'Catholics Come Home' Begins Massive Main Stream Media Outreach to the USA

Pope Benedict XVI recently proclaimed, "Today we live in an epoch of new evangelization. Vast horizons open up to the Gospel, while regions of ancient Christian tradition are called to rediscover the beauty of the faith. The protagonists of this mission are the men and women who, like St. Paul, can say: "For me to live is Christ " Tom Peterson is one these protagonists.

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CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - I have written before about one of the most exciting and effective New Evangelization efforts in the Church today. It is called "Catholics Come Home". Like Tom Peterson, the founder of Catholics Come Home, I am a re-vert to the Catholic Church. I returned to the faith of my childhood after a search for truth as a young man. That search led me home to the fullness of truth which subsists within the Church into which I was baptized as a child. 

I have had the privilege of sharing the Catholic faith with many "former" or "fallen away" Catholics. Helping them find their way home is one of my greatest joys. I have also had the honor of helping Christians from other communities come into the full communion of the Catholic Church. Finally, I have had the opportunity to help people who have never been baptized to meet the Risen Lord and be baptized into his Body, the Church. This is all a part of the "New Evangelization" and there is no more fulfilling and important work on earth.  

I am certainly not alone in experiencing the blessing of participating in the New Evangelization. One of its greatest advocates is a very gifted man named Tom Peterson.I met Tom several years ago at a Catholic Leadership Conference. I had seen my first "Catholics Come Home" commercial months earlier and became immediately convinced that the work of this non-profit media apostolate was going to become one of the most important resources for the New Evangelization in my lifetime.I was recently honored to be asked to serve as a theological advisor to this amazing apostolate. 

Anyone who has not yet seen a "Catholics Come Home" commercial should go to their outstanding interactive web site . Watch these beautifully produced commercials! Read about this fruitful New Evangelization Apostolate. Be encouraged in your own faith and find the courage to give it away to others. Learn to feel good again about being a Catholic Christian.Then, join the effort. 

I recently received some very good news from Tom Peterson about  a major ffort being undertaken by "Catholics Come Home" to share the good news of the Christian life as found in its fullness within the Catholic Church. Tom, who refers to himself as an "advertising guy...simple and not a scholar," has built "Catholics Come Home" into an evangelization effort which is unmatched in the Catholic Church today.

"Catholics Come Home" has launched a national, prime-time network television evangelization initiative, for the first time ever in the 2,000 year history of the Catholic Church. The commercials will air from December 16, 2011 through January 8, 2012. These television commercials will reach 250 million television viewers in over 10,000 U.S. cities and every diocese throughout the United States, airing over 400 times during the three week period spanning before Christmas through the Feast of the Epiphany, January 8, 2012. 
 
I spoke with Tom today and he was excited that both the Wall Street Journal and MSNBC recently reported on this extraordinary television campaign. The Journal, in an article written by Jennifer Levits entitled "Roman Catholic Lay organization Plans Major TV Campaign" wrote,

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"A Roman Catholic lay organization is launching a $3.5 million prime-time television campaign aimed at drawing more people to the faith and to church. Catholics Come Home, a national non-profit led by Catholic business people and theologians in partnership with dioceses around the country, called it the denomination's first-ever "television evangelization initiative."

"Commercials, airing in English and Spanish on major networks in every diocese between Dec. 16 and Jan. 9, will highlight the history, spirituality, and accomplishments of the 2,000-year-old Catholic faith in 30- and 60-second spots."

In an MSNBC piece entitled "Prime Time Religion: Catholics to Air National TV Ads", James Eng wrote that "Catholics Come Home wants Catholics to come back to church, and it's using prime-time television ads to get across the message" .

The bi-lingual Catholics Come Home commercials are scheduled to air on CBS, NBC, Univision, TBS, USA, TNT, CNN, FoxNews, and other networks during shows like 60 Minutes, NCIS, Kennedy Center Honors, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Jay Leno, O'Reilly, major sports, and highly rated sitcoms. Viewers will be directed to their parish and will learn more at CatholicsComeHome.org  or CatolicosRegresen.org (Spanish).   In October of 2012 a Bishops Synod will be held in Rome on the theme of the "New Evangelization."

Throughout the pontificate of Blessed John Paul II he called for such a "New Evangelization." Pope Benedict XVI has made the New Evangelization a central pillar of his pontificate. He erected a Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization tasked with evangelizing countries where the Gospel was announced centuries ago, but where its presence in peoples' daily life seems to be all but lost.

The call to a New Evangelization invites each of us to live our baptismal vocation, no matter what our state in life, completely given over to the work of the Lord in this crucial hour. We do that when we choose to live at the heart of the Church for the sake of the world. We do that when we share the "Good News", the Gospel, as found in its fullness within the Catholic Church, with others.

Since the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church we have been constantly reminded that the Church is by nature missionary and that every baptized Christian participates in her missionary activity. The New Evangelization means taking this truth to heart and living differently. It requires an authentic renewal of the Church so that she can undertake a new missionary outreach. Then it requires all of her members taking evangelization as a mission of their own. 

I believe that we are at the beginning of a great resurgence in the Catholic Church precisely for this mission. Just when her opponents are ready to count the Catholic Church out, the sleeping giant is rising. Church history demonstrates that seasons of purification are often followed by times of great restoration and revival for the Church. So it will be in our day.

The Catholic Church is not a mere human institution. If it were, it would have shipwrecked long ago. The contemporary culture has lost its way, throwing off almost every remnant of Christian influence. It has embraced a new paganism. What Pope Benedict calls the "Dictatorship of Relativism" is the bad fruit of a rejection of truth.

Given the current state of moral decline in Western Culture we need to view the entirety of the American continent as missionary territory, ripe for the New Evangelization. We also need to view the once Christian Nations of the European continent as mission territory.  Most importantly, we need to view ourselves as missionaries in a new missionary age.

The Lord of the harvest is calling workers to the New Evangelization of His Church. His Vicar, Pope Benedict XVI is serving Him well by calling us into the fields of contemporary culture which are ripe and ready for harvest. He is enlisting us in a new missionary age of His Church.

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In an Angelus message given in October of this year, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed, "Today we live in an epoch of new evangelization. Vast horizons open up to the Gospel, while regions of ancient Christian tradition are called to rediscover the beauty of the faith. The protagonists of this mission are the men and women who, like St. Paul, can say: "For me to live is Christ " -- persons, families, communities, who decide to work in the vineyard of the Lord, according to the image of this Sunday's Gospel (cf. Matthew 20:1-16)."

Tom Peterson is one these protagonists and "Catholics Come Home" is only the beginning of a great movement of the Holy Spirit.  It is a movement for a New Evangelization. The Church can - and will - transform the world of the Third millennium as she did the world of the first and the second millennium.The message and mission of the Church have not changed. Neither has the One who founded her and calls her to continue His mission until He returns in glory.

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