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Priest leading mass appeal: Evangelization drive hopes to fill churches; revival talks combat ‘spiritual boredom’

Priest leading mass appeal: Evangelization drive hopes to fill churches; revival talks combat ‘spiritual boredom’

Last updated on: January 19, 2015 at 1:50 pm by Cathleen Falsani

Priest leading mass appeal: Evangelization drive hopes to fill churches; revival talks combat ‘spiritual boredom’ 2015-01-19T13:50:41-07:00 Cathleen Falsani

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Chicago Sun Times
January 22, 2006 Sunday, Final Edition

Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc. All Rights Reserved Section: NEWS; Pg. A11
Length: 952 words
Byline: Cathleen Falsani, The Chicago Sun-Times

More than 2.3 million Roman Catholics live within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Chicago, but only about 500,000 of them attend mass regularly.

According to what is known as the “October count,” the archdiocese’s attendance rate based on a typical Sunday in October, mass attendance in the Chicago archdiocese has dropped 5 percent since 1990. And the slide appears to be continuing.

Why are almost 80 percent of Chicago area Catholics not going to church?

“To some degree, I think it’s just spiritual boredom,” says the Rev. Bob Barron, a 46-year-old theology professor from Mundelein Seminary upon whom Cardinal Francis George recently bestowed the behemoth task of trying to “jump-start” an evangelization effort to get people back to church.

One morning last week, Barron, who lives at Mundelein, was seated in a first-floor parlor of the cardinal’s residence on North State Parkway where he is staying for a few months so he can work on the project full time and brainstorm with the cardinal over breakfast.

“Welcome to my humble mansion,” Barron jokes as he greets a visitor.

Over the past several years, Barron, who was ordained in 1986, has become known in church circles as the young, fresh face of the archdiocese, a reputation built on the foundation of his dynamic preaching style and serious scholarship. He is the author of seven books, including 2004’s Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative, Evangelical Catholic. And he holds a doctoral degree in theology from the Institut Catholique in Paris.

But Barron is also pretty hip. Not every systematic theologian, when asked for examples of people “living the faith,” would name both Dorothy Day (co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement) and the rock star Bono of U2.

During a recent conversation about the nature of evangelization, Barron casually referred to the theologian Paul Tillich, the Second Vatican Council and the “correlationalist model” of theology. But when he needs an example to explain what evangelization should look like, he turns to Bob Dylan.

“I’m an evangelist for Bob Dylan. I always have been. I think Bob Dylan is terrific and always have. I’m not trying to position him,” in a particular context, he explains. “I’ll talk about him. Play him. Try to explain what makes him so great.”

Evangelizing about Christ and the church should come just as naturally, he says. It’s not that he thinks Bob Dylan is the best singer-songwriter of all time and therefore is going to force his music on anyone who will listen (willingly or not). He loves Dylan and wants to share that passion with others, Barron says.

Often, when it comes to faith, “if you’re upfront, you’re accused of being overbearing,” Barron says. “We so reacted to [accusations of] ‘shoving it down people’s throats,’ that we internalized it.”

Beginning next month, Barron will deliver six “revival talks” at parishes across Cook and Lake counties as part of the archdiocese’s “Mission Chicago 2006,” a master plan to re-energize evangelization, revitalize the massgoing faithful and draw lapsed Catholics back into the fold.

“My point is, let’s get the inactive Catholics back into church,” Barron says. “Really, all I can do in this brief time is give these talks and try to spark something.”

Taking a cue from the great Protestant evangelist Billy Graham, Barron says his talks, which will culminate in a mass at Holy Name Cathedral on Palm Sunday, will ask people a central question: “What’s missing in your life?”

Back to basics

He also plans to preach about the drama of conversion, Christ as the center of the faith, what makes Catholicism different from other churches, the “power of the cross,” and the idea that “your life is not about you.”

Some Catholics have let their practice lapse because of fundamental disagreements with the church on issues from the ordination of women to birth control to the way the recent clergy sex abuse crisis in the United States was handled by church leaders, he says.

Also contributing to a downtrend in church attendance — and further involvement in parish life — is a frenetic culture that offers so many alternatives and distractions on a Sunday morning and throughout the rest of the week.

Barron doesn’t think the spiritually bored would be lured back to church by flashy advertising campaigns or programming that is more about entertaining them than stirring their souls.

His approach: Break it down. Take the faith back to basics, back to its essence.

Stressing big picture

“To me, the bottom line of evangelization is the resurrection,” Barron says. “That’s the Good News. That’s the bottom line — Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. That message is still breathtaking. That’s still what we’re about. . . . But I’m not sure we’ve said it with essential power.”

It’s like introducing a kid to baseball, Barron explains. It has to to begin with the love of the game, not its rulebook.

“If you’re trying to lure him onto the baseball field, you start by showing how beautiful the game is. You don’t start with the infield fly rule.”

Few people will be persuaded to return to church by dwelling on the minutiae of the faith, he says. “You show the beauty and the compelling nature of the faith, which is bigger than bickering over church laws,” he says.

“You eventually get to the moral stuff, but you don’t lead with it.”

Editor’s Note: The Rev. Bob Barron is the brother of Chicago Sun-Times editor-in-chief John Barron.

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