I Can’t Evangelize
Richard Salbato 5-23-2007
Evangelization is the art and action of converting people to the faith. It could be just bringing people back to the faith who have left. It also includes answering questions by Catholics who do not know this or that about the Church or its teachings. It includes teaching your own children the faith and answering their questions. Some of the most well known Catholics of history say that we must always be evangelizing by action or word. In some ways I agree with this because how can we claim to love God and His Church and not want to share this love.
For me this is a very easy job because I was a very hard to convert ex-Catholic and therefore I learned the Bible very well. I learned the teachings of most all the religions of the world, and the teachings and history of the Catholic Church before ever becoming a real Catholic. Before I became the hermit that I am now, I spent a lot of time with non-Catholics and many are now good Catholics thanks to the grace of God. Conversion stories are always a good method of impressing your faith on others. “I became a Catholic because - .” “I came back to the faith because - .”
The best method is your personal example. Live your life in such a way that people envy your faith, your happiness and your joy. Saint Therese said: “God spare me from sour faced Catholics.” If people do not see in your eyes the joy you have in being Catholic, why would they want what you have? If you are not a happy Catholic, why would anyone want what you have?
Remember the first Council of Jerusalem where the Apostles would not put any burden on converts that was not essential. The same thinking helps to convert people. When you have ideas about faith that are even harder than what the Church teaches, you just drive people away. Extremism on the right or left does not work.
Having knowledge and understanding of non-Catholics helps a great deal and having misconceptions about them harms your work. One great misconception is that Protestants are Bible Christians, when in fact, they are not. Protestants are Fundamentalists, which means that they accept fundamental principles of the Bible and the rest of the Bible does not matter. For this reason they carry a Bible around but read only selected parts. Catholics believe all the Bible and if you believe all the Bible you can only be Catholic. Non-Catholic Christians accept selected principles but not all the Bible.
For me evangelization is easy because I go right after the four most important things and I know them well: The Mass, The Authority of the Pope, The Virgin Mary, and Christ’s concept of “Church”. Once someone has learned these things, they end up with no faith objections and then it comes down to acceptance of the real hard life changes: Birth Control, and non-Catholic Family Members.
Most of my readers are well educated Catholics and yet I
still get hundreds of emails a week asking help in explaining things like: the
Trinity, Creation Science,
One of the problems with face to face evangelization is that it is often confrontational. Because of this, a certain art of communication is essential. It is the art of asking loving questions and then making people think that finding the truth was their own idea. Telling people they are wrong is not the same as showing people there is another possibility.
I can’t do it.
All the above means nothing to the majority of Catholics who think they cannot talk or defend the faith. Everyone has different personalities and gifts from God and some just cannot communicate well. The entire reason for this Newsletter is to help these people sell the faith without even trying, in fact, without even saying a word. It can be done without saying a word and costing only 2 or 3 cents. If you fit into any of these personality categories you will welcome the following help. Fifteen years ago good friends of mine started up The Evangelization Society to arm people with Catholic Evangelization tools and today it has grown into an international society now called:
Pope John Paul II Society of
Evangelists and
The beauty of this Society and system is that you do not have to buy anything to get armed with Catholic Truths that can help you convince anyone of the facts needed to find the true faith. Just pass these tools out and let people read them. You do not need to buy these tools. You can get them free on the internet from their web site. The best way to explain this is to follow the links below.
Now go to Resources, click here: http://www.pjpiisoe.org/Resources.html
Here you will find, Newsletters, Links, Software, Free CDs, Pamphlets and more.
Click on Pamphlets http://www.pjpiisoe.org/Resources_Pamphlets.html
Pick any category: Abortion / Anti-Catholicism / Biographies / Catholic Apologetics / Catholic Calendar / Catholic Perspectives / Catholic Social Teaching / Christology / Church Documents / Church History / Church Law / Church Teaching / Conversion Stories / Cults / Denominations / Demonology / Doctors of the Church / Eschatology / Essays on Science / Evangelization / Fathers of the Church / Heresies and Falsehoods / Liturgy / Mariology / Marriage and the Family / Medical Ethics / Miscellaneous / Moral Theology / New Age / Occult / Political Issues / Prayer and Devotion / Pro-Life / RCIA / Sacraments / Scripture / Spirituality / Vocations / World Religions
Select one Document: Let us use Catholic Apologetics as an
example and then click “The Communion of Saints and Purgatory”. You will now see a complete explanation of
this topic on two sides of an 8-1/2 by 11 sheet of paper designed to be folded
into a six sided 3 by 11 inch pamphlet that you can print out. If you want to read it without printing it,
you will have a hard time because it is formatted for printing. This is done so
that it can be printed and folded.
Test print this document as is but if it does not print correctly, go back to Pamphlets and read the instructions. You can print one or 20. You might want to print one and take it to a printing store like Kinkos and have a larger quantity printed at less than 2 cents each. Remember you are printing two sides of the same paper.
Put quantities of these documents in your house where people will see them and put them in your car. Carry them with you everywhere and God will show you when to use them. Even though these people are my long time friends, I have checked almost all these documents for orthodoxy and I have found them perfect and well stated. You can trust them.
Parish Evangelization
The great advantage of this method is in the parish. With the pastor’s approval one or more people can make it their apostolate to stock all or many of these pamphlets in the back of the church to be given away free. It not only educates your parishioners but helps them become evangelists. Round racks can be ordered through the web site or you can have one built. If the people doing this feel they cannot finance it (should only be a few dollars a week) then a place for donations can be placed somewhere.
With less than 30% of declared Catholics going to Mass on
Sunday in
You can help them also because they are looking to translate all these Pamphlets into at least 10 other languages. Contact them if you can help in the translations or in supporting this work in any other way.
Protestant: “Do you accept Christ as your personal savior?”
Catholic: “Yes! I accept Christ as the word of God ( John 1) and obey every word He spoke, not just some of them.”
Richard Salbato
Other Good Tools to print out (the first three are very long):
The Mass http://www.unitypublishing.com/GREATEST.html
The Pope http://www.unitypublishing.com/godskingdom/peter2.html
Martin Luther and Our Lady of Guadalupe http://www.unitypublishing.com/Apparitions/LutherGuadalupe.html
Where the Holy Spirit is, there is the Catholic Church. http://www.unitypublishing.com/Newsletter/HSOutsideChurch.htm
Great Direction of our Times http://www.unitypublishing.com/Moral/gloriapolo.htm
Woman, God’s Last Creation http://www.unitypublishing.com/apr1_99.html
Lord, I did it my way. http://www.unitypublishing.com/Newsletter/MyWay.htm