Hail Mary

Dear David,

Word on Fire receives countless messages from our supporters each month asking us to pray for family members and friends who have fallen away from the Church. As we enter into the month of May, in which we place a special emphasis on the Church’s relationship with Mary, I want to challenge you to participate in a unique prayer challenge.

This month, I’m asking you to join us in praying 10,000 Rosaries for the intention that those who have fallen away from their faith may return to the Church with a renewed understanding of God’s love and mercy.

Evangelization must be grounded in prayer. The Rosary is a powerful contemplative practice that quiets the mind and draws us into the depths of our faith. United around this common intention, we can pray specifically for the people we know who have left the Church, and also ask for the strength and wisdom we need to be effective evangelizers in our families, workplaces, and communities.

Father Robert Barron signed this letter on behalf of Word on Fire.  It’s a wonderful gesture.  However, prayers are insufficient to bring back those who have fallen away from their faith.   Hoping they may return to the Church with a renewed understanding of God’s love and mercy is false hope without some major changes in Church practices and attitudes with many having been highlighted in Synod documents.  We ask a lot of Mary though the rosary to bring back the “fallen.” 

For example, in “For a Synod Church: Communion, Participation and Mission” we read: (begin) A significant threat to communion within the Church is a lack of trust, especially between the bishops and the laity, but also between the clergy in general and the lay faithful. One of the major areas of tension in North America is the clergy sexual abuse crisis and its effects, which have created a loss of trust that cannot be overstated. Many people continue to carry the wounds of abuse and many others have lost their trust in the clergy and in the Church’s institutions. 

To this reality, one must add that the historical wrongs found in the residential/ boarding schools for Indigenous people, which also included abuse of all kinds. This only compounds the woundedness of the Church and the lack of trust in its leaders (my emphasis). “The sexual abuse crisis and the residential schools are so much a part of the reality of the Church; we have to be able to engage those questions and face those situations” (Session II Group 9). 

Although it was acknowledged that Church leaders have done much to promote healing and prevent future abuses, it is apparent that more needs to be done to rebuild trust. As one delegate commented, “There are different levels and degrees of engagement within the Church as an institution, but it has to start with healing and trust-building” (Session II Group 8). Many of the listening sessions of the Synod called for a cultural change in the Church with a view to greater transparency, accountability, and co-responsibility. “Synodality,” it was seen by many, was “a beautiful way to build trust through dialogue” (Session XII Group 4) (end)

Bishop Barron knows very well the devastating damage to the Church caused by sexual abuse.  He wrote in his 2019 “Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis:” “…it [scandal] has corroded Catholic credibility so completely that the Church’s work in evangelization, catechesis, preaching, outreach to the poor, recruitment of vocations, and education has been crippled (my emphasis).”

Yes, we ask a lot of Mary.  Ten thousand may not cut it.

Deacon David Pierce