Dear Friend of Catholic Answers,

This year has been a tremendously busy time for us. Catholic Answers is moving forward in the realm that ultimately matters most—the realm of religion, theology, faith, and spirituality. And we have no intention of slowing down our work.

We broadcast Catholic Answers Live, the most popular Catholic radio show in America, which is live for two hours every day.

We’re publishing This Rock, the most popular and most effective magazine of Catholic apologetics and evangelization.

We’ve published more books, booklets, special reports, and audio sets than ever before, covering such timely topics as Pope Benedict XVI’s historic visit to America, Mormonism, Oprah spreading deadly New Age teachings, how to fight pornography, and so much more.

Our chastity speakers—Jason Evert, Chris Stefanick, Jason Angelette, and Christina King—are speaking to more than 100,000 high-school and college students this year—with more speaking engagements planned between now and the end of the calendar year.

We’ve distributed tens of thousands of copies of our booklets Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth and Pure Love—for free—to Catholic young people from all over the world at World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia.

Visits to our web site are at the highest levels ever. And with our discussion forums—where you can interact directly with your fellow Catholics about any topic related to the Catholic faith or current events—we’re now the largest Catholic Internet forum in the world, with 103,000 members.

The bottom line?

We’re impacting people’s lives—and helping people grow closer to God—one day at a time.

Here at Catholic Answers, that’s what we’re all about.

We’re here to defend, explain, and promote the Catholic faith. We’re the largest organization of our kind in the world. And, frankly, the most effective.

As you know, our task is not easy. We’re up against mountains of misinformation and misconceptions about the Catholic faith. But with enough time, effort, and determination, every mountain can be conquered.

When I look back over the last 27 years, I see that we’ve made tremendous progress in helping people understand the Catholic faith.

In various ways, we’ve reached and influenced millions upon millions of people.

We’ve helped average Catholics become better Catholics. We’ve helped fallen-away Catholics come back to the faith. And we’ve helped non-Catholics become Catholic.

There are so many success stories in our files—and countless more that we aren’t even aware of—leaving no doubt in my mind that we are helping to change the world and build a better future, one person at a time.

And we have our supporters like you to thank for it!

This is one reason that I look forward to the future. I’m very encouraged by things going on today. There are many positive signs that indicate we can turn the corner in this fight for our faith and our culture if we just try hard enough.

That’s why I’d like to give you my vision for the future of Catholic Answers and show you how God is using our apostolate to help rebuild the Catholic Church and restore some sanity to our culture.

You can get a snapshot of our future when you watch the DVD on our web site catholic.com.

It’s our 2009 DVD—and it describes all of our current projects.

But before you look at it, let me tell you about the vital projects we’re working on, why they so urgently are needed, and how you can help bring more and more people to the fullness of truth in the Catholic faith—while keeping thousands of Catholics from leaving the Church in the first place (which is still a serious problem).


If you’re like the rest of Catholic Answers’ supporters, you dearly love and care about the Catholic faith.

Like me, you want everyone to embrace Catholicism, because that’s what God wants for all his children.

It hurts you to see people reject his Church.

It’s especially painful when, out of ignorance or malice, people attack the Catholic Church and cause innocent souls to believe that Catholicism is “unbiblical,” “pagan,” “idolatrous,” “man-made,” even “anti-Christian” and “repugnant to God”!

If you’ve suffered the pain of losing a loved one—especially a close family member—to a Fundamentalist church or a group like the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, then you know the pain I’m talking about.

You probably wish there were a simple way to reach the people who have rejected Catholicism—and to get them to see that the Catholic Church is the true Church founded by Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, there’s no simple way.

It takes a great deal of time, effort, and manpower—not to mention prayer, divine grace, sacrifice, patience, love, charity, and long-suffering—to reach people with the truth of the Catholic faith.

We can’t just download the faith into people’s hearts and minds (though I wish we could).

My experience over the years as a full-time Catholic apologist has taught me—over and over again—that God’s grace really is the decisive factor in anyone’s conversion.

As apologists and evangelists, we’re merely tools in the Master’s hands.

But even so . . .


That’s why Catholic Answers exists.

And believe me, the demand for our work is growing tremendously every day. More and more people are turning to Catholic Answers for clear, powerful information about the faith—to the point where we hardly can keep up with the calls, letters, e-mails, and other requests we get!

