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Published: April 2, 2009
“150,000 new or returning Catholics”
Hundreds of thousands expected to join Church during April 11 Easter Vigils
News release from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
March 31, 2009
WASHINGTON -- As many as 150,000 new or returning Catholics are expected to join the Catholic Church in 2009 in the United States. Many of them will do so at the Easter Vigil liturgies, April 11, in parishes across the country.
In some cases the numbers show the growth and vitality of the Catholic Church in places where it has traditionally been a small minority. For instance, the Archdiocese of Atlanta estimates that 513 catechumens and 2,195 candidates will join the ranks of the Archdiocese in 2009. About 1,800 of them will do so at Easter. These numbers do not include infant baptisms, which are recorded separately.
 Catechumens are people who have never been baptized. Candidates are those who have received baptism in another Christian community and are seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.
"The Archdiocese of Atlanta is in a part of the country with a large non-Catholic population, and has been blessed with an authentic dynamism during recent years, which is perhaps best expressed in our annual Eucharistic Congress, which draws some 30,000 participants,” said Father Theodore Book, director of the Office of Divine Worship for the Atlanta Archdiocese. “One of the many blessings that we have received from the Lord is the large number of individuals entering the Church."
And they are not the only ones. On the opposite side of the country, the Archdiocese of Seattle will welcome 736 catechumens and 506 candidates for a total of 1,242 new members; and the Diocese of San Diego will baptize 305 new members and welcome 920 other baptized Christians adding a total of 1,225 to its ranks.
In the mostly rural Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, the Cathedral of St. Paul could not handle all who are joining, 445 people in total, and their families for the Rite of Election. The rites were held in three different ceremonies, two at the Cathedral on the first Sunday of Lent, and another one in Huntsville the prior Saturday. Braving snow, some came from as far as 80 miles away to participate. The Rite of Election, usually celebrated at the beginning of Lent, marks the official countdown to the official initiation or admission into the Church.
Baptism also will have a special significance this year for Heidi Sierras of Ceres, near Modesto, along with her family, church sponsors and parish community. Sierras will be representing the people of North America at the Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, and will be baptized by Pope Benedict XVI.
Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 8:47 AM By Alicia
It has been my experience that converts and Catholics by Choice are the most orthodox, on-fire people in our Church. The work of the Holy Spirit goes forth . . . . be not afraid.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:24 AM By Maryanne Leonard
Halleluja! These new and returning Catholic represent both blessings for the Church and a cause for us all to rejoice in welcoming them home. I make it a point to smile at people when I go to Mass or attend Church functions and look for new faces especially. It makes a difference to people when they feel welcome and their presence is a cause for joy in others.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:52 AM By garvan
I pray to God none of these new Catholics are among the 40% of church-going Catholics who approve of abortion.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 1:04 PM By Jimmy Mac
And how many US Catholics do you think have simply slipped away since last Easter? I'm sure that it is a LOT more than 150,000.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 2:08 PM By Bruce
It would be very interesting to survey these catechumens and ask them why they are leaving their former religious denominations and what draws them to becoming members of the catholic church. Also to ask them when they came to the realization to take the courage (that big step) to become catholic over their personal hinderances and what they hope to gain. And finally to ask them what religious denominations they came from. We could stand to learn a lot in applying this new found knowlege to missionary work, with the intention of subsequently drawing more souls to the church. I would enjoy reading what the results turned out to be. May God bless them and show them the Way to His Eternal Home.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:25 PM By MarkF
Folks, always remember that this mess of a God-hating secular culture will always produce a fair number of people who are just sick to death of it and want something more. In the past it is has been the evangelical and pentecostal groups who have reached out to people in those conditions. Now it is our turn.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 5:16 PM By Fr. M.P.
