Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Atlanta (Agenzia Fides) – This Advent and Christmas season, the Catholic association Catholics Come Home, Inc. (CCH) is collaborating with Catholic dioceses across the United States, using television ads to encourage fallen away Catholics to return to their parish "homes." According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, one in four Americans identifies himself as Catholic, but only 25 percent of those Catholics attend Mass every week. One in 10 Americans is a former Catholic. Thus, there is never a lack of audience.
The CCH advertising campaign includes three different types of commercials, from 30 seconds to two minutes in length, aired at “prime-time hours” that present Catholicism from various viewpoints. One of the ads shows all the good that the Catholic Church has offered and continues to offer society, another shows someone at the end of their life reflecting on how they have lived it until that moment, and others are simply brief testimonies from people who have returned to the practice of their faith. Dioceses across the nation are launching the Catholics Come Home program either this Advent or during Lent next spring. In the Archdiocese of Chicago, for example, the ads will be appearing on all the major television networks throughout the area in English, Polish and Spanish.
The Atlanta-based “Catholics Come Home” was founded by Tom Peterson who, after having himself “returned home” to the Catholic faith, felt called to found Catholics Come Home, Inc. and VirtueMedia, Inc., educational not-for-profit apostolates, dedicated to promoting Catholic evangelization and the sanctity of human life. Its first Catholic evangelism messages began airing on television in 1998, in preparation for the Jubilee 2000. In 2008, Catholics Come Home began their ads and interactive website approach to evangelization for three weeks during Lent in the Diocese of Phoenix (Arizona), which has 1.1 million Catholics. In less than three weeks, 3,000 Catholics in the Diocese had returned to the Church. As Peterson himself comments: “No creative marketing team could possibly yield these miraculous results. This is truly an apostolic movement designed and directed by the Holy Spirit. Our invitation is simple: ‘We are Catholic. Welcome Home’.” (AR) (Agenzia Fides 21/12/2009)
