Even though I recently read these intense parameters about how Catholics must always avoid all prayer with schismatics and heretics, I get an idea of which tribes in the world have never heard the Gospel from a Protestant website called Joshua Project’s Unreached of the Day (JPUD.) Some examples of tribes who have never heard the Gospel (or barely have heard the Gospel) are seen in the above screenshots of those targets of prayer as created in the catalogue of JPUD. Yes, I admit it’s sad that Protestants have a website like this, but Catholics do not.
For the last 500 years of Protestantism, they only threw missionaries on the scene within the last 100 years (for the most part.) Sadly, nearly every missionary congregation within the Catholic Church got sunk in the 1960s and 1970s in the name of “ecumenism.” Nowadays, most Catholics erroneously believe that unbelievers are saved by being “good people.” However, most evangelicals do not believe this. In other words, many evangelicals believe one must believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. Of course, they have a limited understanding of the sacraments, but it’s closer to the truth than the current Universalist-Unitarian Vatican apparatus that teaches people of all false-religions are saved. This historical and theological shift may sadly explain why evangelicals (and not Catholics) have come up with the site, Unreached of the Day. (JPUD.)
Why am I writing about this? As most of you know, I learned French and Spanish and Portuguese in seminary so I could go be a missionary. I wasn’t too interested in liturgy, except that I wanted to do a good and pious Novus Ordo Mass. Before seminary, I left a gal (with whom we were talking about marriage) not because I wanted to do the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) but because I wanted to save souls who would otherwise go to hell. No, I don’t believe I can save anyone. But I know Jesus Christ has chosen His priests as His instruments for salvation. And for this reason, I wanted to live as a missionary to bring the Gospel all over the world. To do this, I had to study languages, not the history of liturgy. However, most of you know the rest of the story… I soon found the Novus Ordo system was not only not set-up for conservative Novus Ordo Masses. It wasn’t really set up for preaching salvation. Thus, I entered online Church reform as a hermit, due to zeal and rejection both.
But my desire for missionary activity continues. And, as I have said before, the whole “hermit thing” is not a farce. I really do pray and read about 4-5 hours a day. How do I combine the hermit-life with the fact I learned several languages as a seminarian that I am not currently using much? How do I combine the contemplative life with a great desire to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church to unreached jungles and deserts? I use the JPUD app on my iPhone, my iPad and even my MacBook (saved as a favorite, not an app) to tell me daily who to pray for. While I do not see myself as “praying with evangelicals” (see first link in the first sentence of this article why that is prohibited) I at least trust them to tell me the basics of tribes who have never heard of Christ.
JPUD tells me the tribe name, a picture of them, their local population, the international population, the false-religion to which most adhere, and finally a map of the location of the unreached tribe. Again, you can see some of the beautiful faces of those who do not yet know Christ at the top of this article that I screenshot from JPUD. I wish it were Catholics as hungry for souls as we used to be under saints like St. Paul and St. Francis Xavier and St. Peter Claver and Bl. Junipero Serra, but a false sense of “ecumenism” has erroneously led most of “the hierarchy” to believe Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church are only “the privleged route” to salvation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus is the only way to the Father and He founded only one Church. Even though the makers of JPUD do not recognize that one Catholic Church, they have made an excellent site and app that shows me where to “target” (so to speak) my prayer every day. I would not encourage you to pray with them, but rather to use the app in order to know whom to pray for.
Personally, I pray Lauds (the second of eight canonical hours every day) for the JPUD tribe of the day. I also pray for the daily tribe at my Mass of the day. Later, I do Vespers (the evening Psalms and sixth of the eight canonical hours every day) for all my donors. So, even though my participation in Christ’s priesthood did not pan out as I originally expected, I thank you for supporting me in praying for all nations to come to know Christ and His Church. We do this together even if the missionary efforts be only resuscitated at the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And that is the main thing for which I pray every day.