The Catholic Church has faced many difficulties, scandals, and issues throughout the past 2,000+ years. This isn't to diminish the things we face today, but to give us a bit of context. Still, we have big problems. One of the bigger ones is that we are living in a post-Christian society and yet our dioceses and parishes are operating as if we aren't. Why would we think that the same practices we held onto for generations (and that led to the rapid decline of Catholicism in the USA) would help us somehow recapture a less religious culture in future generations?

Think of your parish or diocese and ask yourself this question - if a for-profit business operated as the church does, would it have survived?

• No clear mission or failure to operate according to the mission.
• Sticking to practices that have continued decline over many decades.
• Failure to be accountable to successful renewal.
• Etc

There are some who may not agree with this premise, so let us examine another area of concern.

What is the mission of the Church? I believe it is best summed up in the great commission, which is, to "make disciples". This is reflected in the following quotes (just a handful will hopefully suffice):

"As the "convocation" of all men for salvation, the Church in her very nature is missionary, sent by Christ to all the nations to make disciples of them." -CCC 767

"Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists to evangelize." -Pope Paul VI, EN 14

"John Paul II asked us to recognize that “there must be no lessening of the impetus to preach the Gospel” to those who are far from Christ, “because this is the first task of the Church”. Indeed, “today missionary activity still represents the greatest challenge for the Church” and “the missionary task must remain foremost”. What would happen if we were to take these words seriously? We would realize that missionary outreach is paradigmatic for all the Church’s activity." -Pope Francis, EG 15

Pope Francis gives us a great question and an answer. We need to take these words seriously! Even more so, we need to follow the clear statements of Sacred Scripture - statements such as these:

"Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel." -1 Cor 9: 16

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes." -Rom 1: 16

We even see St. Paul give a primacy to the Gospel in his ministry. Why does he do this? Because it is the primary way in which people come to knowledge of how God wants to save them through the grace and forgiveness of Jesus.

So, why do we not do this today? Here are some of the reasons and our call to action.

UNHEALTHY PARTS OF CATHOLIC CULTURE
Having worked in the Catholic Church for many years now, I know many of the dysfunctions which are part of the internal culture of Catholic parishes, dioceses, and ministries. It is no secret that many are not healthy places. There is mistrust, lack of clarity in mission, church politics, conflict, fighting for power, etc. In other words, sinners run the Church! Furthermore, there is a culture of management - not mission. There is little vision for growth, but maintenance of decline. There is little tranformation and a lot of status quo.

Even with all of this, we see a lack of leaders, who what to do about it and want to change. There are numerous reasons, some of which I will lay out here:

