Top 10 Reasons to Evangelize Catholics

1. Approximately one-third of those who say they were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic.

~Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Survey

2. Sometimes even Catholics have lost or never had the chance to experience Christ personally.

~Pope John Paul II, 1993 address to Catholic Bishops

3. Today there is a very large number of baptized people who for the most part have not formally renounced their Baptism but who are entirely indifferent to it and not living in accordance with it.

~Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World), 56

4. The New Evangelization calls all Catholics first to be evangelized and then in turn to evangelize.

~USCCB, Disciples Called to Witness, Preface

5. The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.

~Pope Francis, 2013 interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J.

6. [There are] those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. . . It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.

~Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 94

7. Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father.

~Jesus Christ, Mt. 7:21

8. There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter.

~Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 6

9. The best of evangelizers allow themselves to be converted and evangelized again and again and in that way grow in holiness.

~Cardinal Francis George, Archdiocese of Chicago, Spreading the Holy Fire, 11

10. The love of Christ compels us.

~The Apostle Paul, 2 Cor 5:14

OK, there are 11 reasons. . .

11. Saint Paul, after his encounter with Jesus Christ, “immediately proclaimed Jesus.” So what are we waiting for?

~Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 120; Acts 9:20, 22:6-21