Catholics are still welcome to attend, but the lack of official involvement amazed Graham biographer Bill Martin, who characterized the archdiocese’s reasoning as a "change in policy" from Mr. Graham’s 1991 Central Park crusade. Back then, he said, 630 Catholic churches cooperated with the crusade and information on the meetings was handed out at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
That 1991 stance had been a huge shift from Mr. Graham’s first New York crusade in 1957, he said, when Catholics boycotted the event and Catholic clergy were instructed on how to counter Mr. Graham’s preaching.
"So maybe something’s come down from above saying not to be involved in this," Mr. Martin added.
Mr. Zwilling said he didn’t remember any such cooperation from churches back then, but Catholic clergy in 1991 did receive names of Catholics who answered Mr. Graham’s altar calls at the Central Park event.
In a column to be released Saturday in the diocesan newspaper the Tablet, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio outlined the significant divide over how Catholics and Protestants understand salvation.
The bishop said he welcomed Mr. Graham into the area and promised to follow up on any names given to them by crusade organizers.
This, of course, has been an interesting issue for years. Graham has been stigmatized by some other Protestants because of his cooperation with Catholics in the past, and the Crusade’s practice, as the article notes, of passing on the names of Catholics who come forward to Catholic churches.
But I actually do see the dioceses’ point. This is a Protestant evangelical event. Why should a Catholic diocese work hard to get its people out to it? It should understand that a lot of people going will be Catholic, and should be ready to meet the needs that might be exposed by the event, but as important a figure as Billy Graham is…we wouldn’t expect the Diocese of Brooklyn to work hard to get folks out to a Jerry Falwell crusade, would we?
Read Previous Post