sean o malley joins us from his diocese. may i wish you a spiritually uplifting season of lent. thank you very much, martin. the same to you. now, what is the thinking behind this advertising campaign? well, our hope is that the advertising campaign coupled with initiatives in the parish of outreach and inviting will encourage people who have perhaps stepped away from the practice of the faith to realize that they are part of our family and we re anxious for them to participate in our communities of faith. now, some of the protestant denominations in america have seen an increase in church attendance, particularly the evangelical churches. but while 70% of catholics regularly attended mass during the 50s, that s declined to just 17%. now, why is that?
snufl hey, martin. six people were wounded. 13 injured on that terrible day in january. loughner has already pled not guilty to the earlier charges brought against him. how do you expect him to respond to this latest indictment today? there s every indication he will continue with that not guilty plea as his defense team works toward some kind of mental health and insanity defense that they say it will take a long time to develop in this case. jay gray, thank you very much, indeed, for joining us. and when we come back, where have all the catholics gone? one of america s top cardinals on the church s dwindling attendance. plus, charlie sheen unhinged? can anyone bring this star back to reality? what can you do with plain white rice? when you pour chunky sirloin burger soup over it, you can do dinner.
time for the church and particularly for us catholics, we have it in our dna. i think it s a time when people are open to the message or the gospel and turn to the church with that hunger for god in the midst of so much materialism and actually the word lent is an old english word that means springtime. and hopefully, leapt for us will be a spiritual springtime, a time when people will be able to put aside some op @&hc% material things that stand in the way of nurturing our interior life and growing closer to the lord and closer to one another. cardinal sean o malley, archbishop of boston, thank you so much for joining us. one final piece of news on the matter in philadelphia, this afternoon, cardinal justin
formerly we had catholic who s would never miss mass. and now we have many who come once a month or ten times a year. or for the big holidays. but we re trying to instill in people a sense of discipleship that expresses itself in the community and jesus didn t come so that we could have the warp fuzzies. he came to establish a people, a church, a community of faith where we have responsibilities to god and to one another. can i ask how damaging have been the litany of sex scandals involving members of the catholic church? i m certain that people who were at an arm s length were pushed to two arms lengths by the terrible scandal. we don t see a dramatic decrease as a result of the scandal.
that we hope to do with the catholics come home is to help people to realize the many wonderful things that are happening in our faith community and our commitment to social justice, to the service of the poor, to health care, to outreach to regulars, to the homeless. and we ll recognize in our faith community a wonderful force for good in society. can i quote something i read in daniel act s book called we have met the enemy, where he writes life in this country has come to resemble a giant all you can eat buffet, one that offers more calories, credit, sex, intoxcan ts and just about anything else we can take to excess than at any time in history. so i guess my question is, does lent have any meaning in a country stuffed with over indulgence? well, lent is a wonderful