What's the difference between proselytizing and evangelizing?

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Dominvs…

If I were to write an article concerning our Catholic faith on my own for the paper, no problem with that. But, because the name of the parish is associated with the article, our pastor feels its in the churchs best interest NOT to “make waves” in the protestant community. I think it has something to do with the numbers. Our whole parish has around 600 families, just one Baptist church has that many children, not counting the adults, and thats just ONE church.

I keep throwing him hints every now and then about what the protestant churches are writting, maybe he will get the idea, who knows.
 
What’s the difference? None. It’s on the lines of ‘I’m determined; you’re stubborn; he’s pig-headed’. Proselytizing is the name given to evangelism by those who don’t like either.

Sue
 
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Teresita:
What’s the difference? None. It’s on the lines of ‘I’m determined; you’re stubborn; he’s pig-headed’. Proselytizing is the name given to evangelism by those who don’t like either.
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Close. To me, a proselytizer is an evangelist that doesn’t take “no” for an answer.
 
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DominvsVobiscvm:
That’s a load of Bull if I ever heard it. Every Catholic before the 1960s would have known it was the Church’s sacred duty to evangelize; and in fact, this is exactly what Vatican II and the Catechism say.

The hierarchy of the obligation to lead efforts to evangelize, although we lay also have the unfortunate obligation to pick up the slack when said hierarchy fail in this regard.
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Are not all of us – laymen and clergy alike – members of the same Body of Christ, the same Church? Do we laymen only have the obligation when the clergy does not do a good job (according to our criteria)? I don’t think so. I think it is indeed every member’s responsibility to evangelize in whatever way they are capable. Your complaint seems to be that the clergy doesn’t do enough evangelizing or do it well, but I don’t think it’s a clergy-only problem.
 
I were to write an article concerning our Catholic faith on my own for the paper, no problem with that. But, because the name of the parish is associated with the article, our pastor feels its in the churchs best interest NOT to “make waves” in the protestant community.
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Unless the nespaper has delegated your pastor to appoint a writer for these articles, he has no business telling you what to write, or not to write. He may advise you, yes, but has no right, even under Church law, to make you conform, or feel guilty for not doing so.

If this is the case, I say go ahead and write something Catholic, thank your priest for his advice, and otherwise ignore him.

If this is something for which the priest has been delegated by the paper, that would be different. In that case, the priest would still be an idiot, but at least there’s no choice on your part . . .
 
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