What does a parish do about their “only at Easter or Christmas” Catholic members? Or worse yet, what does it do about people living inside parish boundaries who stopped practicing their faith years ago?

In most cases, the answer is ‘very little.’

For St. Thomas Aquinas, it’s a unique program called “Operation Homecoming.” Located in the middle of the rapidly growing Roswell/Alpharetta area, St. Thomas Aquinas has seen the transfer in of many families from the Northeast and Midwest, including a number who are, or should be, active Catholics.

“Too many persons coming into our area are what I call ‘Roman Catholics Retired’ or RCRs,” reports the pastor, Father Dan O’Connor. “Some of these people may come once or twice and even register, but do not attend Mass regularly. Others have not even tried to visit us. They obviously have been turned off by something even before they moved here. Our job is to locate all these RCRs and urge them to give their Church and their faith a second chance.

“I’m sure many parishes have looked at this problem, and some may have tried in one way or another to actively recruit Catholics who are no longer practicing their faith. But, if they did, nobody seems to know about it because, as far as I can tell, we’re the only Atlanta-area parish to try something as large as this.”

The “this” is a parish-wide program involving nearly all parishioners and encompassing everything from a special prayer card invoking help from the Holy Spirit to ads in the Atlanta newspapers. It’s all aimed at a week-long “homecoming” from November 14 to 19 which, hopefully will bring some of Father O’Connor’s RCRs back to their faith.

The problem had been bothering the 45-year-old pastor “ever since a parish council meeting a couple of years ago when one parishioner asked what we were doing about those people who were not coming to Mass regularly, or had not even come once. Maybe because we were so new and growing so fast that we didn’t have time; whatever the reason, we didn’t have a good answer then.”

Early last summer, Father O’Connor approached leaders of several parish organizations and sounded them out. After a couple of “not always fruitful, but always spirited” meetings where ideas were tossed around, a group was formed under the chairmanship of parishioner Joe Logue, and a detailed program was put into place.

Parishioners are asked to fill out “prospect” cards, giving the pastor as much information as they can about RCRs including why they may no longer be coming to church.

“But only if they know,” Logue hastens to point out. “We are only asking for information that a parishioner knows for sure. If it’s only a name, that’s OK, too. The key thing is to get the name and address and we will go from there. We don’t even ask our parishioners to sign their own names to the cards, if they don’t want to be identified.”

After the cards are turned in, Logue explains, a special letter is mailed by Father O’Connor to each of the prospects. The letter outlines the program and tells what the parish is trying to accomplish during this special “homecoming” period. The recipient is then told that a St. Thomas Aquinas parishioner will call them on the phone for an appointment.

Specially trained volunteers made the calls (“Thank God our parish is full of good salesmen,” Father O’Connor jokes), asking only that the prospect give a parishioner some time to talk about the parish and about the recent changes in the Church, and to invite the prospect to explain what may have kept him or her from coming to Mass regularly.

Once the appointment is made, carefully chosen lay “apostles” then call at the prospect’s home. “The purpose of this visit,” Father O’Connor says, “is to show the person that someone cares about them and about their problem and that we stand ready to assist them in any way we can to return to the practice of their faith.”

The RCR is urged to talk about whatever has kept them from church, and then is invited to attend special seminars designed to discuss in depth what the priest and his homecoming team believe to be the four most important issues: changes in the Mass, changes in the Church, birth control, and divorce and remarriage.

The “apostles” and their prospects attend the seminars together and, at the end of the week, a special celebration program is planned, including time for the sacrament of reconciliation, special counseling sessions, and a carefully prepared “homecoming” Mass of Thanksgiving, followed by a covered dish supper.

For those parishioners who want to do more than just identify a prospect, they are encouraged to hand-deliver Father O’Connor’s special invitation letter, and then to personally escort the prospect to the seminars and other events.

And, for those who are not known to be RCRs, special efforts are being made to reach them. Advertisements explaining the program are being placed in both Atlanta and neighbor newspapers and a copy of the ad will be distributed as a flyer throughout the parish.

“The idea here is to reach everyone we can with our ‘homecoming’ message,” Logue explains. “It will also heighten interest by those directly contacted by our ‘apostles’ and the overall effect will be to generate more interest in the seminars scheduled for the week of November 14. This is real evangelization,” Father O’Connor says. “I cannot think of anything that we do as a parish that is more important. If we can reach 10 people and bring them back to Jesus Christ and His Church, all of our efforts will be worthwhile.”

How many people can be contacted by St. Thomas Aquinas, with its current roster of 549 families?

“We really don’t know how many RCRs are out there,” Logue answers. “We think there may be somewhere between 150 and 250 families in the Roswell and Alpharetta area that, at one time or another, practiced the Catholic faith, or at least either the husband or wife did. We know we won’t reach them all, but we are determined to get to as many as we can with our ‘homecoming’ message.”

What is that message?

“As practicing Catholics,” Father O’Connor answers, “we all share a belief in Jesus Christ that promises everlasting life. Our faith is too precious to keep to ourselves.

“Our message is that at Sunday Mass we find Jesus and His peace. We hope that the people we reach in our program will find that peace, too.

“We believe ‘Operation Homecoming’ will generate many positive and lingering effects throughout our parish. It reminds all of us of the need to keep our own faith strong, as we try to share it with others.

“It gives us an unique opportunity to be evangelists for Christ, and to bring His Gospel to our friends and neighbors. We are asking the Holy Spirit to use us to bring these people ‘home’ to Christ and to His Church.

“For most of us, it will be the first time we’ve dared to be real evangelists. All of our parishioners will be better Catholics because we’ve tried.”