So let me show you the things we’re doing—and the things we want to do in the near future so we can meet the increasing demand for
Catholic apologetics.

ONGOING PROJECT #1: CATHOLIC ANSWERS LIVE
Annual Cost: $500,000
Apostolic Good: Program now reaching millions of people nationwide every day.

Our radio talk show, Catholic Answers Live, is growing rapidly in every city where we’re on the air—especially now that we have DOUBLED our air time to TWO HOURS a day.

Right now we’re on over 120 stations from coast to coast. We’re also on the Internet, Mother Angelica’s shortwave radio station, and now we’re on SIRIUS Satellite Radio.

It costs us almost $42,000 a month just to produce the show. Such a bill strains our budget. But we gladly make the necessary sacrifices in order to put Catholic Answers Live on the air—because it’s one of our best outreach tools.

Every day, this live call-in talk show features leading experts on a wide variety of topics concerning the Catholic faith.

And every day, we field dozens of phone calls from listeners who have questions they urgently need answered.

In fact, the radio show alone is responsible for a huge increase in phone calls, e-mails, and letters that we receive asking for help.

Answering those questions—and providing food for the minds and souls of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, all across the country—is what we’re here for.

And, as always, it’s your support that makes our radio work possible.

Same with . . .

ONGOING PROJECT #2: THIS ROCK MAGAZINE
Annual Cost: $813,000
Apostolic Good: Most popular and effective apologetics and evangelization magazine in print. Brings people to the Catholic faith through an in-depth understanding of all the important issues.

This Rock—our flagship monthly magazine—has earned a solid reputation as the foremost magazine of Catholic apologetics and evangelization available today.

Each issue is packed with articles that explain the Catholic faith in all its glory.

As a result, This Rock has led more people to the Catholic faith—or back to it—than any other journal of its kind being published today.

In fact, most of the testimonials and conversion stories in our files come from people who’ve read This Rock.

Yet, the readership of This Rock still stands at around 36,000—a far cry from what it needs to be in order to maximize the true potential of this publication.

To gather more subscribers, we have to do more advertising and marketing—always an expensive endeavor when promoting a magazine.

Since This Rock accepts little outside advertising, it means the magazine isn’t truly self-supporting—because the subscription price is kept low deliberately so that as many people as possible can afford it.

Therefore, to publish This Rock—and especially to expand its subscriber base—we need support from people like you who understand and appreciate the value of this important magazine.

It costs us $813,000 a year to publish This Rock. And right now, we don’t have that kind of money.

So, once again, your support will be the deciding factor in how many people we reach.

And to reach people in person, we have . . .

ONGOING PROJECT #3: Q & A DEPARTMENT
Annual Cost: $156,000
Apostolic Good: Provides accurate, dependable information to thousands of people a year, often at crucial, life-changing moments.

When it comes to apologetics, the thing people need most is someone they can talk to for fast, reliable answers to their most burning questions.

For years, we’ve had staff members take phone calls from anyone who calls in with a question he wants to ask us.

More good is done through this one effort than you can ever imagine.

That’s because callers get a chance to connect with one of our expert staff apologists—a real, live person who understands their questions and knows the answers.

Our apologists are well-versed, well-trained Catholic experts with years of experience under their belts. They know the answers to virtually any question you could ask them. And they know how to communicate those answers in ways that people accept and embrace—even people who formerly disagreed with the Catholic position.

I can’t say enough about this important aspect of our work. Unfortunately, it costs us $156,000 a year to run this department. This includes not just salaries but our phone bills, computer costs, and the truckloads of free material we send out during the year to people who are sincerely seeking the truth.

With an annual cost like that, it’s easy to see why we need your help to keep this vital department going.

Next, we’re already preparing for . . .

ONGOING PROJECT #4: WORLD YOUTH DAY
Cost: $100,000
Apostolic Good: Protecting our Catholic youth from slick, anti-Catholic and anti-chastity propaganda at World Youth Day.

In past years, we have participated in the World Youth Day events in Denver, Manila, Rome, Toronto, Cologne, and most recently in Sydney, Australia, where we distributed tens of thousands of copies of our powerful booklets Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth and Pure Love.

It’s a good thing we attended (thanks to your help), because scores of anti-Catholic groups are always there in full force—handing out clever anti-Catholic propaganda designed to look like authentic Catholic literature.

