“Help Us Connect the World with God’s Word” is the theme for the 2010 Catholic Communication Campaign collection in the Diocese of Savannah. The collection is set for Pentecost weekend, May 22-23, though some parishes are holding it a week earlier or a week later. Half the collection goes to fund national initiatives such as a new Web site to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life:  www.ForYourVocation.org. (A Spanish-language site will be available this fall at www.PorTuVocacion.org.) This year the half that stays in the diocese will help to promote the Catholics Come Home initiative that will begin in Advent 2010. The television initative itself is being funded by the Bishop’s Annual Appeal. Last year the collection brought in a total of just under $40,500. “Our share, $20,238.89, does not go far when you are trying to reach 74,000 Catholics spread out over 37,000 square miles of South Georgia,” said Bishop J. Kevin Boland. Besides publishing the diocesan newspaper, the Southern Cross, which covers news from the 79 parishes and missions in the diocese 45 times a year, the Communications Department hosts a Web site, www.diosav.org. This year the office launched a newsletter and has established a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Go to the Web site home page to access these sites and to sign up for the newsletter. “We will use the diocesan share of this year’s collection to host workshops around the diocese to prepare parishes to welcome returning Catholics,” said communications director Barbara D. King. “We will also use the funds to promote Catholics Come Home, which has already met with a great amount of interest from parishioners throughout the diocese.” She added, “With even more funding we could establish a presence on radio, consider sponsoring billboards to promote Catholics Come Home and buy space in the secular press to share the Gospel message.”

Support the Catholic Communication Campaign Collection on May 22-23, Pentecost weekend. This year the half of the collection that stays in the Diocese of Savannah will be used to promote the Catholics Come Home (www.catholicscomehome.org) initiative that will launch in our diocese in Advent 2010. The collection will fund workshops to prepare parishes to welcome returning Catholics, as well as use of other media to announce the campaign.

WHAT IS CATHOLICS COME HOME?

• Reaches out to inactive Catholics using inspiring TV commercials and an interactive Web site without pressure or obligation.

• An independent, non-profit Catholic apostolate that creates effective and compassionate media messages and broadcasts them nationally and internationally, in order to inspire, educate and evangelize inactive Catholics and others, and invite them to live a deeper faith in Jesus Christ, in accord with the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church

DOES THIS REALLY WORK?

"Based on these 2009 statistics calculated by the Controller's Office at the Diocese of Phoenix, with the guidance of statisticians from Arizona State University, it appears that for every $1.63 invested in television media, Catholics Come Home was able to help a soul back to their home in the Catholic Church.

The Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, experienced similar results in Lent 2009, showing a 17.7 percent increase in Mass attendance as a result of their bilingual Catholics Come Home/Catolicos Regresen campaign."

-- www.catholicscomehome.org

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP

It is our job as faithful followers of Christ to invite our fellow brothers and sisters home to the Church. But as a Catholic family, we have been failing to maintain and build our family of faith:

• 72 percent of Catholics have not tried to win a convert to Christ.

• For every four Protestants, there is one convert. For Catholics, the numbers were 250 to one.

For more information on this campaign, please visit the national website at www.catholicscomehome.org