October 11th kicked off our Year of Faith, which marked the 50th anniversary of Vatican Council II, and also celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Two weeks later, I’ve seen some traction and discussion online, but yet the official Facebook fan page only has a little over 8,000 fans. The Vatican’s Year of Faith site has an overwhelming amount of information and reading material, but I’m having a hard time working the Year of Faith into my day-to-day life. I’ve signed up to receive emails of the Catechism each day, but to be honest I forget and have to catch up by reading 3 or 4 days worth at a time.
In the spirit of making an effort to think about why we’re Catholic and what we believe in, Catholic Tech Talk would like to start “Year of Faith Fridays,” where we’ll post about the Vatican, our Catechism, our faith, and anything in between that will spark conversation and help us grow in this year of re-invigoration. Also, we’ll be tweeting our thoughts and interesting facts using the hashtag #YOF on Twitter, and we hope you do the same!
“Year of Faith should not just be a theme; it should be a key phrase that shows up again and again in our conversations, preaching, publications and postings.”
-Sr. Susan Wolf, SND
So, the Year of Faith October Prayer Intention is “For all those who are absent from our assemblies.” Though this seems like a somber intention to kickoff the year, it’s an important one. But instead of focusing on the number of Catholics who have fallen away, or those who identify themselves as Catholic but do not see the importance of celebrating regularly, I thought I would post about CatholicsComeHome.com, a wonderful organization devoted to evangelizing and welcoming Catholics back to our assemblies.
“Six months after the CatholicsComeHome.org media campaign ended, a comprehensive analysis was conducted, which revealed the average increase in Mass attendance (returned Catholics, new converts) was 12 percent, even though population growth in the Diocese of Phoenix was flat during that period. This equates to an increase of as many as 92,000 souls who came home!” -Ryan Hanning, Director of Adult Evangelization, Diocese of Phoenix
I’ve seen links to this site on a lot of Diocesan websites, but I would love to see one on every parish website and Catholic blog. (A link to CCH will be on CTT soon!) Maybe I’m mistaken, but in their list of parish resources I don’t see image links or video embed codes that staff members can send to their webmasters to place on their site. If anyone knows if these are available please let me know! And if you haven’t yet, read today’s Catechism email! It’s Day 16.
