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A national Catholic organization is making it a mission to put Bibles in the hands of students in college as a tool to help them in their faith.
“A staggering 79 percent of former Catholics leave the faith before the age of twenty-three,” the Catholic evangelization organization, Word on Fire, says on its website.
“The vast majority of young people who leave their Christian faith do so around the high school to college age,” Brandon Vogt, senior publishing director for Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire ministry, told Fox News Digital.
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“And so we thought, well, if that’s when they’re leaving, then we need to go out there and meet them in that critical moment,” Vogt added. “So we do that in lots of ways over the years at Word on Fire, we’ve released videos and books and resources, but this Bible campaign I think has been a really effective way to do that because we’re getting into their hands the Word of God.”
The organization said it has provided over 30,000 copies of its Gospels edition to college students on more than 100 campuses across the U.S., and one in Canada.
“With these Word on Fire editions of the Bible, which is not just the biblical text, it’s this work of art,” Vogt said.
“And we call it a ‘cathedral in print’ because it’s surrounded with artwork and quotes from saints and church fathers and mystics and scholars, and it’s got a bunch of extra stuff around it that I think makes the Bible understandable to a college student, especially one approaching it for the first time,” Vogt said.
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On its webpage for the initiative, Word on Fire says it has raised more than $184,000 toward its goal of $250,000.
“We have countless testimonies of people who have begun reading the Bible for the first time in their lives as a result of this campaign, which for us is enormously encouraging,” Vogt told Fox News Digital.
“We partnered with a lot of the Catholic campus ministries at secular colleges,” he added. “People are saying, ‘Wow, you know, I’ve never read the Bible before. This is my first time.’ Or they’ll say, ‘This is the most beautiful version of the Bible. I think this is one I’ll actually read.’”
Schools whose Catholic campus ministry centers are part of the initiative include Harvard University, West Point, Stanford University, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, and Southern Methodist University.
Vogt also said people have said the Word on Fire Bibles have led to their becoming Catholic or returning to the church.
“I think Catholics can do a whole lot better reading the Bible. And that’s not a fault of the church,” Vogt said. “The church has been adamant for decades and centuries that Catholics need to know the scriptures on the ground. Is it happening as well as it should? Probably not. That’s why we’re on fire. So committed to bringing the Bible to new generations.”
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