By Gretchen Keiser

Each week, the words in the ad were somewhat different. But throughout a month-long advertising campaign, the symbol and the message were essentially the same: the words “The Peace of Christ Be With You,” a design showing the Cross, the Eucharist and the Chalice and an invitation to talk to a Catholic layperson.

The ad campaign, which ran from Nov. 14 through Dec. 13 in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, invited alienated Catholics and others interested in the Catholic Church to call a phone number. At the other end, was a layperson from St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Alpharetta, part of a 15-couple team, each of whom took two 24-hour-a-day shifts during the month.

While a more comprehensive report on the responses to and results of the campaign will be made later, those who organized the ad campaign, and the couples who manned the telephone lines during the month were deeply affected by the response, according to George Clements, chairman of the Archdiocesan Committee on Evangelization.

Approximately 500 phone calls came in during the 30-day period, Clements said, the vast majority from people with serious intent. “There was an extraordinarily wide variety of calls, as we expected,” he said, “and an extraordinarily low number of crank calls.

As one of our coordinators described it, ‘There are a lot of very hungry people out there.’”

The essential message repeated during the campaign was an invitation by Catholics to share in the peace and joy that comes from celebrating Christ’s Resurrection in the Mass. Among the hopes for the campaign were that it would provide an invitation to people who had never been invited to the Church before, and to inactive Catholics who had never been invited to return. It was also seen as providing an “icebreaker” alternative to calling a rectory and talking to a priest.

Clements said those aims were apparently fulfilled, judging by the nature of the responses. The callers included a priest who had left the church and others wrestling with questions about the church, divorce and marriage, homosexuality, alcoholism. They were “hurt and they were mad,” Clements said. “They were mad at something that had happened. They were looking for an answer and they had not found it.” Many said they were deeply touched by the ads.

In the ads and on the phone, the hope was to dispel a sense of the Church as aloof, and to show that “we are a responsive, caring community,” Clements said. “In our view, the seeds that are being planted are tremendous.”

Phone calls came in around the clock from 10 to 20 a day, and included calls from people passing through Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport and responding to the newspaper ad.

About 200 of the callers gave their name and phone number and were referred to a follow-up person in their parish or a diocesan department which could be helpful.

Further study will be made of the campaign, the response, and possible future plans, Clements said, including establishing a Catholic “presence” on the church page of the newspaper.