We’ve received so many calls, letters, and e-mails from the youth who were there thanking us for our great little booklets.

Young Catholics from all over the world were there.

And soon we’ll have to do it all over again at the very next World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain.

Once again, we will need to print tens of thousands of copies of Pillar and Pure Love—in different languages—and distribute them to the young Catholics who will be traveling from all over the world to see the Pope.

This project will cost us $100,000—so we’re starting now to save up for this large expense. Anything you can give to help will be greatly appreciated.

We’re also in need of funds for . . .

ONGOING PROJECT #5: CHASTITY AWARENESS PROJECT
Annual Cost: $80,000
Apostolic Good: Helping our Catholic youth avoid sexual sins and the loss of their faith.

The top reason Catholic teens abandon their faith is because of sexual sins.

Just ask any priest who hears confessions. When teens get caught up in a sinful lifestyle, it’s very difficult for them to remain close to God and practice their faith.

Instead, they start to shut God out of their lives, and they fall deeper and deeper into sin in a downward spiral that can cause them to lose their faith entirely—and even lose their souls.

Many kids get hooked on pornography (so readily available through the Internet). Others become sexually promiscuous. Along with the sex often comes drugs and alcohol. And, in the case of tens of thousands of Catholic teenage girls each year, they end up getting abortions.

One tragic mistake gets piled on the other. The enslaving bonds of sexual sin are so strong that it’s very difficult to break them. What kids need is the direct intervention of God’s grace coupled with someone who reaches out to share the message of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

But by far the best remedy is prevention. We know that if we can help prevent young people from starting down the road of sexual sin, their chances of making it to adulthood with their faith and souls intact are greatly improved.

That’s why we’re so excited about the success rate we’ve been having through our Chastity Awareness Project, where some of our most popular speakers—Jason Evert, Chris Stefanick, Jason Angelette, and Christina King—give talks to students at public and Catholic high schools and colleges all around the country. It’s by far one of the most successful efforts we’ve ever launched. So far, we’ve been able to reach over half a million—and the positive effects we’re producing are absolutely heartwarming.

Our video featuring Jason and Crystalina Evert, Romance without Regret, is now reaching teens we might never have reached otherwise.

But this soul-saving project costs us a significant amount of money every year, and we really need your help to keep funding it.

Especially now that we have the web address chastity.com so that we can begin proclaiming the message of chastity in a whole new way on the Internet. Re-designing our chastity site so that it can reach its maximum potential is an intensive effort that will only be possible if it is underwritten by the generous support of donors like you, who care about chastity.

Same with . . .

ONGOING PROJECTS #6, #7, #8, and #9: PARISH SEMINARS, NEW BOOKS, MILITARY FAITH SUPPORT, AND OUR UPDATED WEB SITE

Catholic Answers speakers are some of the best in the land. Every month, they go out to parishes across the country to give our special brand of parish seminars—where we present the basic elements of the Catholic faith to all who want to attend.

Our parish seminars have borne a great deal of good fruit in the last several years. With Tim Staples, Jimmy Akin, Jim Burnham, Ray Guarendi, Marcellino D’Ambrosio, and Mark Shea—we’re doing even more good work for the glory of God.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re coming out with new books, special reports, and CD sets that cover a variety of timely topics, such as exposing the lies of Jack Chick, unmasking the New Age teachings that Oprah Winfrey is pushing on Catholic (and non-Catholic) Americans, refuting the “New Atheists” who have seized headlines and rocketed to the top of best-seller lists, and so much more.

We also send soul-saving, faith-building resources to our soldiers in harm’s way. Believe it or not, the anti-Catholic zealots who try to convert innocent members of our Church to the various forms of Protestantism are just as active in the United States Armed Forces as they are on the streets of our country.

So while our soldiers in uniform are trying to protect our freedom and our national security, they’re under attack from fellow troops who promote anti-Catholic misinformation. Many times, even Protestant chaplains join in and distribute anti-Catholic literature such as the infamous Jack Chick tracts!

To combat this travesty, Catholic Answers provides literature to Catholic troops. We’ve shipped our soldiers copies of The Essential Catholic Survival Guide, which contains answers to literally hundreds of questions. Another key weapon in our apologetics arsenal is our powerful Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth. We have shipped tens of thousands of copies of this booklet to Catholic chaplains at military installations worldwide. We also provide rosaries, scapulars, confession guides, and Miraculous Medals.

