Bishop Thomas Olmsted discusses his recently released exhortation to Catholic men and the particular challenges he sees facing men of faith today
Last fall Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix released Into the Breach: An Apostolic Exhortation to Catholic Men, inviting Catholic men to return to an active practice of their faith and re-assume their roles as fathers in society. Citing statistics from the Center for Applied Research into the Apostolate, Bishop Olmsted laments a steep decline in the practice of the Catholic faith—since 2000, 14 million Catholics have left the faith, parish religious education of children has dropped by 24 percent, Catholic school attendance has dropped by 19 percent, infant baptism has dropped by 28 percent, adult baptism has dropped by 31 percent, and sacramental Catholic marriages have dropped by 41%.
“This is a serious breach,” says Bishop Olmsted, “a gaping hole in Christ’s battle lines. … As our fathers, brothers, uncles, sons and friends fall away from the Church, they fall deeper and deeper into sin, breaking their bonds with God and leaving them vulnerable to the fires of Hell.”
