Record-breaking year for the Coming Home Network

Birmingham, Ala., Dec 16, 2016 / 19:42 pm

Dedicated to serving Catholic converts, the network Coming Home, will meet the closing of the year with record-breaking membership numbers, reporting over 5,000 new members for 2016.

"Protestants and other non-Catholics on the journey to Catholicism need to meet Catholics who themselves are faithful Christians, as well as other converts who know the difficulty of the journey into the Church and beyond," said JonMarc Grodi, the director of the Coming Home Network.

"Handling these large numbers is a wonderful challenge, because ours is a very personal mission. We work to understand each individual person's journey and needs, and then help them accordingly," Grodi continued.

The Coming Home network is an apostolate produced by members of The Journey Home program, which airs on the Catholic network EWTN. The network was founded over 25 years ago, and features apologetic resources, retreats, and catechetical programs to journey with individuals on the road to Catholicism.

The organization began keeping track of their numbers in 1993, and recently reported that the 2016 year will mark the largest count of membership since then.

In order to tackle the growing multitude of members, the Coming Home network has implemented advanced social media strategies and redesigned their website for more efficient production. They have also prepared their staff to "handle the increase in inquiries."

The members who have joined the Coming Home network throughout 2016 "include non-Catholic clergy, seminarian professors, seminarians, missionaries, lay ministers and even spouses of clergy." Among the members are also "laypersons seeking to enter the Catholic Church and members who are already Catholic but have experienced a reversion to their faith."

These members who have converted to Catholicism now serve the Church in various ways: as bishops, priests, deacons and religious, or also as active laypersons within the Church community.

"They're serving in every imaginable way," Grodi said of the converts.

Grodi, who is also the founder and president of EWTN's The Journey Home, expressed excitement and gratitude at the growth in numbers.

"The personal touch of my guests telling their stories has been like the ripple effect from a stone thrown into a pond. A day doesn't go by when we don't receive grateful calls, emails, tweets, and texts from viewers and listeners," Grodi said.

"I think however, that the main reason God is drawing people to the fullness of truth is for the sake of their own spiritual growth, and the graces of the sacraments."