Video & Report: Catholics Come Home web innitiative results in 6,000 inquires!

Amy Welborn has described the web innitiative Catholics Come Home as a "group dedicated to reconnecting Catholics with their faith, with the byproduct of deepening the faith of all of us."

She continues: "These commercials are miles beyond the quality of most Catholic media efforts we see and are deeply substantive and do things, IMHO exactly right."

I agree with her, so much so that I made CCH my AmP website-of-the-month in June (I realize that we are now deep into July and I haven't updated it yet, no worries - it's coming).

Now Zenit reports that CCH's efforts have resulted in 6,000 inquires and reversions back to the Church:

For many who have left the Catholic Church, there is often a great desire to come home. However, fear and guilt often lead many to put off the gnawing decision to return to the Church. Not knowing where to turn, many who were once faithful feel lost and ashamed.

Tom Peterson, founder of Catholicscomehome.org, has found television and the Internet to be just the place to reach out to those wishing to come back to the Church.

Earlier this year Peterson tested his methods and ideas using an advertising campaign geared toward the 3.5 million who live in the Diocese of Phoenix.

More than 6,000 people inquired and came back to the Church via the Catholicscomehome.org Web site, and many more came back to Catholicism by reporting directly to a parish near their home. One priest reported that 16 people came to him for confession after they saw the television ad.

“One of the biggest surprises for us was the amount of inquiries from those who are not Catholic," said Peterson. "About one quarter of those expressing an interest in the Catholic Church are from those who have seen our commercials or visited our Web site and want to better understand the Catholic Church, or have actually made the decision to become Catholic.”

With results like this, it was frustrating when I first gave them press at the time of their roll-out that their videos were not accessible and able to be distributed through YouTube. This problem has been fixed to some degree, however, with the introduction of the official Catholics Come Home YouTube Channel. This is a very smart move for two reasons: 1) it's free advertising and 2) it allows the message to be easily and widely distributed.

Sadly, however, they've decided to disable the function of embedding these videos. I think this is a very poor decision and I hope it is reconsidered quickly. The vidoes are languishing at about between 1k-10k views. I know this blog alone could help boost those numbers if I were allowed to embed it. And imagine if major Catholic websites were to follow suit?

Please, make it easier for me and other Catholics to promote this video on the internet.