{"id":3118,"date":"2008-05-28T08:29:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-28T08:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/05\/rounding-up-the-sheep.html"},"modified":"2008-05-28T08:29:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-28T08:29:00","slug":"rounding-up-the-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/05\/rounding-up-the-sheep.html","title":{"rendered":"Rounding up the sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catholics are a distinct minority in Alabama, but a paper<\/a> there reports on some of the efforts underway to find and bring back lapsed members of the flock: <\/p>\n

Churches grow and shrink. That’s something that has al\u00adways happened in the religious community, including the Cath\u00adolic Church. But when the Cath\u00adolic Church starts shrinking, it does what some other churches do not: It asks why.<\/p>\n

Catholicism in the United States has grown dramatically throughout the country’s histo\u00adry. In fact, the third-largest Catholic population in the world is in the United States, with 76.9 million residents professing faith as of 2003.<\/p>\n

The state of Alabama con\u00adtains approximately 140,000 Catholics and as with many oth\u00ader church denominations across the country, the Catholic Church has been losing mem\u00adbers. And St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, the only Catholic church in Prattville, wants to know why.<\/p>\n

Father Philip McKenna has been a priest for 46 years, nine of those being at St. Joseph’s, and he believes that the decline in church membership includes several factors.<\/p>\n

“The marriage issue is the biggest reason,” said McKenna.<\/p>\n

McKenna said that those who divorce and then remarry non-Catholics tend to leave the church. The Catholic Church is very strict on the issue of di\u00advorce and with so many mar\u00adriages ending in divorce, many feel uncomfortable returning to the church after such a situa\u00adtion.<\/p>\n

McKenna also says that secu\u00adlarism has kept people from ei\u00adther becoming Catholics or com\u00ading back to the church once they’ve left.<\/p>\n

“Young people are being brought up with secular val\u00adues,” he said. “Society says mak\u00ading a profit makes you a success, but success is in your personal life and your family.”<\/p>\n

McKenna believes that peo\u00adple in the United States treat re\u00adligion as if it’s there in case they need it, instead of being a way of life. He also believes that society is focused on what people can get, instead of what they can give.<\/p>\n

“We expect to be enter\u00adtained,” he said.<\/p>\n

McKenna has seen people leave the church also because of a lack of information and ru\u00admors about what the church teaches.<\/p>\n

“There are a lot of miscon\u00adceptions about the church as well,” McKenna said.<\/p>\n

Jacque Ellison is the director of religious education at St. Jo\u00adseph’s. She has helped the church address this situation by planning four classes that are designed to give those who have left the Catholic Church, a chance to talk about why they left and to hopefully resolve their issues.<\/p>\n

“There’s one class on why they left,” said Ellison. “There’s also one on the changes that have happened in the church, and one on reconciliation with the church, and one on marriage and annulment.”<\/p>\n

“We want people to tell their story,” said Ellison.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more at the link. It sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catholics are a distinct minority in Alabama, but a paper there reports on some of the efforts underway to find and bring back lapsed members of the flock: Churches grow and shrink. That’s something that has al\u00adways happened in the religious community, including the Cath\u00adolic Church. But when the Cath\u00adolic Church starts shrinking, it does…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nRounding up the sheep - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/05\/rounding-up-the-sheep.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rounding up the sheep - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Catholics are a distinct minority in Alabama, but a paper there reports on some of the efforts underway to find and bring back lapsed members of the flock: Churches grow and shrink. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}