Father Matthew Compton speaks about the Sacraments during a "Catholics Returning Home" session at Holy Name Cathedral on Feb. 5. (Karen Callaway / Catholic New World)
For people who have stopped practicing their Catholic faith and want to come back to the church, it’s all about the welcome. That’s what developers of programs for returning Catholics, and those who work with them in parishes, say. People who left the church because they were angry or hurt, or just didn’t make their faith a priority and got too busy, often come back with a little bit of trepidation. While they might eventually want to know what the documents of the Second Vatican Council say about relations with other religions, say, or why the church ordains only men as priests, the first thing they need to hear is that they are welcome, with all of their questions and all of their sins and all of their brokenness. Two programs that have been used by parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago both emphasize making people feel welcome. Perhaps the most widely used welcome-back program in the archdiocese is Catholics Returning Home, created by Sally Mewes, a former resident of the Archdiocese of Chicago. She returned to the church after drifting away as a young adult, and she put together a program to help people like her, who might feel intimidated or marginalized. “Some people think that apologetics will do it,” said Mewes, who now lives in Stevens Point, Wis. “I can tell you that arguing with me would not have helped. … It needs to be compassion and kindness. There needs to be a nice reaching out to them, and then a basic update of what’s going on.” Mewes said she liked the Catholics Come Home media campaign that ran in the Chicago media market in 2009-2010, but she thought it had to be backed up by some kind of a welcoming process in the parish. “Ours is cheap, easy and it works,” she said of her program, noting that a parish could buy all the materials it needs to start the program for under $100. With fewer than a third of Catholics attending Mass regularly, Mewes said, “Our target market is so big.” Deacon John Rex has run the program at St. Damian Parish in Oak Forest, and, through his printing company, has produced materials for it. He said the parish planned to distribute more than 500 flyers about an upcoming Catholics Returning Home session on Ash Wednesday, when people who are not usual Massgoers often come to church to receive ashes. That fits with the schedule Mewes suggests, which calls for six weeks of publicity around the times of Advent, Lent and end of summer or early fall. The groups start immediately after Christmas and Easter and when RCIA groups are starting up. Each session starts with somebody sharing their story —but in a managed way, so it doesn’t end up taking up the whole meeting — then a kind of update on a topic having to with the church. One session, that talks about the need for reconciliation, is titled “Tips on Sinning.” Group leaders can then direct people to further resources as they need them, perhaps ministries for the bereaved or ministries to people who are divorced. The most important thing, she said, is to keep it simple. “The temptation for church people is they have all this education, and they want to take it and lay it on these people right when they walk in the door,” Mewes said. Rex said parishes have to think about making the program as simple as possible for people who might not be familiar with the parish. “They’re looking for a welcome first of all,” Rex said. “It’s got to be simple, it’s got to be heartfelt.” That means doing things such as posting signs directing people to the meeting room, so they don’t have to ask where it is when they might already be feeling uncomfortable. It helps to have meetings run by laypeople, who can be seen as less judgmental. And it’s important to tell participants that what they say will be held in confidence. Starting each session with someone’s story is empowering because “nobody can argue with someone else’s story,” Rex said. While some are mad at God or mad at the church, he said, “I think for the majority of them, life just got busy.” Anna LaNave of Landings International agreed that many people coming back to the church now were never really angry, unlike those who came through Landings when the program launched 25 years ago. "The people who were coming back 25 years ago when we started were a little different from the people coming back now," LaNave said. "The people who were coming back then were more angry or hurt, but they were well-catechized. The people who are coming back now, they really have no beef with the church — they just drifted away — but they aren't really sure what baptism means. They have a lot of holes in their education." Three parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago are using it now: Old St. Mary's, which is staffed by the Paulists; St. Therese Chinese Catholic; and Holy Family in Inverness. The format for Landings is similar to Catholics Returning Home: at the beginning of the meeting, one of the returning Catholics shares his or her story: why he or she left and is now coming back. "They probably haven't talked about their personal spiritual journey before," La Nave said. Welcoming team members are often returned Catholics themselves, and that helps put people at ease. The reflection themes for the second part of the meeting are simple, LaNave said: Who is Jesus? What is the Mass? "You're going to get answers all over the map," she said. People appreciate "the aspect of real adult conversation," LaNave said. "It's not preaching. It's not apologetics." It also develops relationships between and among the participants, who are encouraged to attend Mass together, at least at first. "Once you've told your spiritual story, you're friends for life," LaNave said. "And it's really important for the returning Catholics to have Catholic friends." Once people finish a welcomeback program, parishes generally try to get them involved in ongoing ministries and activities. Rex said that those who have taken the step to come back often want to become more active. Cita Orendane, who helps coordinate the Landings program at St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church, said one of the things she likes best about it is that the "welcomers" seem to get as much out of the reflections as those who are returning to the church. "It's something that's not just benefitting the returning ones," she said. "The active Catholics are getting quite a bit out of the program. They feel it helps them deepen their faith."