New research shows that 7% of Catholics contribute 80% of all donations and volunteer hours. It’s easy to cater everything to this group. We know they’ll sign-up, they’ll show up, they’ll subscribe, they’ll buy books, they’ll give.
But every Catholic needs to ask this question: what am I doing to reach the other 93%?
In the press conference announcing Fr. Robert Barron as a new auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles, he said, “The most significant challenge facing the Catholic Church today is the attrition of our own people.”
So what am I doing to reach the large majority of inactive Catholics who aren’t frequenting our institutions, who don’t know or care much about Catholicism, and who who have drifted away from the sacraments?
What about those even beyond the 93% who have never identified as Catholic—perhaps they identify as “atheist” or “none”—for whom Catholicism is not even on the radar?
Am I truly engaging them or am I just catering to the already-engaged 7%?
The latter is certainly easier. You’ll receive more praise. You’ll get more pageviews and purchases. It’s undoubtably more comfortable.
This is why there are tons of resources for the 7%. The typical parish has scores of ministries, almost all of which exist for the 7%. The large majority of Catholic books and newspapers are written for the 7%. Almost all Catholics websites are run by and for the 7%.
But the New Evangelization is not fundamentally about the 7%. It’s about the 93%, about drawing them home.
We can’t ignore the 7%—they need evangelizing, too. But the mission of the Church is essentially outward. Evangelistically, it’s centrifugal, not centripetal. It’s about the 93% more than the 7%.
Every Catholic parish, ministry, blogger, and newspaper needs to constantly ask this question: what am I doing for the 93%?
Am I just giving lip service to them or am I structuring my entire work around their conversion?
Am I looking even beyond the 93%, to those on the far end of the religious bell curve?
These should be the driving questions today.
(Note: I’m not exempting myself from these questions. I continually ask them of myself and I’m not always happy with the answers. But these are the questions we need to be asking.)