Bill Maher Come Home! Catholics Come Home Extends an Invitation

We decided that the best response is to pray for Bill Maher to come home to the Catholic Church.

I spoke with Tom Peterson last week about the horrid on air attack leveled against "Catholics Come Home" by HBO Talk Show Host Bill Maher on his television program. Maher had seen one of the commercials of "Catholics Come Home" and decided to reach into the pits of hell and attack the whole Catholic Church.  It was offensive, bigoted, slanderous, disgusting, and yes, downright diabolical. We decided that the best response is to pray for Bill Maher to come home to the Catholic Church.

P>ATLANTA, GA. (Catholic Online) - I first met Tom Peterson several years ago at a Catholic Leadership Conference. I remember the year because I had pneumonia and almost did not even attend. However, after persevering through the long trip because the conference is always a highlight of my year, I knew I simply HAD to meet this man.

I had seen my first "Catholics Come Home" commercial months earlier and became immediately convinced that the work of this non-profit media apostolate was going to become one of the most important resources for the New Evangelization in my lifetime. "Finally," I thought to myself, "someone is using the new integrated media with excellence to tell the real story of the greatest treasure in the whole world, the fullness of the Christian faith as found within the Catholic Church."

On the first day of the conference I found Tom in the crowd. I was brimming over with enthusiasm. I walked up to him, introduced myself, and told him that I believed the work the Lord had given to him was one of the greatest resources we had in this new missionary age. Those who know me know that when I believe something is anointed by the Spirit and effective, I am blunt and right to the point. However, in retrospect, I was visibly very sick and anything but laid back in that encounter. I probably would have scared myself if I were Tom Peterson.

Fortunately, he was not put off by my manner or my coughing. He was encouraged. We conversed for quite some time and connected throughout that important weekend. I had the opportunity to see the newest commercials they had planned and to hear Tom speak. This gifted and humble man left a successful advertising career to serve the Lord and his Church in this critical time in history. He is exactly the kind of person we need millions of for the New Evangelization.

For any of our readers who have not yet seen a "Catholics Come Home" commercial, you need to stop reading this article and go to their outstanding interactive web site here.  Look around. Watch these commercials. Read about this wonderful New Evangelization Apostolate. Get encouraged. and learn to feel good again about being a Catholic Christian. But don't stop there!  Respond to one or more of the wonderful opportunities offered on this virtual media apostolate site to join in the mission.

I spoke with Tom Peterson last week about the horrid on air attack leveled against "Catholics Come Home" by HBO Talk Show Host Bill Maher on his television program. Maher had seen one of the commercials of "Catholics Come Home" and decided to reach into the pits of hell and attack the whole Catholic Church. First of all, it is not surprising that he saw these commercials, they are showing up everywhere.

That is because Tom Peterson, who refers to himself as an "advertising guy...simple and not a scholar," has built this effort into something unlike anything else happening in the Church today. Like the little boy with the loaves and the fish in the Gospel account of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, he has offered what he had and the miracle continues through the hands of Jesus Christ. This "advertising guy" is utilizing the best quality offered by the integrated media of our age to reach real people with the real hope they need in an age that has lost its soul. 

"Catholics Come Home" has cooperated with thirty Dioceses and Archdioceses, the most recent of which is my childhood home of Boston, Massachusetts. It is now being led by the wonderful Franciscan Archbishop, Sean Cardinal O'Malley.  The Cardinal's enthusiasm since the campaign began speaks volumes, "This Lent, we've made an outreach to inactive Catholics,launching several television commercials to invite our brothers and sisters home.  It's for Catholics, who for whatever reason have stopped coming to church." 

Then, there are those results! What has happened in Boston is happening everywhere these commercials air. Mass attendance has increased an average of 10 percent, and as much as 18 percent. The ads and the interactive website have reached 40 million viewers across the US and 1.5 million viewers worldwide in the past three years.  According to census statistics published by participating dioceses, "Catholics Come Home" ads have helped more than 200,000 fallen away Catholics come home to the Church.

Now back to Bill Maher's attack. In his rabid rant against the commercial and the Catholic Church he had failed to do his due diligence. He thought the commercial was produced by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church rather than by a nonprofit effort led by a layman trying to share the Good News. He said in a three minute segment on his HBO show that "the Catholic Church had made an ad" which was "slick, like a Superbowl commercial." Then, he offered his own profane, virulently anti-Catholic harangue. He made his own mocking commercial, making it look like one of these beautiful commercials. It was offensive, bigoted, slanderous, disgusting, and yes, downright diabolical.

"Catholics Come Home" responded with their own Press Release which can be read in its entirety here They properly pointed out that "Bill Maher continues to rant against all things Catholic, in an effort to "crucify" the Catholic Church by holding it up to continual ridicule and scorn.  Maher inaccurately claims that the "Catholic Church made these ads."  False. The hierarchy of the Church did not produce these ads, CatholicsComeHome.org did.  The television and website advertisements accessible at Catholics Come Home were created and are supported by a group of Catholic families and individuals inspired by Pope John Paul II's call for a New Evangelization."

The Press release of "Catholics Come Home" was only picked up by a few venues. I was disappointed in the poor response of the Catholic Press. That is one of the reasons I called Tom last week. I wanted to encourage him in this vital work and offer to do everything I could to promote "Catholics Come Home."  In the course of our conversation I was again moved by the authenticity of this man. I was also amazed at the impact of this media apostolate.

He rattled off story after story of changed lives and statistic after statistic of a homecoming to the Church. He told me that people are "coming back (to the Church) in droves." As we spoke I asked him what motivated him to leave his successful advertising career and undertake this apostolate. He told me that years ago he began to realize that we all have a "homing device" within us, fashioned by the One who created us out of love and for love. He knew back then that his task was to help "love more souls into heaven."

As the conversation continued I told Tom that in my experience over decades of helping people find the Lord, who alone can fill the hole in their soul, I had learned that many like Bill Maher who have such a strong animosity toward the Lord and His Church are often fighting His irresistible call to come home themselves. In fact, the more strident ones are often the closest to putting down their resistance and succumbing to the Lords loving invitation of grace.

Sure enough, my research showed me that Bill Maher professes to having been raised as a Catholic. That means he has been Baptized. There is grace given in that gateway Sacrament of Christ's Church. I suggested to Tom that he consider inviting Bill Maher to "Come Home" to the Church which he has attempted to tear down. His response was predictable, given his sincere faith and warm heart, and wonderful. "Of course" he responded, "Bill Maher, Come Home!"

For the remainder of our delightful conversation we shared about the possibility that this angry son of the Church, Bill Maher, who has turned his talents against the truth and against the Lord who loves Him, might return home to the Church into which he was baptized. That is when I decided that this article on the injustice committed by Bill Maher against "Catholics Come Home" - and against the Catholic Church -should be the beginning of a new campaign of prayer.

The campaign is called "Bill Maher Come Home."  I invite our massive readership around the globe to pray for Bill Maher for the remainder of Lent and throughout Holy Week. Flood the heavens with requests for the Holy Spirit to break through his anger, heal any pain from the past, open his eyes to the truths of the faith and bring him back to the One whose grace was given to him years ago at the waters of the Baptismal Fount. I know that this is not only possible, but that greater things have happened in the 2,000 year history of the Church.

Tom agreed and we began the effort, right there, on the phone. We turned to the Lord who is always waiting. It was a powerful prayer and I hope it will be multiplied by the millions as a result of this article. Pray for Tom Peterson and the important work of "Catholics Come Home."  Pray for Bill Maher.  Join the campaign.  "Bill Maher, Come Home." 

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