1. Seminaries (and grad schools) aren't forming leaders for the modern parish! Seminary formation is a hyper-academic environment, where young men, spend most of their time with their peers, learning from (mostly) older men, who train them on philosophy, theology, sacraments, pastoral issues, etc. These are all good an necessary. Yet, when these men get into a parish, they are dealing with multi-generational issues, families, women (mostly), and are (for most of their priesthood) living alone. They rarely get to "use" their high philosophy and theology, because their flock doesn't even know the basics. Many lack leadership skills and training. Even fewer know how to form teams, deal with human resource issues, budget, fundraise, etc. Those are just the admin issues. Then there are the pastoral issues. These include a lack of understanding how to evangelize, how to bring someone to conversion, how to accompany someone personally, how to bring a disciple to Christian maturity, etc. Lay leaders suffer from most of these issues as well. Is it any wonder then, why we have such big issues in the Church today? Leaders can't lead when they don't have the knowledge, skill, and ability to complete the task given them.
2. Pastoral training rarely helps our leaders understand real evangelization and discipleship! Too often we see leaders who don't have the answer for breaking the decline in our parishes. Answers which are creative and transformative. This is because their experiences in pastoral ministry are focussed on classes, Sacraments, events, and pre-packaged programs (all good things but not enough to change the culture). They don't understand how to spiritually multiply or form missionary disciples - because they haven't apprenticed under someone who was doing these things. In other words, these are foreign concepts that most of our leadership has never personally experienced, even if we are starting to use the buzzwords of discipleship, missionary disciples, etc. Real change takes a leader who is willing to change how they personally operate, not just change the activities of the parish or diocese they are over.
3. Change is hard and all of us like comfort. We all know it and we all struggle with it sometimes. But, we MUST change the way we operate or we will continue to see the Church decline. For every one person joining the Catholic Church we have SIX  CATHOLICS WHO ARE LEAVING, in the USA! Not only that, but few go to Mass, believe the Church's teachings, have a relationship with Jesus, etc. How we can accept this and just continue to "manage" our parishes and dioceses doesn't add up. We should all be upset at this...unless we really just don't care that much about salvation for others. 
4. Lack of openness to "experimentation" and new movements. I am NOT advocating for changing the Church's doctrine. But, rather, we need new ways of operating, new movements, and a new missionary spirit. But, there is no small resistance to new ways of doing things. Part of it is fear. Fear of change. Fear that I have to change. Fear of having to humble myself to try something new. Fear that I may not have operated in the ways we need to and my work hasn't been as fruitful as it could be. This is nothing new. We are all human and nobody does things perfectly. But, we can all grow a lot more, if we become more humble and courageous. We need an age of experimentation and leaders (and donors) who encourage it.
5. Culture of teaching (good), with little evangelizing (bad). We need to teach. Jesus taught. But, teaching isn't always the key to someone's heart being converted to Christ. Generally, it is in some kind of encounter with Jesus, where there is an explicit opportunity to choose to follow Him, and an invitation to repentance & conversion. This is evangelization. This is a big part of what we are missing - being explicit in our evangelization. Still, when many pastoral leaders start to take up pastoral planning, they fall back on what they know and many end up making teaching the core of the movement. Then we fall right back into the same problems we have. These two things (teaching and evangelizing) should be part of the same effort. Yet if we teach without evangelizing we get Catholics who may not know Jesus, even if they know doctrine. If we evangelize without teaching, we get ignorant disciples who don't have deep roots.
6. Stopping after we make converts - so we fail to raise up missionary disciples. This is now the new trend. Everyone wants to do more "discipleship". But, do we know what we are aiming at? Sherry Weddell did a marvelous job of giving us the language of being "Intentional Disciples". That is, someone who intentionally chooses to follow Jesus. Our discipleship is never an accident or merely inherited from others. Still, this is not the final goal and too often we aim at making disciples...and then we stop! We need to aim for disciples who make other disciples who make other disciples. This is a culture of spiritual multiplication, which takes a long time and a lot of vision-casting. Since this is foreign to most leaders, we don't know where to start, which leads me to my last point.
7. We don't change, because to do so means we have to admit we haven't always operated the right way. Change takes humility. Accountability takes humility. Can you imagine if a bishop admitted that he doesn't have all the answers, needs help, and is seeking to learn from others what would be the best ways to turn around his diocese, which is bleeding out Catholics? Personally, I would admire him a lot for such humility. I remember the first time I realized I wasn't actually helping raise up missionary disciples. It hurt, because I had to admit I needed to change the way I operated. I started to seek out those who knew more, place myself at their feet, ask them to disciple (accompany, mentor, and guide) me. I then applied what I learned from them and started to mess up (and still be fruitful - because it was God doing the heavy lifting). I still don't know it all, am still a big sinner, still learning what makes up discipleship, and am still trying to grow as a disciple-maker. We ALL need growth and getting back to the model Jesus taught us.

The fix isn't easy. We need change in how we operate, within our parishes and dioceses. It starts with humility and prayer. We can then really discern what each of us needs, in order to grow as leaders. We need the proper vision. We need help. The reason is that God wants renewal in our Church, so that we can fulfill His work. Remember that a handful of disciples changed the world in a few generations, after Pentecost. What about us?

As I wrote in another post - Many don't know where to start and that is ok. Many need help, that is ok too. In fact, it may be easier for someone from outside your diocese, parish, or ministry to help, because they don't have to deal with all of the internal issues and history. We at Catholic Missionary Disciples, would love to assist you, if you feel called to reach out to us, please do so. If not, please pray for the Church...we need it!