Rising Tidings

I have a confession:  I have over 25 years of experience directing faith-formation programs in parishes and universities, but I still squirm when I hear about our call to “evangelization.” Gulp!  Is evangelization really our call as Catholics? Isn’t going to Mass enough? Or works of charity? Or walking barefoot over a hotbed of coals? Please—anything but telling others about Jesus. I mean, evangelizing isn’t really a Catholic thing, is it? 

My friends all know that I am a Catholic, because I have always been very open with them about my faith. So, when the news broke about Cardinal McCarrick, who long served in my home archdiocese of Newark, and the grand jury report was released in Pennsylvania where my father now lives, many people asked me, “How can you stay when the Church is so corrupt?”