Fruitful Discipleship. Sherry A. Weddell

seminars, we have a motto, “Never accept a label in place of a story,” because even an “ex-Catholic” might be open to coming back.

      Fourth: This final group — which includes 8 percent of American adults (20 million people) — feel “connected” to Catholicism through Catholic family, friends, institutions, practices, or values.

      Remember that this is a snapshot in time. All of these numbers might be significantly different in a few years because religious identity in the twenty-first century west is highly fluid. Many people who now define themselves as ex-Catholics may change their minds (with our help), while many who now identify as Catholic may soon identify as ex-Catholic.

      We stand at a stunning crossroads: millions are jettisoning their Catholic identity but simultaneously nearly half the adult population of the United States feels some serious connection to the Catholic Church. Every one of those connections is a potential bridge of trust across which we can walk as evangelizers to invite them to begin the journey to intentional discipleship, either by way of return (for former Catholics) or baptism. What an incredible evangelical opportunity if we have the will to take advantage of it!

       3. To Be Deep in Catholic History Is to Evangelize

      No, Virginia. Evangelization is not Protestant. Few Catholics seem to remember an influential pre-Vatican II evangelization movement that was driven by two things: the rapid secularization of Europe and the experience of missionaries outside “Christendom.” I had never heard of the kerygmatic movement until I read Father Alfonso Nebreda, S.J.’s out-of-print classic, Kerygma in Crisis? Father Nebreda showed that Catholic catechesis had clearly taught the critical importance of personal faith in centuries past:

      Early sixteenth-century catechisms routinely emphasized personal faith in the work of Jesus Christ as essential to salvation.… The sixteenth-century catechisms placed faith at the beginning of the baptismal act. We read, for instance, in the catechism of Dietenberger (1537): “Sacramental baptism demands three important things: faith, water, and the divine Word, and none of these may be lacking. Water and the word do not suffice, the word and water are nothing without faith.

      … the Contarini catechism says, referring to St. Thomas: “Sacraments are exterior and sensible signs of the invisible grace which is bestowed through them on account of faith in Christ’s death by which our sins are forgiven.”⁹

      However, by the late sixteenth century and into the first half of the twentieth century, catechisms shifted their focus almost entirely to the objective efficacy of the sacraments and hardly mentioned the personal act of faith. Why the change?