Pray that these new Catholics remain faithful and show all Catholics, especially cradle Catholics, what it means to live a faithful life.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 5:40 PM By Tom
Jimmy, Sad to say, but I think you are making a very valid point. Considering the Pew Survey reported earlier this year which reflects the dismal results of those american catholics whom have lost at least a portion of their catholic faith to the point they've lost their devotion and dedicated regular/weekly attendance at worship services the losses far outweigh the gains. There are many reasons this could be, and the church needs to be restored where it is thriving with 80+ million souls seeking and loving God, practicing their faith in prayers and actions daily, and longing for their eternal reward in Heaven. What will it take to restore the church militant to the way it was? Bruce, I agree with your survey. May God bless and restore our Roman Catholic Faith and Church here in America and in the world. Pray the Rosary for Blessed Mother's intercession.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:04 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Considering the sorry state of our catechisis in this county, I hope and pray they really know the Faith they are entering.
Atlanta is where the Obama lover, Arch. Wilton Gregory is.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founder & Chairman
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 10:48 PM By Almond Milk
Kenneth M. Fisher your comments posted are so true. Catechisis in this country and in some area's are truly in deep trouble. When my husband converted He actually learned more from studying from books written by the early church fathers, he learned more from watching EWTN, even from Tan books. Me being a cradle Catholic grew with him. We love our beautiful Catholic faith, we hold the wholeness of the truth. We still have more to learn and keep growing. We have such a beautiful and enriching faith, Jesus left us this beautiful gift, His Church. Lets soak our self's in it and watch what happens. Watering it down will only produce confusion and many more lukewarm Catholics. It is up to the faithful to keep sharing/spreading the faith, not just by word but by example in Christ.
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Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:22 PM By BJ
Tony Blair was accepted into the Catholic church recently. His efforts to push a liberal, anti traditional family, ' pro choice' social agenda are legendary in the UK. Whilst of course being 'personally against...... balh, blah, blah....' My guess is that none of the family who have joined in Atlantic City, Seattle & Birmingham are of this 'contra Catholic' doctrine persuasion. So why are the high profile contra basic Catholic teachings politcians, those who will actually influence law making in the world, being tolerated and in Blair's case warmly welcomed? A European Pelosi and Biden et al and he is actually 'accepted' into the church without having to explain his enthusiasm for contra Catholic legislation. This man could be 'President of Europe' before very long. He didn't sit on fences, he was a driving force and celebrated with a 'jig of joy ' ( his own words) when pro homosexual lifestyle legislation was passed in the UK. He can now use his new found Catholicism as a source of confusion and a rallying point for those 'liberals' who also call themselves 'Catholic'.
What is going on? Can anyone explain?
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 12:38 AM By The other Mike
150,000 converts is great news! Go forth and multiply! Also, congratulations to the dedicated RCIA catechists - keep up the good work.
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 6:09 AM By Bob
For heaven's sake folks, this should be loaded with shouts of joy, dancing in the street and loud praise. We have new members of Christ's body. Wow! Isn't that great?
This whold string should not be filled with the negative stuff that has been posted already, should it? Where is the Love? Remember, where God is, there is Love! Let's show love for these people, not doubt.
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 10:46 AM By Heaven's 2 Purgatory
Pray Bob that Our Lord will give you sight to see what negative stuff the bloggers are talking about. Only then, considering each and everyone of us and having the courage to listen to God's will and change to holiness within ourselves, praying and practicing our catholic heritage rites daily will the Roman Catholic Church grow by leaps and bounds of souls, much like it did when the Apostle's were spreading Christ's message to the ends of the earth. It is recorded that some of them and later saints in history converted and baptized thousands of pagans in a single event! That is the power of the Holy Ghost!
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 12:23 PM By Penitential Ski Ven
Just some anecdotal evidence. I know a priest who was trying to teach some high school students about the faith. To make it brief: they refused to believe that lying is wrong. God help us.
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 1:41 PM By Grisha
Five of those 150,000 will join us on Easter at our parish. Hallelujah!
