I am dedicated to helping to promote the Kingdom of God in my parish and in my diocese. My goal is to find a way to promote the faith such that by 2030, the Archdiocese would be 4 times its current size, and have 1 priest for every 100 men.

Although my view really doesn’t  matter, I see nothing wrong with the Teaching of the Church, the Hierarchy, or the Magesterium. As far as I can see, the shortcoming is in the gap between the priests and the lay people.

Although a parish may be the size of several brigades, it is as useless as a mob without some structure, network, and relationships.

Unfortunately, most of the time, it seems that the only thing that separates Catholics from the rest of the world is that 1 hour on Sunday when they actually separate themselves from the rest of the world.

If you know a tree by the fruit it produces, then you would have to say that most Catholics are unaware of the treasure that God is. They have been given a gold mine, but they act like it’s just yellow plastic.

These days most people prefer interacting with media, rather than with other human beings, often even in their own families.

I believe that the “Sense of Community” one has with his church or parish is directly related to the number of microsphere relationships (average of 30 minutes per week per person) he has within that church.

Would it take a network of 5, 10, or even 20 microsphere relationships experienced as shared lives, shared service, and shared support to create that sense of community? This would create the kind of environment where Catholics could find God and respond to their vocations.

If we could develop within the Church support groups for everyone, many of the problems that the Church now experiences would disappear.

It was the communities of brotherhoods that allowed Civilization to survive the invasions of Europe that occurred 1000 years ago. Something of that kind will be required to survive the current assault on our faith.

I do not believe it is necessarily the Church’s responsibility or even within their capability to bring about this change.

Tom Neugebauer

Seized by Christ