We feel it would be wrong to leave our Catholic soldiers defenseless in the face of anti-Catholic propaganda while they’re fighting to protect us. Your donation to Catholic Answers will help fund this important project.

Plus, our web site is much more accessible and usable than it used to be. Now, tens of thousands of people visit us online every day and retrieve over ten million pages from our site a month!

Forums.catholic.com is now the largest Catholic discussion forum in the world with 103,000 registered, regular members, eight times that amount of additional visitors per month, and 4.4 million postings. The forums have become a powerful evangelization tool. Practically every day we receive e-mails from Protestants and former Catholics telling us how the forums have brought them to the Catholic Church.

Now we’ve added the Original Catholic Encyclopedia to our web site, a key step in our plan to make Catholic.com the single most information-rich, one-stop Catholic web site in the world. The new encyclopedia has been so popular that it served over a million pages in just its first hundred days online.

And altogether, for the past four years in a row, we’ve experienced a 50 percent increase in the number of people we communicate with on a regular basis.


Frankly, I could fill several more pages with descriptions of the work we’re doing and planning to do here at Catholic Answers to meet the ever-increasing demand.

But rather than continue with more details, I just want to emphasize that each project is designed to reach as many people as possible with the soul-saving truths of the Catholic faith.

As an independent lay organization, we are totally dependent upon our supporters like you for every penny we have. Click here to send your donation.


Thanks to you, we have confidence that we will be able to carry out all the projects I’ve outlined in this letter.

Not one of them should want for funds. Each will be successful (with God’s grace). And each is desperately needed, as our experience shows.

I know you’ve given generously to our past appeals for help. I can’t thank you enough for all the sacrifices you’ve made.

But with all of the new and existing projects on our agenda, our budget is strained to the limit.

That’s why we need your help to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for good, solid Catholic apologetics and evangelization these days.

Specifically, we need gifts of $10,000 and $20,000 from those who are able to give that much.

From others, we need gifts of $5,000 and $7,500.

Still other gifts are needed in the amount of $3,000 . . . $2,000 . . . $1,000.

If those dollar figures simply aren’t possible for you at this time, please do what you can to send $750 . . . $500 . . . or perhaps $250.

And we especially need many gifts of $100 from those who want to see all our projects succeed.

Even gifts of $75 . . . $50 . . . $35 and $25 urgently are needed—because every dollar counts.

Altogether, the DVD shows why Catholic Answers needs over $7,000,000 to go ahead with all of its projects.

I know we can raise the $7,000,000 we need—but it will require your help.


That’s why I urge you to send the largest possible contribution you can give at this time. Simply click here to send your donation now!

I also need to know how much you’ll be able to commit to giving during the coming year.

Your commitment at this time—plus any gift you can make to help us pay our current bills—will be a godsend.

Please continue to support Catholic Answers as generously as you have before—and even more if you can.

And please, keep our work in your prayers.

After all, it’s only with your help and God’s grace that we’ll be able to produce more conversion stories such as this one from one of our forum members, who writes:

"When I was twenty-five I left the Church and became a Fundamentalist for nearly twenty years. Ten of those years I was a Fundamentalist preacher. I am now forty-five years old, and I am being drawn back to the Church. My wife and daughter are on the same path. My wife and daughter will attend RCIA classes at the end of this month. I will go too, because I need to re-acquaint myself with the Catholic Church.

"Over a year ago, I stood in the pulpit and declared the pope to be an antichrist, and the Catholic Church to be the “Whore of Babylon.” Now I have fallen in love with the Church I hated so much. I am truly excited about returning to the Church. I feel like I’ve been born again—again."

We receive conversion stories like that—plus testimonials and heartfelt thank-you letters—every day.

That’s why we know the work of Catholic Answers is effective.

All we have to do is more of it!

And with your help, we will.

May I hear from you today?

Sincerely in Christ,


Karl Keating

P.S. After you’ve finished reading this letter, please take a few minutes to watch our DVD.

It shows you what we’re doing here at Catholic Answers—day in and day out—and why we need your help to meet our budget.

Please prayerfully consider sending the largest gift you’ve ever given to Catholic Answers so we can have the funds it takes to carry out all of our projects for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls.

May God bless you for all you’ve given to support our work. And may he reward you in all the ways he knows you need!

Click here to make your donation!