Missionary Discipleship

I began to think seriously about becoming Catholic fifteen years ago. When I had almost made up my mind, I made an appointment with Msgr. Muller at Our Lardy of Sorrows parish in Homewood.

“Father,” I said, “I think I need to become Catholic.”

I’ll never forget what he said.

“Are you marrying a Catholic?” he asked. “Or, have you read your way in?”

“Option B,” I answered.

I read my way into the Church. But Father Muller’s question was a very reasonable one. Research tells us that most converts to Catholicism in North America come into the Church by way of marriage. According to Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) over two-thirds of Catholic converts come in by way of marriage. Sociologist David Yamane estimates the numbers are even higher. In his book Becoming Catholic, which studied R.C.I.A. candidates in one Indiana diocese, Yamane found that 87% of candidates came into the Church through marriage.

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Marrying a Catholic is a very good thing. Becoming a Catholic to join your spouse in his or her religion is an even better thing. It is a profound credit to the Catholic Church that so many people want to take up the religion of their Catholic spouse. Furthermore, some of these marriage-converts go on to become the very best of Catholics. I’ve known some who end up drawing the cradle Catholic spouse even deeper into the faith. Yea for Catholic marriage! Yea for marriage conversions! Let’s make many more!

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And yet, isn’t it curious that we don’t see more conversions to the faith from other Church ministries and apostolates? Research shows that there is far more traffic out of the Church than into it these days. And if you take those Catholic marriages out of the equation, the numbers are quite astonishing. (We lose 6.5 people for every one we gain, even with the marriages!)

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The Catholic Church is the only religious community in North America with numbers like these. No other religious community gains so many converts through marriage. No other community loses overall members as rapidly. There are many reasons for this, but I would like to focus only on two.

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When I was still a Protestant, all the Catholics I knew were ex-Catholics. My Church was full of them. I would sometimes ask them, “Did you grow up a Christian?” “Oh, no!” the reply often went. “I grew up Catholic!” What lay behind this sad, sad response? “I never knew my faith,” they would say. “I didn’t know Christ.” The truth is that these poor folks were just going through the motions, at best, and never learned how to find Christ in the Catholic Church.

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Traffic into the Church has a very different character. Those converts who read their way into the Church are usually Protestants who take a deep interest in their faith and strive to understand it. That’s what happened to me. I really wanted to know my faith, and ended up learning I was in the wrong Church!

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The problem is not with the Catholic faith and sacraments, but with a mode of engagement, of Catechesis, or family spirituality that fails to assimilate the faith leading to conversion. Those who marry Catholics and begin to study the faith can tell you this. A proper R.C.I.A. formation in the four pillars of the Catechism (Faith, Sacraments, Moral Life, & Prayer) leads to a depth of Christian experience that few ever want to turn away from.

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The other problem is a cultural habit of reticence about the faith. Catholic traditionally lack confidence in sharing their faith. There are many reasons for this. One is that Catholics have often felt embattled about their faith, living in a culture that is openly hostile to Catholic claims. Another is that Catholics know how rich, deep, and wide their tradition is and fear that they won’t do justice to it if they try to explain it to outsiders. A final reason is that Catholics could at one time depend upon an army of priests and religious to evangelize for us. And, to be honest, the Church used to encourage this attitude.

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No more. We can no longer take our faith for granted. We can no longer rely on others to do the work of evangelism. Pope Francis and the bishops have asked us to move from a state of maintenance to a permanent state of mission. They have asked us to do more than simply evangelize, but to be reconverted to Christ.

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The New Evangelization, associated with St. John Paul II, was a call to re-evangelize those formerly Christian nations that have lost their faith. Missionary Discipleship is the call of Pope Francis to convert ourselves so that we can lead others to Christ.

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In our diocese, the office of Mission and Discipleship is committed to this expression of the new evangelization. Want to learn more? Visit https://disciplesonmission.com/ or contact our coordinator of Missionary Discipleship, Alex Kubik. (akubik@bhmdiocese.org)

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