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1. Non-practicing siblings and children
2. The “I never knew the Lord as a Catholic” cop-out
3. “Born again” Christians and what to do about them
4. Catholics who have left the Church should not receive Communion
5. The Apostles Creed
6. Resources

1. Non-practicing siblings and children

Q: My husband and I are "cradle Catholics” (ages: 66 and 72)…So many of our siblings (all educated to 12+ years of Catholic Schools) have left the Faith or are non-practicing, and this is very painful for us...we love them, pray for them, and want to bring them back to the One, True Catholic Faith! What do we do? (Sent by J. and D. P. from VA)

A: My experience in this area is regretfully wide. I will divide my answer into two parts: first, why so many baptized and Catholic-school-educated Catholics have left the Faith and second, what to do about it.

First, the malaise of Catholic education and culture flowing from the implementation of the Second Vatican Council are primarily to blame for the winnowing of Catholics from the Church in the past forty years. This sad situation has left so many Catholics without a foundation and subject to spiritual collapse when they experience the battering of the wind and the waves that necessarily happens in a secularized world.

Depression-era Catholics born and bred in the hardships of that age generally received their character and moral formation in a Catholic school system which was replete with habited nuns, an emphasis on obedience to Church laws, a rather militant orthodoxy suspicious of all things Protestant and a healthy Catholic “culture” that has been totally vanquished since the 60s. Some of the “siblings” referred to above were caught up in the destruction of that Catholic culture. These had the gift of “12+ years of Catholic Schools” etc. and in a very real sense bear the moral guilt for the sin of apostasy, i.e., rejecting the True Faith when they were given so much. They knew better.

Their children, the so-called Baby Boomer generation, had it worse but for that reason are perhaps less culpable. They grew up in a post-Vatican II Church whose system of religious instruction across the board (schools, catechesis, converts, universities, etc.) decayed through the moral relativism of the Sexual Revolution and a strident rejection of objective truth. In other words, they never had the proper formation in Catholic character and morals that the old system provided. This lack of foundation, combined with the degradation of the liturgy in the same time period, was a fatal combination and has led to the dissolution of strong Catholic families over the course of several decades. I call this process “practical apostasy,” meaning that they rejected the True Faith because it was inconvenient or unattractive to them, not because they had an ideological reason to do so.

What then to do about those who have “left the faith or are non-practicing”? I recommend a prayerful approach to such situations and three practical rules to apply in dealing with loved ones who leave the Church.

First, never cease to pray for the salvation of their souls—every day and preferably at daily Mass if you can. Many souls are lost because not even one person was praying for their salvation.

Second, this prayer can and should be accompanied by some form of regular fasting and sacrifice for our loved ones. In one of my parish assignments I met a woman who was married to a real bad alcoholic for many decades. She prayed and offered all her sufferings for his conversion. He was not even baptized. In the last month of his life he asked for and received Baptism and the other sacraments and died in the grace of Christ. Prayer and sacrifice still work to bring people to conversion.

Third, send them voluminous amounts of Fr. Corapi CDs or tapes so that they will have a full and coherent presentation of Catholicism by a dynamic, orthodox priest. See his website at www.fathercorapi.com. Perhaps it will be the first time that they have ever heard it presented that way and will touch their hearts. Above all, don’t despair of their salvation. Prayer will win the day in the end.

2. The “I never knew the Lord as a Catholic” cop-out

Q: I'm really heartbroken by fallen away Catholic friends & family who say, "I never knew the Lord until I became Protestant. That was the first time I became a believer." As if they were reading the Koran in their Catholic Church? (Sent by M.H.)

A: My dear friend, you are not alone! As I said above, “Pray, Sacrifice and Corapi!” is a formula for a loved one’s return to the True Faith.

We need to admit that the background of the liberating emotional experience of Christ in the more personalistic Protestant denominations is often a boring and lifeless experience of Catholic liturgy and prayer. A great deal of the blame for the loss of Catholics to other churches in the last several decades goes to the abysmal performance of Catholic preaching and parish life in offering an experience of mystery and an environment of contact with the sacred. For that reason, the Church has often failed to give people a deep sense of belonging to Christ and to His Church, an experience which touches people to the core and keeps them coming back to drink from the Source. “They ask for bread and we feed them stones,” one spiritual author has said, and that is putting it mildly.

