A note sent by a Cal Catholic reader from the annual report he got from National Evangelization Teams:
“In 2021 JSerra welcomed its first NET Discipleship Team to the school and has brought in a team every year since. A discipleship team’s mission is to enrich Catholic culture and build a community of disciples who have a lasting relationshiop with Christ. Each missionary’s goal is to get to know as many students as they can and give witness to their faith. They assist with youth events, attend school lunches and after-school activities, meet with students one-on-one, form discipleship groups, and stay with host homes throughout the community.
“This year JSerra has over 200 students involved in discipleship groups, 33 were welcomed into the Catholic faith through Baptism at Easter, and they expect another 30-40 students to become Catholic this year.”
See report here.
I suspect this is more the result of rich OC Catholic families (tuition and homes are expensive there) who didn’t get the kids baptized and don’t go to Mass, and the parents don’t oppose the baptism because they are culturally Catholic as a family anyway so no big deal, really.
How many of these “conversions” are from non-Catholic families?
Whatever the case is, any advance of the gospel pleases the Lord and warms the soul
rich, why the cynicism?
This is good news.
And, your presumption may be wrong. Many culturally Catholic families have their babies baptized, even if they don’t raise them in the faith. Non-Catholic students and families are frequently associated with Catholic schools. And, even if they were nominally Catholic, the new evangelization begins with our own fellow Catholics.
This should be happening in more Catholic schools and we should be grateful to God for it.
Full disclosure: two of our children and a son-in-law served with NET. So, we’ve seen the good fruit of their ministry in other places as well.
Since Vatican II, more and more non-Catholic families have sent their kids to Catholic schools, hoping for a better education, with less secular, weird, liberal moral “hippie”-type problems, and disturbances of class discipline, than the regular American schools. The parents also preferred nice, neat school uniforms, not the sloppy, rebellious, “poor attitude,” ugly, disgusting “hippie” garbage clothes, after good school dress codes were tragically discarded, in American schools, after the 1960s. In the post-Conciliar era, I have heard pastors complain that most of the students in their parish schools are non-Catholics. In this tragic era, I have also talked to lay teachers at Catholic parish schools who know nothing of the Catholic faith, have never read a book about Catholicism, and have never attended even one Catholic Mass. Very disturbing. The Catholic Church, and most of their schools today– are completely unrecognizable. I have heard that many of the non-Catholic students, and some of their parents– get a little curious about the Catholic religion, after awhile, attending these weird, “modernistic” parish schools– and decide to join the Catholic Faith. Since the 1970s, I have also talked to parents who enrolled their children in evangelical Protestant schools, for the same reasons as non-Catholic parents enrolled their kids in Catholic schools. At the Protestant Evangelical schools, the parents found out that the Protestant ministers and school teachers and principals, etc — were all very serious about their faith. And they made the parents sign papers agreeing to certain Biblically-based Christian beliefs— and they also were strictly required to reject certain modernistic beliefs, such as the Theory of Evolution– that was a big one! So, the parents all used to say, that they secretly disagreed– and to please not tell anyone– but they just signed any papers they had to sign, regardless of their true beliefs– and put up with it– to get their children what they considered as a better education and better upbringing. These were non-denominational Christian schools, so the parents never had to prove any church affiliation. All of them later said that they were “very happy” with their children’s education, and they were very glad that they “signed the papers,” to get their kids enrolled in these Christian schools. To me, that seemed very funny— but the children came out very well, academically and personally– really great kids, well-accomplished, with good values. Well– now I am again sick to my stomach, because several Catholic parents’ groups have asked me to please sign petitions against— guess who?– Jesuit LGBT immoral heretic, Fr. James Martin, once again– for the thousandth time!— featured at the corrupt LA REC. UGH!! Are you listening, Abp. Gomez? Nope.
Whatever the case is, any advance of the gospel pleases the Lord and warms the soul
At my parish we “confirm” about 20 teens in their “faith” every year. Most of them never come back to Mass. Same with RCIA “conversions”. They don’t last. It’s a big problem in the church.
It’s like Netflix saying they get 100,000 new subscribers for a free trial period, but then only about 30% of them stick with it long enough to become paying members.
How many JSerra alumni still go to Mass? Let’s see the numbers for that.
Good for JSerra. The mission of Christ is to save souls. Keep up the good fight. Christ is the way, the truth and the life.