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 6:01 PM By Trevor
Bob, If I might speak for the "negative stuffers" its like if back in the 1960s the NY Yankees, (America's Team) changed it managment, coaching, and players to where they weren't the same winning team anylonger. Over the years millions of fans would have become disgruntled and became fans of other teams or bitterly dumped baseball as their favorite past-time all together. Then let's say today and perhaps the last few years each a 100,000 or so other teams fans decided to become NY Yankee fans. Old Yankee fans holding onto nostalgia from the past would say, "its just not the way it used to be!" because its all for the fans and there just aren't nearly as many fans as there used to be. Also from Google you can find the American Religion Survey results; they are quite disheartening. Pray for our country, our citizens, and our government leaders.
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 6:47 PM By Anita
Hey Bob.... Where God is, there is Justice. There will be reward and punishment. When people say 'God is Love' they need to understand love. It is not acceptance of evil. God wants us to follow his law and if we don't, we go to hell. That is pretty serious. We need to talk about it while we still can. May God Bless you.
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 10:47 PM By JLS
Penitential Ski Ven, there was a considerable discussion on lying on this site some months ago. It is not a simple issue. The CCC covers it pretty well, but the typical error in reading it appeared to be where the reader would count part of the instruction and then spin that to whatever they wanted. Usually they would claim that the CCC says lying is intrinsically evil, but that is not what it says. The typical example that shows that lying can be justified is where you are protecting someone's life from a murderer. So, you can go to the CCC and spend a few hours wrestling with the topic; it is often fun and challenging to strive towards objective interpretation, jettison presuppositions and try to arrive at the truth.
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Posted Saturday, April 04, 2009 9:55 AM By JLS
Moreover, the reason God gave us His Law is to show us His love. Jesus is the fulfillment of God's Law, and is also Love. Many there are who de facto say that God is schizoid, ie split in this regard ... eg the stern father and easy going son, but this is utterly wrong and a demonstration of disrespect for the integrity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Who are one God; none of the three Persons of the Trinity hold different opinions; you cannot play one against the other; They are absolute. Breaking the Law is violating Love.
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Posted Sunday, April 05, 2009 10:59 PM By Almond Milk
Bob I'm confused? What negative stuff are you talking about. Facts are not negative, they may be unpleasing to hear but they are facts. I conclude, praise God more are coming into the faith, lets make sure they embrace the wholeness of the faith.
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Posted Monday, April 06, 2009 11:32 AM By Jon
Unfortunately, my personal experience is that the vast majority of RCIA programs do a miserable job of presenting the Catholic faith accurately and completely. The Bishops pay less attention to RCIA programs than they do to abortionist politicians. Indeed, the heresies I have heard and seen presented in RCIA programs would make JPII and B16 shudder. Alas, it is my firm belief that, unless they are self instructed, the majority of those entering the Church each Easter are severely uncatechised.
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Posted Monday, April 06, 2009 4:32 PM By Almond Milk
Jon I agree with what you just posted. I have seen RCIA programs that friends of ours have attended and believe me, they really need our help. The church needs to improve this program and truly stop watering down the faith. Our faith is beautiful lets not ever compromise it. Same goes for CCD programs too. I had a friend who was a CCD teacher for many years, now she is teaching Sunday school at a local protestant church.
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Posted Monday, April 06, 2009 8:06 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: Catholic moral theology holds that it is not a lie in the first place to speak by way of indirection where one exercises a JUSTIFIED mental reservation in doing so, as in the case of -- as you put -- "protecting someone's life from a murderer." Yet here you are, still calling a justified mental reservation a lie when a justified mental reservation is not a lie at all but rather just what it is: a justified mental reservation (ANSWER: "No, the child is not in the basement [reserved and unexpressed: NOT FOR YOUR MURDEROUS PURPOSES]"). That, JLS, is an example of a justified mental reservation and not at all, as you've just now claimed, an instance of "lying... justified". This distinction, JLS, is immensely important in the ethics of truth-telling.
