”
The Compass Newspaper of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin reports the story of a young man’s journey into the Catholic Church this Easter that began when he saw a Catholics Come Home® Commercial:
‘Catholics Come Home®’ commercials spur Cooney’s interest in Catholicism
Written by Jeff Kurowski | The Compass
HOWARD — The Easter Vigil will mark the culmination of one path of discovery and the beginning of another for Casey Cooney. The Bay Port High School senior will make a full profession of faith and receive confirmation and first Eucharist on April 23 at St. John the Baptist Church. He was baptized last year. Karla Thielmann, his aunt, is serving as his sponsor.
Last summer, Cooney, 18, decided it was time to take his faith seriously. He had grown up in a household without religion, but, at his request, attended Mass at times as a child. His mother took him to St. John the Baptist, which he describes as “my first experience with God.” Cooney, who also spent time as a teen at various Protestant and nondenominational churches, said he entered the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) after re-examining his faith life.
“I knew that I had to decide where I was in my communion with God,” he said. “I knew that I wanted to come back to the church, but I was initially dismayed because there are 3,000 different denominations of Christianity, some of which with mutually exclusive theology. They all say that they are the last remnant of Israel. Who do I believe?”
Casey Cooney (Rick Evans | For The Compass)
Around this time of personal faith exploration, television commercials for Catholics Come Home® aired locally. Cooney said that he was inspired by the media spot that highlighted Jesus calling Peter “the rock” and saying, “Upon this rock I will build my church.”
“After that, I started to investigate the church,” he said. “Everything just made sense to me and I knew that’s where I belong.”
Cooney has embraced learning opportunities throughout the RCIA process. He has researched the history of the church and read about theologians, including Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Much of the learning is not found in texts though, he said.
“It’s one thing to have that knowledge, but it’s much more important how you live your faith,” he said. “I always try to keep that in mind. The people on the RCIA team have been practicing their faith longer than I’ve been alive, so there are a lot of things they can teach me about what it means to live the Catholic life.
“I’m learning what it’s like to be part of a church community for the first time,” he added. “For me, it was always kind of a Sunday thing where you just kind of go and after church ends, you filter out.”
Cooney has developed an appreciation for the Catholic Mass. He recalls what he describes as “musical productions” at some of the nondenominational churches he attended.
“When I come to the Catholic Mass, the music is more restrained and I like it better,” he said. “The Mass is more solemn and quiet, and reverent, and respectful. In one of Paul’s Epistles he talked about propriety in worship in that God is the God of order and not chaos. I’m not saying that those other churches are chaotic, but I appreciate the order in the Catholic Church. I find it comforting.”
Read the entire article from The Compass
Please pray for all those coming into full communion with The Church this Easter, and for those who have received the Catholics Come Home® invitation who are considering returning to Mass.
Check out this article by Fr. Dave Zimmer commenting on the anti-Catholic segment involving Catholics Come Home commercials on Bill Maher’s show a few weeks ago.
“The Lord turned my thoughts to that day when Jesus walked through the streets of Jerusalem, being mocked, laughed at, spit upon and even cursed. As I looked up at our crucifix into the face of Jesus looking down upon me, the only thought I had was His words, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” As His words became mine, the “stretching” of my faith was occurring, a common dynamic of practicing stewardship…”
(April 12, 2011) Atlanta, GA—The parish pews of New England Catholic churches are noticeably fuller these days. This Lent, the Archdiocese of Boston, the Diocese of Manchester and seven other dioceses across the nation have partnered with the lay organization Catholics Come Home®, to air the multimedia (TV and Internet) evangelization initiative inviting Catholics back to church – and it’s working!
Portraying the spirituality and history of the Catholic Church, the television messages reach out to inactive Catholics and others; encouraging their return to the Church. The commercials direct the viewer to the www.CatholicsComeHome.org and www.CatolicosRegresen.org websites to explore answers to questions of faith and to utilize the site’s parish-finder feature to locate their local parish community and Mass 
times. Television campaigns often feature ads in multiple languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish in the most popular programming like news, sports and Prime Time.
