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	Catholics Need More Than Ads to Come Home By Eric Hodgens Sydney Morning Herald January 28, 2011 http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/catholics-need-more-than-ads-to-come-home-20110127-1a6s6.html Cardinal George Pell is thinking about adopting Catholics Come Home - a TV advertising program launched in Chicago in December 2009. Well-produced ads invite Catholics who have given up the church to come back and try it again. The program's success in several United States dioceses is hard to evaluate. It has raised the awareness of the church and is liked by active Catholics, but Mass attendance figures have fallen relentlessly. One central problem is that you can't expect the program to work unless the cardinal and his fellow bishops change the policies that have caused those Catholics to leave, and unless they stop initiating policies that produce new alienation. Advertisement: Story continues below Is Pell going to tell remarried divorcees that they are now welcome at Holy Communion? Barring divorcees from going to Communion has repelled thousands of very good Catholics from the church. Is he going to welcome practising homosexuals to Mass and Communion; give women equal status in church ministry; forget about contraception being wrong; approve couples seeking IVF if that is their choice? Is he going to say that criminalising abortion is bad public policy even if you think it is morally wrong? Most involved Catholics - priests and laity - are open on these matters. Will the cardinal be open to reasonable debate about the morality of issues - including abortion - in today's world? These issues are why thousands have left. Until these issues are reasonably addressed the cardinal can forget about these Catholics coming back. What might work is giving up the constant preoccupation with sexual morality and getting back to the main game - proclaiming a gospel of life, peace, forgiveness, love and welcome. Otherwise, Come Back Home is another futile magic fix. On top of this, paedophilia continues to repel. Once the bishops saw the extent and toxicity of the problem, they should have become completely open about it and done whatever it took to fix it. The disillusion will continue to repel until bishops become transparent in formulating policy, and accountable in action. This goes against their monarchical grain. Canon law still favours secrecy and the bishop's right to rule unaccountably. One of those accused of protecting offenders, Cardinal Bernard Law, still holds high office in Rome, although he was run out of Boston by his priests and people. The church has not expelled from the priesthood any bishop who offended, either in action or by covering up. The archbishop of Dublin got some offending bishops to resign and Rome undermined him by refusing their resignations. Add to this the beatification of John Paul II, who protected the paedophile Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ. This sort of contempt cannot convert the alienated. Further, Rome is superimposing a defective new English translation of the liturgy. Most Catholics in the know realise this is an act of power politics. Rome has won its battle with the bishops of the English-speaking world by emasculating the International Commission for English in the Liturgy. And guess who was chairman of the emasculators? Cardinal Pell. He calls his team Vox Clara - Latin for "a clear voice". More likely Vox Perfidiosa - betraying both ICEL and the English language. Does he realise how many priests and people are alienated by this? This could have the same effect on mass attendance as Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical condemning contraception. The most ancient bureaucracy in the world seems unaware that it has fossilised many of its habits into values. It cannot see a way to come to terms with new values in the 21st century. It is into magic fixes. John Paul II thought his celebrity status as a touring Pope would draw people in. That failed even in his native Poland. He put his money on the New Movements - Opus Dei, Legions of Christ, Heralds of the Gospel - but they alienate more than they attract. World Youth Days are successful extravaganzas but with no long-term pulling power. The die is already cast for the Come Home program. In deep water, if you can't swim you drown. It's a good idea to learn to swim. Get the basics right by forgetting the moralising, and proclaiming the Gospel. Otherwise, Come Home is just another straw the drowning man is clutching at.
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