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Posted Monday, April 06, 2009 9:42 PM By Panther
One can only hope that a majority of those returning are progressive, peace loving, social justice oriented, help the poor, pro women Catholics like me. I'll pray for that.
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Posted Tuesday, April 07, 2009 5:38 AM By Dai Yoshida
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The RE Congress in L A is the root of all evil. If Bishops instructed their diocesan catechists to avoid attending that hootenanny of secular commercialism and New Age ministry, much of the RCIA and CCD confusion will go away.
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Posted Tuesday, April 07, 2009 6:47 AM By Bob
This string has gone from praise and prayer for the new members of the Body of Christ, to how awful it would be if one of them came from Atlanta, to how awful RCIA and CCD are for our people. Here we have 150,000 people who have seen the love of God, taken Christ as their light, and we complain. You can't water down the essentials of our faith: Christ died for our sins and rose agian for our salvation. After that, it is all rules and regulations. We need to pray for the people who talk of the law all the time and never about the Love of Christ. Can we not approach our faitn in Child like terms: Jesus love me, this I know ..;.
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Posted Tuesday, April 07, 2009 5:06 PM By Jon
Bob says, "You can't water down the essentials of our faith". Bob's obviously never been in an RCIA program.
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Posted Tuesday, April 07, 2009 8:01 PM By JLS
OK, Maguire, I read your post more carefully. You falsely accuse me of calling a mental reservation a lie. What you are confusing is common jargon with technical jargon. If you'd have bothered to read my series of posts in the several discussions on this topic months ago, you'd see that I am doing no such thing as calling a mental reservation a lie. In fact, you'd find, if you read my posts, that I belabored the point that there are two types of "lies". One type is intrinsically sinful if it is bent on deception of the truth. Now you also have to understand that "truth" and "fact" are not the same thing, yet are often confused. The other type I pointed out is what you call mental reservation. You are explaining the concept using terms I do not tend to use, because I have a different way of explaining things ... mainly because I do not run into people who discuss these issues from a well honed academic or professional level. And in case you missed my several posts explaining why I do not care to use technical terms so often, it is this in a nutshell: Jesus didn't. It is more effective to communicate ideas using simple words. I'm not too focused on explaining matters in technical jargon to those who are used to reading that material. Often they understand it; sometimes they don't. If they don't, then I don't see the point in using jargon they already have failed to grasp. Do you see what I am talking about?
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Posted Wednesday, April 08, 2009 10:22 AM By Bob
It would be ineresting to see a list of what is taught in RCIA and what you think should be taught. Rather than say that it is bad, list the facts that should be taught during this period of discernment.
Facts help, emotions don't.
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Posted Wednesday, April 08, 2009 1:03 PM By Eileen
Bob, You asked the question, "Can we not approach our faith in Child like terms?" Yes, you can Bob when you approach your faith with trust in God. "Let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Amen I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God as a little child will not enter into it." Mark 10: 14-15 The Facts that are taught in RCIA classes should correlate with the Facts taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. To deliberately change, misrepresent or ignore those facts in the Catechism because of personal opinions or hidden agendas is to hinder those children seeking the kingdom of God.
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Posted Thursday, April 09, 2009 12:16 AM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Bob,
A year ago, a young woman came to me as we were demonstrating at the REC, and she opened her heart to me to tell me she had recently lost her virginity. I advised her to go to confession, but to not go to a priest who would tell her that what she had done was not sinful because she was only human and it was natural. She then told me that she had already found such a priest at the Congress and had rejected him. I told her the fact that she had rejected him was the Grace of God. That Bob is the kind of thing we are talking about and it is often taught in RCIA!
I once had a Scout who had just finished his First Communion Class. When I mentioned Purgatory, he had no idea what I was talking about until I took a few minutes to explain it to him. That is also what we are talking about.
Perhaps others will ad their own horror stories for your enlightenment.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founder & Chairman
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
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