Catholics Come Home® commercials began airing on mainstream broadcast and cable television on Ash Wednesday in the Lenten partner archdioceses of Boston and New Orleans, and dioceses of Manchester, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houma-Thibodaux, Erie, Winona and Venice, FL. The ads continue through Easter Sunday. “This Lent, we’ve made an outreach to inactive Catholics…launching several television commercials to invite our brothers and sisters home,” said Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley. “It’s for Catholics, who for whatever reason have stopped coming to church.”
Jackie Rolon, a Boston Catholic who recently returned to the faith after seeing a 
CatholicsComeHome.org TV commercial, beamed with delight in a video interview with the Boston Herald. “I have come back to the Church a month today. The joy I feel is beyond words,” said Rolon while hugging a photo of her deceased father and a rosary closely to herself. The Boston Herald‘s recent story “Religious Campaign Goes Beyond TV Ads,” brings light to the 
welcoming spirit of New England parishes. The Rev. Francisco Anzoategui, believes as many as 20 people have come back to St. Stephen’s. “You’ll be amazed how many people return because they are just waiting for an invitation to come back. It’s happening,” he said. At St. Patrick’s in Stoneham, the Rev. Bill Schmidt held a three-night Lenten mission last month for current and lapsed Catholics. About 60 people attended a Q&A night to learn about the faith. Another 50 came to a session on annulments. Parishioners are encouraged to bring friends and family. “We are putting a big push on people to invite somebody to go back,” he said. “It’s always easier to come back with someone.”
In the Diocese of Manchester, The Citizen of Laconia paper reports, “A Welcome Home: Catholic Church Opens Arms To Prodigal Faithful“. Area parishes such as St. André Bessette of Laconia, will have large, purple banners above their doors, welcoming people to come within. The Rev. Marc Drouin, pastor of St. Andre Bessette, said, “Even if one person returns home, it’s worth everything to prepare to receive them,” said Drouin. “Just this past week, I spoke with two people who were away for at least 30 years and both of them had seen the commercials on TV and decided to reconnect. It was a delight to meet them and to welcome them back.”
Previous Catholics Come Home® initiatives have already aired in more than 20 dioceses from Chicago to Phoenix, Sacramento to Providence and Atlanta to Corpus Christi. These ads will have reached 40 million viewers by Easter. Where these ads have aired, Mass attendance has increased an average of 10%, and as much as 18%. According to census statistics published by participating dioceses, Catholics Come Home® ads have helped more than 200,000 fallen away Catholics come home to the Church.
This Holy Thursday also marks the one year anniversary of the EncouragePriests.org™ website launch, a communications outreach project of Catholics Come Home®. The EncouragePriests.org website is designed for the laity to send messages of support to the holy and heroic priests of Christ’s Catholic Church. EncouragePriests.org includes free e-card Collar-Hollers, spiritual bouquets, and a place to post encouragement videos.
CatholicsComeHome.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media apostolate, dedicated to producing and airing Catholic evangelism television ads on local, national and international television networks. EncouragePriests.org™ is a special communications outreach project of Catholics Come Home, Inc.
Take time today to read about this bishop of Kraków, patron of Poland. “He is remembered with Saints Thomas More and Thomas Becket for vigorous opposition to the evils of an unjust government.”
St. Stanislaus, pray for us!
“When we let our life be illuminated by the mystery of Christ, we experience the joy of being liberated from all that threatens its full fulfillment.” -Pope Benedict XVI, April 3 Sunday Angelus
Read more about the power of Baptism against sin and temptation according to our Holy Father in this article from Catholic News Agency.
“I must go to confession with love because I have an opportunity to make my soul clean, to become pure.”
“Confession is Jesus and I, and nobody else. Remember this for life.”
“Don’t waste time on what happened before. If something is hurting you inside, preoccupying you, get it out, make a good confession.”
“It is a place where I allow Jesus to take away from me everything that divides, destroys.”
“Only to confession can we go as sinners with sin and come out as sinners without sin.”
-from Where There is Love, There is God
Have you taken the opportunity to experience the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation this Lent? If not, now is the time. Let us prepare ourselves for Christ’s glorious Resurrection at Easter by making penance for our sins throughout these 40 days.
