10 Reasons Why Catholics Don’t Evangelize

[Tis_Bearself]

But there are a lot of never-Catholics like Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft, Edith Stein, Dale Alquist, and so many others who read their way into the Church. If you made a list of the strongest apologists and evangelists today, half would be converts.

This is true, but the kind of thoughtful person who enters the Church by this path has less need of an evangelization program, and your average person from a parish is not equipped to provide it unless they too are a convert from a similar background, nor should they all need to be equipped to provide it. Edith Stein’s conversion was heavily influenced by people who, like her, studied and taught philosophy. I am sure your average Catholic in a parish in her day was not on that level, and it is not necessary for them all to be on that level; there are different types of faith experience, and people at the kindly coffee-and-donuts level will be evangelizing to a different group who are more interested in the personal experience and less interested in Truth and Theology.

Edith also had great ability to seek out necessary sources to help her in her quest for truth. Today we have the Internet so people can find sources there, and find people to discuss theology and answer complex questions on sites like CAF.

I’m not saying it’s bad for people to be knowledgeable about their faith, and likely many average Catholics could use a little more catechesis, but at the same time, we don’t all need to be Thomistic scholars in order to evangelize. The appeal of saints like Therese and Faustina is that they communicated their teachings simply and accessibly. Many people can understand and connect with their writings, and often people are looking for that type of human connection, not a big “search for truth”. There’s a place for the philosophy and the search for truth also, but it’s a niche market.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you could preach the gospel without using words, there’d be a lot of non Christians accidentally preaching the gospel

There are. They do.

 

[Flopfoot]

Can you give me an example of someone who became Christian because of witnessing the work of non Christians?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

No, I can’t, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It could even happen after death.

Non-Christians showing love of neighbor and, in some cases, love of the God of Abraham are a good thing and likely have a positive influence on others and a positive effect on the world. No reason to discount that.

 

[Lea101]

My friends (non denominational Christians) evangelise due to their churches placing pressure on them.

They have meetings to discuss possible people who would convert, they have events specifically to evangelise, etc.

 

[Rob2]

(see full article in link above…)

I’ve seen the full article @observer333 .

Most Catholics don’t evangelize because they haven’t been evangelized themselves , hence the need for the new evangelization .

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I have to admit the term “New Evangelization” is one of those buzzwords like “Mission for the Church Alive” that I’m not sure what it really means and it means different things to different people.

Just the fact that it’s called “new” when the term was introduced in the early 1980s makes it confusing right there. I know that compared to the whole timeline of Church history, 35 years is still pretty “new”, but when we think “new” today we tend to think of a much shorter time span.

 

[Annie]

due to their churches placing pressure on them.

While your friends might be “pressured,” I think the idea of having meetings and workshops to teach Catholics what and how to evangelize is something we really need!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I fear that those kinds of workshops would have someone asking people to brainstorm ways they could share their faith with others and have the instructor going around the room asking each person who they shared with today or what did they do to bring someone to the faith today. With answers like, “I invited two of my friends to Mass” or “I had a discussion with my sister about why she doesn’t believe in God any more and tried to provide answers for some of her doubts.”

Maybe someone else would find this a productive activity. I tend to be in the “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words” camp.

I remember once, some years ago, trying to start a thread on a different forum, where I was friends in real life with many if not most of the members, just wanting to discuss religion like we discuss many other things (methods for cooking Thanksgiving turkey, art we like, etc). It wasn’t with a goal of converting people, it was just to discuss, as we do here. The thread quickly turned into a disaster as the main people wanting to post there were atheist/ agnostics who just wanted to trash all religion because they’d had a bad experience with it as teens or whatever, and blaming religion and specifically Christianity for all society’s ills. I learned a lesson from that experience, not a good one.

 

[Lea101]

Idk…i feel it could become cult-ish easily.

 

[Blessedwithfive]

While your friends might be “pressured,” I think the idea of having meetings and workshops to teach Catholics what and how to evangelize is something we really need!

Check out St. Paul Street Evangelization. It is on the web. Great program

 

[Annie]

The workshops don’t have to be like that.

Because of the relativism in the world, it seems like most people don’t associate religion with how one outwardly lives.

Additionally, since people do admire a lot of “public” Christian virtues, many of the activities people undertake out of their Faith do not strike others as particularly Christian.

And for some people, these words erroneously attributed to St Francis are taken to mean that they don’t really need to do more than “be a nice person.” They certainly don’t need to learn about their faith.

 

[Annie]

Not sure how that would happen.

 

[Annie]

Yes, they and the Legion of Mary are doing these things. Where I used to live LoM was unheard-of, so my impression is that they are not in many parishes. SPSE, of course, is fairly new…

 

[Tis_Bearself]

And for some people, these words erroneously attributed to St Francis are taken to mean that they don’t really need to do more than “be a nice person.” They certainly don’t need to learn about their faith.

I realize it’s not a true quote of St. Francis, but the last person I heard giving that quote and saying that’s how he lived was a very good Salesian catechist (who is also a father and a Catholic boys’ high school teacher) who was teaching a continuing education program for Catholic catechists that I attended a couple weeks ago. If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.

The same guy mentioned that St. Francis de Sales said there is only 3 times we should mention God: 1) when we pray, 2) when we do something to help another and the other person asks why we helped them - then we talk about God and love of neighbor, etc., and 3) a third thing I forget and I’ve been looking for the exact quote by the saint. Anyone know?

 

[commenter]

There’s a place for the philosophy and the search for truth also, but it’s a niche market.

A crucial niche, if you consider the specific persons who came in especially during the papacy of St JP 2.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I would imagine college campuses, and other areas that contain a lot of highly educated people, would be a good place to promote apologetics discussions for those who are interested and might respond well to that.

 

[Flopfoot]

For a long time I didn’t know what the new evangelisation meant either. Has the term really been around that long?

AFAIK it means evangelising people who are already Catholic but don’t practice.

This is fine, but it means it’s clearly not a substitute to ‘the old evangelisation’ (evangelising non Christians), just something we do in parallel

 

[Flopfoot]

I remember once, some years ago, trying to start a thread on a different forum, where I was friends in real life with many if not most of the members, just wanting to discuss religion like we discuss many other things (methods for cooking Thanksgiving turkey, art we like, etc). It wasn’t with a goal of converting people, it was just to discuss, as we do here. The thread quickly turned into a disaster as the main people wanting to post there were atheist/ agnostics who just wanted to trash all religion because they’d had a bad experience with it as teens or whatever, and blaming religion and specifically Christianity for all society’s ills. I learned a lesson from that experience, not a good one.

This is a good reason why a lot of people don’t want to evangelise, but I’m not sure it’s a good reason why people ought not to evangelise. If someone has a thick enough skin to put up with the people who want to trash religion until they find someone they can get through to, why shouldn’t they?

I recently read a book by a Protestant where he said he could advertise an outreach event which would involve fun and games for youth as well as preaching of the gospel, and lots of non-Christian families would let their kids go to it. I was surprised at this, and thought maybe it’s just because he’s in the USA and people are not as hostile toward religion there? (I’m in Australia)

 

[Lea101]

Based on my friends’ experiences, it became a ‘competition’. The more people you convert, the more Christian you are. They would come together and discuss how to help Person X, which non Christians find manipulative and gossipy even.

The comments I hear from younger, non religious youth also show me that they haaate explicit evangelisation techniques. It seems like the more natural conversations and friendships end up being more successful. I don’t mind evangelisation talks on that, specifically.