Catholics tend to be shy about evangelizing. And, it shows.
The decline in Sunday Mass attendance is best described as a plummet. Seventy-five percent of Catholics went to Mass weekly in 1955 Gallup reported. That dropped to about 39 percent according to data collected between 2014 and 2017; which was down from 45 percent between 2005 and 2008.
It’s a disturbing trend and one that Msgr. Thomas Richter, pastor of Queen of Peace Church in Dickinson, wants Catholics to do something about. He addressed this issue as the featured speaker last month at the University of Mary’s St. Hildegard Lecture series, explaining that evangelizing is primarily the job of laity.
“It’s the job of the clergy to feed, teach and heal the souls so that the laity can bring Christ and the Gospel to others and others to Christ,” Msgr. Richter said. In the New Testament, he pointed to the example of Andrew, having met Jesus, then brought his brother Peter to him. He acknowledged, however, that Catholics often fear evangelizing is too complicated or confrontational. It is neither, according to him, but we must begin by encountering Christ personally so that doing otherwise is unthinkable.
Get excited
Evangelization was not always something that excited Msgr. Richter. Some of the words that once caused him to glaze over were: stewardship, vocations and evangelization. Ironically, he was appointed and served as the full-time vocations director for the diocese for 11 years from 2003-2013. And, it was through getting to know Michelle Duppong, who died from cancer at the age of 31 on Dec. 25, 2015, that drew him into a love of evangelization. Duppong had served as a missionary with FOCUS, evangelizing on college campuses for six years. In 2012, she became the director of adult faith formation for the Diocese of Bismarck and coordinated many events such as the THIRST conference.
“Her whole life was evangelization,” Msgr. Richter said. “She was excited about it. Toward the end of her life and after her death, I started getting excited about it, too.” He credits her redemptive suffering—which is receiving God’s love at the cross—with his inspiration. He began writing church bulletin articles about evangelization and wrote a 25-page booklet entitled “Integrated Evangelization: How to Facilitate the Encounter with Christ.”
Feel the need
Catholics who love their faith, will be excited about it, Msgr. Richter explained. There is no room for complacency, he said, because the ramifications of the dropping Mass attendance are very serious.
For instance, he pointed out that only 10% of millennials (born 1981-1996) attend Sunday Mass. “That means that 9 out of 10 do not.” Monsignor went on to explain that in 1972, in the U.S., there were 415,000 marriages in the Church, but 45 years later, only 148,000 Catholic marriages; down about 1/3 even though the Catholic population has grown by 25 million. Baptisms are also down. In 1997, there were 1.1 million but twenty years later, there were only 700,000.
“We need to feel the need to evangelize as a Christ-given duty and privilege. It comes from Jesus and it’s not optional,” Msgr. Richter said. He shared the story of someone at a World Youth Day Conference asking Saint Pope John Paul II if a person who does not know Jesus can get to heaven. “He said that a better question is: ‘Do those who do know Jesus and don’t evangelize, can they go to heaven?’”
What you love
“One reason we may hesitate to evangelize is that we have not really met the living Jesus,” Msgr. Richter said. Getting to know Jesus on a personal level, changes everything, he explained. “As my heart comes to know and love Jesus, evangelizing comes naturally,” he said. “How hard is it to talk about that which we love?”
He pointed to an interview with Carson Wentz, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles who is from Bismarck. Wentz’s quote went something like this, “I always tell people that I love my job and I love my wife. If you love what you do, you’re going to talk about it. Well, I love Jesus, so I talk about Him.”
Msgr. Richter quoted from Pope Benedict XVI’s address to Catholic educators in 2008 who challenged them to make it of “paramount importance” to witness their own faith in Christ as a bearer of the message God Himself has revealed to us. “This unique encounter is sustained within our Christian community: the one who seeks the truth becomes the one who lives by faith,” Pope Benedict said.
Referring to Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Msgr. Richter said that she once expressed concern to her brothers and sisters that they should really meet Jesus, not from books but from the heart, because otherwise, faith is dead.
How to
Evangelization should be wrapped up in four actions, according to Msgr. Richter: 1) praying for God to lead us, 2) praying for others, 3) reaching out to others to show we care, and 4) accompanying others on their journey.
Here are a few of his suggestions:
We don’t have to be strange or come off as quirky.
Be intentional. Bring your faith into your daily life.
Introduce others to Jesus, like when Matthew the tax collector invited Jesus for dinner and had his buddies over, too.
Define the things you like and are good at—even hobbies such as hunting and playing cards—and bring Jesus into it. He used the example of a bride and groom asking for their bridal party for the gift of going to confession before their ceremony and then having a priest present at the rehearsal for confessions.
Invite friends to Catholic groups and events such as Mass, a talk, a Catholic funeral, Stations of the Cross at Lent, a pilgrimage, a retreat, over for dinner with other Catholics, to watch a Christian movie or give them a good book or CD.
“The challenge is to move from being catechized to evangelizing,” Msgr. Richter said. And instead of asking the popularized question,
what would Jesus do? he said to ask,
Jesus, what are you doing?
“When we have a lived relationship with him,” he said, “much of the complication of evangelizing goes away.”
To obtain a copy of Msgr. Richter’s booklet, “Integrated Evangelization,” email [email protected]. Cost is $3. Price breaks are available for larger quantities.