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Paulist Father Michael Evernden speaks with an online correspondent during a February session of “B- Catholics,” his digital ministry for “drifting” Catholics. (Photo by Christina Gray/Catholic San Francisco)
March 8, 2018
Christina Gray
Paulist Father Michael Evernden has no problem with Catholics who struggle with questions and doubts about their faith and their church or those who have fallen away from both completely.
“I run into a lot of priests who don’t really know what to do with an inactive Catholic,” he told Catholic San Francisco Feb. 27. “And they don’t really know how to bring a non-Catholic into the church either. “I don’t think they have been trained.”
The 70-year-old priest is a Paulist missionary at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral and Chinese Mission in Chinatown. He is a recent arrival in San Francisco, moving from Portland in 2016 after the Paulist Fathers ended nearly 100 years of pastoral care there.
Since then, he has created an online extension of a faith-sharing community he started in Portland nine years ago. The missionary effort for people trying to find a way back to the church in a supportive community is called “B-Catholic.” The symbol “B-” means “B minus,” a somewhat humorous allusion to a school grade suggesting the student needs to work harder to master the material.
The name is “a euphemism for Catholics who admit they don’t know everything” and want to deepen their understanding of the faith, Father Evernden said. That includes Catholics whose faith formation, practice, or both, may be many years in the past. Those with little to no Catholic religious education are also welcome.
“No question is out of bounds,” Father Evernden said, sitting behind the large computer monitor where he loosely moderates each video conferenced forum from 7:15 to about 8 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday of every month.
The majority of the regular participants log in from Portland where the physical “B-Catholics” group met, with new participants in the Bay Area joining more slowly, he said, through word-of-mouth.
Anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet and a desire to ask questions and share their faith story is welcome, Father Evernden said.
The Paulist started a program called “Drifting Catholics” 30 years ago in Seattle because “most people don’t really leave the church but just drift away,” he said. It was later developed into “Landings,” an international reconciliation ministry of the Paulist Fathers adopted by parishes to help Catholics return to the faith and parish life.
“Whether it’s inactive Catholics or fallen-away people or people just searching, they are not usually interested in the institution; they are not interested in rules and regulations,” he said. “What they want to know is why Catholics believe what we do and do what we do.”
Portland resident Karen Hopkins had been away from the church for “many, many years” when she came to the B-Catholics group at St. Philip Neri Parish there. She said she “never gave up the feeling that I was still Catholic,” but after going into a few churches and attending Mass, she never went back.
At the time, “I considered myself a “C-Catholic,” she said. “But it seemed so possible for me to be a B- Catholic.” Over the last eight years she has returned to the Mass and “my faith has started to deepen,” she said.
For Kathleen Prudence, also of Portland, “getting a voice” is one of the greatest values of her participation in “B-Catholics.”
“In many church groups you look to the priest to be the spokesperson; you look for their wisdom,” she said. “This forum has really taught me that I have my own voice. My voice is legitimate and I can express myself as an adult. You know, I’m no longer a little kid in catechism class!”
Being offered a place to explore her thoughts and develop that voice has made it much easier for her, she said, to share what she believes with her children who weren’t raised Catholic, or her neighbors who see her going off to church on Sunday morning and wonder why she doesn’t just want to stay home and have brunch with them.
“After so many years it has really developed for me into more areas than following the rules and showing up on Sunday,” she said. “It’s gotten so much deeper than ‘pray, pay and obey.’”
Father Evernden said he guides all the groups he runs on the principles and traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“Politics are out, and I don’t preach,” he said. And he insists his own faith is fed by a two-way exchange as much as anything he might provide directly.
“It’s incredibly important for me to say that the participants are the ones that feed my own spirituality,” he said. “We really miss the treasure we have in our pews because nothing is coming back.” Father Evernden said the online community is not intended to be an “electronic church” or a substitute for connection to a faith community.
“I would hope that anyone that spends any time with us would also be connected to a faith community,” he said.
Login information for “B-Catholics” is available at oldsaintmarys.org, or email Father Evernden at frmike@paulist.org. Father Evernden also does a short daily podcast called “Moments in Faith, Prayer and Spirituality,” at michaelcsp.podomatic.com.