Catholics Recommend Witnesses’ Zeal
THE apostle Paul said that Christians should “be aglow with the spirit,” and ‘do the work of evangelizers, fully accomplishing their ministry.’ (Rom. 12:11; 2 Tim. 4:5) Catholic priests and laymen have observed that the zealous ministerial activity of Jehovah’s witnesses is in keeping with Scriptural example. Albert Muller wrote in the Catholic magazine America recently (June 24, 1961) that “the Witnesses can truly boast of their intense activity.” “Their enormous zeal,” he said, “is their great strength.”
“It is the rare American who is unaware of a group of people commonly called Jehovah’s Witnesses,” observed Catholic priest J. S. Kennedy in the June 3, 1962, issue of Our Sunday Visitor. “In cities and towns up and down the land, some of them are regularly seen selling the publications of their peculiar religious sect. Their door-to-door canvass in pursuit of converts is intensive and never stops. . . . their zeal and self-sacrifice should give us pause.”
In answer to the question, “Why would a Catholic turn to this sect?” Kennedy pointed to the “bulletin of a Catholic church in Paris [which] gave the following answer, ‘Three factors contribute—the discovery of warm and brotherly communities; the discovery of the Bible; the discovery of lively preaching, easily understood. If they had found these things here, they would not have looked elsewhere.’”
Catholic priest John A. O’Brien recommended to some 200 priests at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York in 1961 the apostolic house-to-house preaching method employed by Jehovah’s witnesses. “In recruiting converts and reclaiming lapsed members, nothing beats personal contact,” he said. “This is achieved by the tactful, courteous, well trained doorbell apostle. The secret of the phenomenal success of St. Paul was his tireless use of the house-to-house method of recruiting converts. It is ironic that this apostolic method is now used by non-Catholic sects, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose numerous converts put us Catholics to shame.”
In the May 6, 1962, Canadian issue of Our Sunday Visitor Catholic priest Richard Griffin pointed to Jehovah’s witnesses as one of the world’s fastest-growing religions, while noting that “too many Catholic laymen seem to be half-ashamed of the fact that they are Catholics.” Griffin asked whether the Witnesses make “this fantastic progress by adopting the ‘let George do it’ attitude of so many Catholics.” “I think not,” he answered. “On an average each Witness will log 10 to 12 hours a month going from door to door distributing literature to interest prospective converts. Last year the sect reported one convert for each nine members; in the U.S.A. it took 279 Catholics to win one convert to the Church.”
“This alarming disparity is due in no small measure to the apathy of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Average Catholic’ right back at the parish level,” Griffin asserted. “You cannot win the world for Christ or even save your own soul by sitting back in front of your TV and leaving the extension of Christ’s Kingdom to the ‘faithful few.’”
William J. Whalen also recommended the zealous ministerial activity of Jehovah’s witnesses as something for Catholics to learn from. Writing in the February 24, 1962, issue of the Catholic magazine Ave Maria, he said: “Last year the Witnesses put in an amazing total of 131 million hours in such door-to-door preaching. They are bound to impress some of the people on whom they call. They show an interest in serving their God, become articulate and confident in their presentations, display an amazing knowledge of the Bible, and are willing to spend any amount of time studying with an interested householder.”
Drawing from these facts, Whalen concluded: “Lesson One for Catholics. We must seriously re-examine the mission techniques of the past and present. The Witnesses have discovered what many of us know as well: Few unchurched people nowadays leave their homes to attend missions, novenas, revivals and the like. If they are to be reached at all they must be reached personally and in their own living rooms or front porches.”
Will Catholics respond to this admonition to learn a lesson from Jehovah’s witnesses and carry their religion to the homes of the people? People usually follow the example of their leaders, and since the pope, cardinals, bishops and priests in general do not follow the example of preaching from house to house set by Jesus and his apostles, can one expect the Catholic people to do so?