However, if they have had an emotional experience of Christ in Protestantism it is not because the Protestants have Christ and the Catholics don’t. There is no reason why a Catholic adult in the 21st century should claim that he or she “never knew the Lord” as a Catholic. The Catholic Church has immense resources for any thinking and feeling person to achieve a high degree of personal understanding of his or her own Faith, despite the malaise of Catholic catechesis. Those who have not taken advantage of knowing Christ through the adult resources such as the Catechism, EWTN, Catholic books, tapes and music are, quite frankly, lazy. There is no substitute for personal initiative in faith formation, and even where, objectively speaking, certain educational basics may be lacking, the resources are there for the one who wants to “ask, seek and knock” in order to find Christ.

Those who blame the Catholic Church for not giving them a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” or an experience of Jesus as their “personal Lord and Savior” have to understand that millions of other Catholics have had that experience and have come to know and love our Lord as deeply as anyone on earth. We have to ask them: How did you miss the boat?

3. “Born again” Christians and what to do about them

Q: I have a question about born again Christians. Recently my sister-in-law became a born again Christian. She accepted Christ as her Savior and is fervently awaiting the creation or manifestation of the one true church. I thought that she was a Baptist, but I am so shocked and I feel like it is a figment of my imagination. Can you point me in the right direction where I can read up on this issue? (This and the subsequent questions are also sent by M.C. from SC)

A: I am afraid that whoever is teaching your sister-in-law the Bible is deceiving her. The question of the creation or manifestation of the “one true church” is already over. This Church was created in 33 A.D. on Calvary from the side of Jesus Himself when Blood and Water gushed forth from His sacred side. Our Founder is Christ Himself not a man like Luther or Calvin. That has to be emphasized, and you can do it by pointing to the Gospel of John, chapters 19 and 20 for a description of how Christ formed the Church Himself. You can cite chapter 2 of the Acts of the Apostles to show how the Holy Spirit gives “birth” to the Church in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost, and even take your sister-in-law on a tour of the two last chapters of the Book of Revelation to show her how Christ receives the Church, His Bride, in heaven. The church your sister-in-law is so desperately waiting for is already here. It’s called the Catholic Church: the only Church that can claim an unbroken and direct link to Christ’s establishment of it as seen in the pages of Scriptures.

4. Catholics who have left the Church should not receive Communion

Q: I spoke to my husband's sister and his mother about taking Holy Communion at Mass; [I said] that they had renounced the Catholic Church and its teachings therefore they are not in grace. Was this correct?

A: I want to commend you for your courage and for your honesty in this action. You risked personal relationships, and that is hard to do. You were absolutely correct in telling your relatives that they should not receive Communion at Mass if they have willfully separated themselves from the Catholic Church. Since they are not in communion with the Catholic Church we must not pretend that they are, and they should be told, gently and charitably.

When we address these sensitive issues with fallen-away family members, it is important to make sure that we anticipate the awkward moments. We must do so with charity but also with a sense of justice that a person may defame the Eucharist by receiving it unworthily: see St. Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians about receiving Communion “unworthily” (1 Cor 1:23-30). This means that if you are attending Mass with a family member who you know has left the church, then before Mass you must bring it up to them so that you don’t publicly embarrass them as they are getting into the Communion line. The same applies to family weddings and various other times when a former Catholic might want to receive a sacrament when they are not allowed to do so.

The more practical problem is how to deal with the anger that is generated when we point out that a person must not receive the sacraments if they have left the Church. These are tough situations because no one likes to have loved ones mad at them or worse, to disown them or cut them off for long periods of time. However, our loyalties to Christ are thicker than blood. We cannot avoid the conflict. Remember that Christ Himself said that He came to bring “division” even within a family (cf. Mt 10: 34). Christ will bless us for our fidelity to His Church’s teaching, and in time even our sacrifice, when offered for the wayward family member, will have a beneficial effect.

5. The Apostles Creed

Q: Where can I find out where the Creed is in the Bible and when it was written? I have some basic knowledge but not enough to directly pinpoint the origin of the Creed, apart from the Apostle's communal living and the start of the Catholic Church with Peter.

A: The Catholic Encyclopedia says this about the Apostle’s Creed: It is “a formula containing in brief statements, or "articles," the fundamental tenets of Christian belief, and having for its authors, according to tradition, the Twelve Apostles. For more information on it you can see the excellent New Advent website which is a great source of general information on all things Catholic. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01629a.htm

6. Resources
The most reputable resource for Catholic apologetics and responses to any tough questions that come to us is “Catholic Answers” which can be accessed at www.catholic.com. They have an on-line library of basic information on a full range of Catholic questions that will astound you.

The best site I’ve seen on the subject of Fallen Away Catholics is “Support for Family Members of Fallen Away Catholics” at: http://lovecatholic.tripod.com/.

And don’t forget Marcus Grodi’s Journey Home show on EWTN, Mondays 8 pm EST.