Hard Fought


With roughly 66 percent of Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago considered "lapse" or "non-practicing" because they don't attend mass regularly, the Church will be taking to the airwaves with a television campaign blitz during the holiday season, according to a report out Wednesday on ChicagoCatholicNews.com.
The time is right for this type of evangelization effort because "we see a larger number of people inactive in their faith," a spokeswoman for the campaign, Nancy Polacek, is quoted as saying.
A similar campaign last year in Arizona and Texas yielded a 12 percent increase in Catholics "coming home," according to Ryan Hanning, the coordinator of adult evangelization for the Diocese of Phoenix.
The Chicago Archdiocese hopes for similar results among its 2.3 million members.
"This is not about money or numbers, it's about souls," said Penny Wiegert of the Rockford diocese, which is pairing with the dioceses of Chicago and Joliet in the ad campaign.
The campaign -- called Catholics Come Home -- will include television commercials produced by a non-profit of the same name.
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The Christian Brothers of the Midwest is a religious order with schools around the world. Brother Kevin Convey, director of education, characterized the decision as "very, very difficult," particularly given the school's success on the field.
The Highlanders won seven consecutive Class 4A state championships under two different coaches before losing Nov. 15 in the quarterfinals to undefeated Aurora Christian, which lost in the state final. Driscoll finished 9-3 this season after going 92-6 during its seven-year run.
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Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.
"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.


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