Guiding Principles for Reaching out to Inactive Catholics

   Bullet points for your thoughts during Lent to create

    awareness about inactive and alienated Catholics.

• The largest body of Christian believers in America today is the Roman Catholic Church. Recent research shows that the second largest body, some 18 million, consists of those Catholics who no longer practice their faith. Who will welcome them back and offer a place of belonging? Will you?
• Every Catholic can be a minister of welcome, reconciliation and understanding to those who have stopped practicing their faith. We need to let our inactive brothers and sisters know they always have a place in the Church.
• We want to let our inactive and alienated brothers and sisters know that we miss them, we care about them and we invite them to take another look. We have found a spiritual home and want to share it with them.
• Inviting inactive Catholics home is about wanting others to experience Life to the Full that Jesus offers us.
• People do not come back to the Church because of doctrine or creed, but because in the stories of Jesus and the community they can find a home and a meaning for their own story.
• The inactive or alienated Catholic – whose business is it, anyway? We need to overcome the notion that religion is a private thing. We are members of a body, the Body of Christ and we have a stake in one another. Every Catholic parish has an obligation rooted in the Gospel to seek reconciliation with inactive Catholics.

• Inactive, separated or alienated Catholic: those who identify themselves as Catholic when asked their religion, but subsequently say they attend Mass never or once or twice a year. The description can be misleading. Many of them are active in their faith in other ways: acts of kindness, living moral lives, praying, but often they have given up their visible connection with the Church.
• “Go into the world and proclaim the Good News to every creature.” Mark 16:15

We need to exhibit an attitude of openness, love, warmth, compassion and caring. Many Catholics don't think of inactives as their concern. We are members of Christ's body and members of a body have a stake in one another. Invitation can mean everything. How is the church, our parish impoverished by their absence?

Have process goals rather than result goals. Conversion is a process. We must respect the person's freedom. "Caring not curing."

Ask yourself, "What are we bringing them back to, inviting them to?" Once they return, how do we assist with their re-integration?

Inactive and alienated Catholics need to tell their story. There is healing in the sharing. We need to listen in a non-judgmental way. This is the beginning of reconciliation.

Don't hesitate to apologize for the church. Be aware of occasions to seek out the alienated and inactive Catholic.