The Diocese of Erie is currently partnering with Catholics Come Home® this Lent to air commercials throughout the diocese, extending an invitation for viewers to return “home” to their Catholic faith. See story below from WICU12 News in Erie:
“The commercials are meant to kind of tap into people who are at that place, but not really sure where to go. How to get connected to a community. How to re-establish their contact with Christ in the sacraments. So this is meant to say, “Hey, this is an invitation that hopefully will resonate with where people are in their lives now,” said Fr. Chris Singer, Chancellor, Diocese of Erie.
The television commercials were financed by a special collection taken at all the churches of the diocese. That collection raised over $100,000.
“Pastors asked their people to support this effort. They explained what it was, explained the costs that would be involved in running these commercial spots. And people responded incredibly generously. It really was amazing,” Singer said.
The commercials are getting a positive response. Pastors are receiving calls from people who want to come back. Parishes have developed programs for the returning members. Some of the programs are designed to deal with the conflicts that drove the parishioners away in the first place.
“The commercials are just the beginning. The real work actually happens in the parishes,” Singer said.
The ad campaign began less than a month ago, on Ash Wednesday. The Church hopes to see many people returned to the flock when the campaign ends on Easter Sunday.
read entire story at WICU12 News website
The Archdiocese of Atlanta partnered with Catholics Come Home® this past Advent 2010. The Archdiocese has been conducting post-initiative Mass attendance census counts, and gathering anecdotal data and “coming home” stories. The Times-Georgian reports, below:
Church attendance grows through Catholics ‘Come Home’ ad campaign
The pews in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church have been filled with more parishioners lately, due in part to a TV ad program launched in Georgia inviting Catholics who have left the church to “come home.”
Since the Catholics Come Home® Georgia campaign kicked off on Dec. 17, attendance at the church in Carroll County has increased 10 percent.
“We have over 1,200 people attending church every Sunday,” said the Rev. Rafael Carballo. “We had a good response. We also have people from other denominations that have come.”
Carballo believes the campaign served as a good reminder to people that the church is here.
“There’s nothing sweeter for people than to hear a voice come back home,” he said.
He also attributes the increase in attendance to the growth of the youth ministry. He said that when young people come to church they often bring their parents.
“I have seen a big growth in the youth ministry,” Carballo said. “At times, you think it’s mostly the adults bringing youth. The youth group has grown about 25 percent from last year into this year. It’s a more diverse group. We got people from all races so that’s creating a more positive environment for them.”
Although the ad program is over, efforts to bring Catholics home are continuing within the parishes, according to Deacon Steve Swope, who is chairman of the Catholics Come Home® Georgia steering committee. He said church leaders and lay people who do that each day that make a difference.
“The ads are over but the real work of welcoming people back is the work that is going on in the parish level now,” Swope said. “The advertisements invited those back, but the welcome they got when they came home is what made a difference.”
So far, the efforts of the church has been successful. The committee is measuring the initiative’s success in two different ways – quantitative and anecdotal. The group did a count of the number of people who attended Mass in October and another count in March just before Ash Wednesday.
It was determined that attendance rose 14 percent throughout the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Another count will be conducted in October to make sure the increase is not a seasonal change. The committee also asked church leaders to send stories of people who have come back.
The group learned that some parishes held listening sessions to gives those who have returned a chance to meet others and ask any questions they have about coming back. Some parishes have reported four to five families coming back.
“In my own parish, I see people every week that I haven’t seen before,” Swope said. “Even if only one person came back, it would make it all worthwhile.”
The committee learned that the majority of people coming back did not leave because they were upset with the church, but because they “got lazy in their spiritual life,” he said.
Some may have left for college, stopped going to Mass and returned only when they were home with their families. They then continued to grow into adulthood, got married and did not feel the tug to go back until they had a couple of kids.
“It’s people feeling something’s missing and they come back,” Swope said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
read entire Times-Georgian article
“Pope Benedict said at his Wednesday general audience that the modern world needs ‘zealous’ disciples of Christ, who will fight religious indifference with the ‘light and beauty’ of the Gospel…”
Read more of this article from Catholic News Agency. 
Are you living as a zealous disciple of Christ? Is your witness of life bringing a light to the darkness of indifference in our world?
Need some guidance finding a parish near you? MassTimes.org has a parish-finding resource for that.
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