Of course the Catholic Church is winning. Stop acting surprised.
Every month or so, a new secular journalist asks me why so many young people are coming back to the Catholic Church.
I get why they’re surprised.
But what’s funny is that many Catholics seem surprised, too.
To them I ask: Where have you been?
We’re three decades into a project to re-evangelize the West. It was bound to work eventually.
What did you think “New Evangelization” meant? (Essays? Vibes?)
Before the turn of the millennium, John Paul II looked at the Western world and diagnosed the actual problem.
The days of evangelizing people who have never heard of Christ are largely gone. We need to reach the baptized who have lost a living sense of the faith.
He called for a new evangelization to reach those people. And lay people actually listened.
Starting in the 90s, apostolates began doing the unglamorous work. FOCUS on college campuses. Franciscan University’s Steubenville conferences, St. Paul Street Evangelization, standing on actual street corners. Small groups of ordinary Catholics who decided that the mission was real and the harvest was worth the labor.
And the fruit is now noticeable.
The decline in church attendance has stalled. Parishes and college campuses are seeing record numbers of conversions. Catholicism is a real option for people now, rather than just a niche religion for a few.
Three principles from the Bible tell us why.
1) A little yeast leavens the whole loaf
Paul said: “A little yeast leavens the whole loaf.” (Galatians 5:9)
The apostolic effort of a few people works through the whole church to make it grow. We’re living inside that disproportionate result right now.
FOCUS began as a handful of missionaries, and now their SEEK conference can’t fit into a single venue anymore.
I receive a lot of pushback when I suggest individual Catholics work to save their parishes and the Church writ large. Apostolates like FOCUS put those criticisms right where they belong (the trash).
True apostolic work from a faithful few can move a mountain. We’ve seen it.
2) One sows, another reaps
Father Mike Scanlan built the Steubenville conferences. He’s gone now. He saw some fruit, but he didn’t see all the fruit.
The conferences draw about 3,000 teens per event, with 20 conferences a summer across the US and Canada.
They sparked countless conversions and reversions, including my own and the conversions of my closest friends. Those converts evangelized others and multiplied. That is the fruit from the seeds he planted without knowing exactly what would grow.
The person who sows the seed is not always the person who reaps the harvest.
Which means the work we do right now—in our parishes, in our neighborhoods, in our domestic churches—is not primarily for our own satisfaction or our own timeline. We scatter. Someone else reaps.
Sometimes we are tempted to avoid the work of evangelization because we don’t have a long-term vision.
Accept that the work will take a long time. Then start.
3) I will be with you always
Jesus promised He would be with us always.
Why do we act like He won’t be?
Many Catholics talk about the problems in the Church and problems in this world as if they are insurmountable obstacles. We talk as if God abandoned us.
The Israelites in exile felt the same way.
They felt God had reneged on His promise to establish a permanent king on the throne of David. They refused to listen to the prophets who told them the Messiah was coming.
We are repeating the same mistake.
Christ promised He would be with us until the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20) Modern prophets keep reminding us that things will get better.
Why don’t we listen?
Stop the despair
The Church is winning because God will not abandon His People.
I see two options.
Waste our energy being anxious
Start working
It’s a choice between hope and despair
You are welcome to choose despair. The Church will win anyway, and you will enjoy the fruit of others’ labor.
The only difference if you choose despair is that you will needlessly suffer between now and the coming promise.
I choose to work. I choose to hope in the promises of Christ because hope does not disappoint.
I hope you will join me.
I wrote Save Your Parish to help you begin this work at your parish.
I have sponsored two FOCUS collage students. They are so alive with the Faith. It was an honor to do so.
Love the title! This what Servant of God Fr. Luigi Giussani was similarly about! His lay movement Communion and Liberation continues this!