On convocation’s final day, a powerful sending-forth

By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

ORLANDO | On the last day of a historic national summit of Catholics, a series of high-impact speakers including Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles called for “Spirit-filled evangelizers equipped for excellence,” as a morning session was titled.

The 2017 Convocation of Catholic Leaders, which began July 1, brought together some 3,500 people to spend the July 4 holiday weekend here to share ideas, plans and preparations for a better Catholic evangelization as envisioned in part by Pope Francis.

A closing keynote speaker was Bishop Barron, a major media figure in the Church. He is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and the host of Catholicism, an award-winning documentary about the Catholic faith that aired on PBS. Although he was unable to travel to Orlando, Bishop Barron addressed the assembly through streaming video.

He began his remarks with a frank admission: Many more Americans are leaving the Church than joining. He then laid out a series of obstacles to evangelization and faith life, including “scientism,” a kind of naturalism or reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form.

“We do damage to the human heart and spirit when we close down the aspirations of the human spirit through scientism, naturalism and materialism,” Bishop Barron said. “To evangelize is to speak of God and break through.”

Besides his work on PBS, Bishop Barron is a religion correspondent for NBC and has also appeared on Fox News, CNN and EWTN. He is one of the most-followed Catholics on social media; his website, WordOnFire.org, reaches millions of people each year. His regular YouTube videos have been viewed more than 18 million times.

Speaking to the Orlando assembly, he lamented the rampant sense of subjectivism and a “culture of whatever” that waters down religion into a consensus that everybody should feel fine believing whatever they want, with no objective truths and no objective good.

“Evangelization is meant to send us on mission, giving us energy and verve,” he said, adding that the culture of self-invention and a narrow focus on personal freedoms are obstacles to faith, as evidenced in the modern confusion and controversies over gender and sexuality.

Those trends, he said, demand that believers respond not with a “watered-down Catholicism of banners and balloons” but with smartly presented faith and religion.

“If we are going to evangelize, then we need to be able to talk about God and have a good grasp on the arguments for the existence of God,” he said, adding that nothing wins over hearts and minds for the Church like a “strategy of goodness,” of Christian charity and outreach and selflessness as evidenced by the Church's founders and the saints.

“Living the gospel in a radical form still gets the world’s attention, and Pope Francis is a great example,” he said. “Do something radical for the sake of evangelization.”

And in these times, the bishop added, it might be best just to show people the beauty of Catholicism, including through art, through beautiful churches and through examples of people living a beautiful Christian life.

Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo urged the convocation participants to take a long view of the proceedings here, to slow down and “rely totally on the Holy Spirit.”

“We are not Lone Rangers,” Bishop Malone told the group at the closing session. “If we don’t pray for the Spirit’s lead, all we are doing is tasks.”

Patrick Lencioni, a business management book author and church consultant, said delegates might want to go home and separate those issues and concerns which are in their “circle of concern” and over which they have no or little control, from those that are in their circle of influence and on which they might affect change.

“To grow your circle of influence, you have to be able to act locally somehow,” Lencioni said. He added that daily prayer is a prerequisite for church ministry and staff.

He also urged frank openness and communication among parish teams and coworkers and not to shy away from conflict or differing opinions in the workplace or ministry.