Deadly Indifference: How the Church Lost Her Mission, and How We Can Reclaim It - Paperback
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Religious indifference is the belief that all religions are equally valid and able to lead people to salvation has rapidly gained global ascendency over the last five decades. It's even infected the Catholic Church, wreaking havoc on her mission to the world.
Why is indifference deadly to Catholicism?
Because it turns Catholicism into just another religion, it neuters the Church's role as our path to salvation and converts the parish into little more than a social gathering place.
The result?
Former Catholics now constitute the second largest "religion" in America. Seventy percent of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist -- and even higher percentages reject the Church's moral teachings. Mass attendance is in freefall, and even the most basic habits of Sunday-going Catholics, such as regular Confession, have been lost.
Eric Sammons, a former diocesan director of evangelization and now the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, pulls the curtain back on the rise of religious indifference, uncovering a wealth of fascinating particulars about what made the Church work, and what is causing the new to collapse. He identifies the most damaging distortions of the Faith, presented as progress, and explains why Church leaders felt compelled to upend traditional Catholic life.
In captivating detail, Sammons explores why the New Evangelization was destined to fail and explains how the decision to de-emphasize the Church's exclusive role in the process of salvation inevitably led to mass abandonment of the sacraments. He identifies how certain teachings were ignored or toned down -- leading to their sudden collapse -- and how progressives elevated ecumenism over evangelization and supplanted proclamation of the Gospel with "dialogue."
Deadly Indifference is both a vital examination of the current crisis facing the Church and a blueprint for how to overcome it. Let's recover what was lost and return the Church to its unique rank as the light in a darkened world.
Eric Sammons is the author of seven books and the former Director of Evangelization for the Diocese of Venice in Florida. He has spoken to thousands of people on various Catholic topics; has conducted evangelization, Scripture, and apologetic workshops on the parish and diocesan levels; and has worked with many parishes to improve their evangelization efforts.
His published books include Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew (Our Sunday Visitor 2010), Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaría Escrivá (Our Sunday Visitor 2012), and The Old Evangelization: How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did (Catholic Answers Press 2017). He also authored the high school textbook Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue (Midwest Theological Forum 2013). In addition he has published articles in Crisis Magazine, Catholic Answers, The Federalist, Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, OnePeterFive, Catholic Exchange, and Catholic Online.
Sammons began his investigation of the Catholic faith in 1991 as an Evangelical Protestant and was received into the Catholic Church in 1993. He continued his studies of Catholicism and obtained his Master of Theology degree at Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2011.
Eric spent five years as Director of Evangelization for the Diocese of Venice, and before that was head of evangelization for a suburban parish in the Washington, DC area for ten years. There he organized parish missions, door-to-door evangelization campaigns, and public forums on the Catholic faith.
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