By Catholic News Service • Posted August 25, 2014

ROSWELL, Ga. (CNS) — Catholics Come Home, an organization based in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, will premiere a new TV series that features individuals who have joined the Catholic Church or returned to the Catholic faith after many years away.

The “Catholics Come Home” series, which was filmed in more than a dozen locations in the U.S. and Canada, will debut Sept. 4 at 10 p.m. Eastern time on the Eternal Word Television Network.

The series consists of 13 30-minute episodes, each featuring an interview with someone who recently returned to the church as a result of a Catholics Come Home campaign and in response to “the call of the Holy Spirit,” said a news release on the series.

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Catholics Come Home, whose founder and president is Tom Peterson, has worked with dozens of U.S. dioceses on TV ad campaigns, especially at Lent and Christmas, to invite inactive Catholics to get more involved in the church, fallen-away Catholics to return to the church and non-Catholics to join the church.

In the series, Peterson interviews a variety of guests, including former atheists, agnostics, Protestants and fallen-away Catholics. Each of the half-hour episodes also will include segments on the Catholic Church’s new evangelization, which encourages Catholics to renew their faith and be willing to share it.

Episodes will air every Thursday night at 10 p.m. Eastern time, with additional airings on Sundays at 6 p.m. Eastern time. More information on the show can be found at www.catholicscomehome.org. The EWTN website, www.ewtn.com, has scheduling information.

The first episode features Gloria Sampson, a former atheist and linguistic professor who taught in China during the 1960s and 1970s. She discusses her recent return to the Catholic Church “after 52 years away from God.” She came back after she saw a Catholics Come Home TV commercial on TV in Vancouver, British Columbia. “All I want to do now, is evangelize,” she says.

After the series debuts in the U.S. and Canada this September, EWTN plans to begin airing the series internationally, starting in December.

A Catholics Come Home release said more than a dozen archdioceses and dioceses are represented, with episodes filmed on location in Vancouver; Allen, Denton and Austin, Texas; Providence, R.I.; New Westminster, British Columbia; Philadelphia; Denver; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey; Farmington and Bonne Terre, Missouri; and Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.