Bill Donohue writes that the Catholic Church is growing.
All we ever hear from the wild-eyed critics of the Catholic Church, including the dissidents within, is that the Church had better "get with it" and change its teachings on abortion, homosexuality and women's ordination. Yet it is precisely those religious institutions that are the most liberal on these issues—the mainline Protestant denominations—that are collapsing. Not so the Catholic Church. Indeed, its numbers are going north while the mainline denominations are going south.
The latest findings by the "Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership" project, a collaborative effort with Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, are illuminating. In the last 40 years, the Catholic population has increased by 75 percent; it has grown by 50 percent since 1990. More
important, Catholic attendance at Mass is up 15 percent since 2000. And in the last five years, contributions have increased by 14 percent. It is also important to note that there has been a 40 percent increase in Latinos in the Church over the past five years.... Read the rest of the article here.
Thank you for sharing this reassuring article. Gives me some personal comfort.
ReplyDeleteThis surprises me. I had no idea! Plus it makes me happy, contented, to realize again...that we ARE in God's Hands.
ReplyDeleteThe Hispanics are buying us time. Nothing more. Their grandchildren will as secularised and jaded as the worthless decendents of the Irish are today.
ReplyDeleteI was pleasantly surprised to see the statistic that church attendance has risen by 15% since the year 2000. However, does that 15% increase mean that attendance has risen from, say, a base of 30% by 15% to 45%, or that it has risen by 4.5% (+ 15% of 30%) to 34.5%? In any case that figure represents at least 3-4 million people.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but the Donohue piece sounds fishy to me. One, because there are no links to the actual data or reports. Two, if true this news is very important and deserves much more thorough treatment than it was given. Three, the piece conflates two different studies in a slippery way.
ReplyDeleteAnd most of all, because it contradicts other sources I respect. Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute is a serious number-cruncher, and she paints a much different picture. [Link, link]
Well the Church is growing, but especially in Africa and Asia, if I am not wrong.
ReplyDeleteIn the west the situation of the Church is pretty grimm still
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@Geoffrey
Yes perhaps many Catholics today in the west will have secularized children...
... yet there IS hope.
I lived in Holland for a long time... and even if Holland is known as a bastion of secularization, the Chuch there is slowly regaining strenght.
@ John
Yes the CARA institute at Georgetown university is also not as optimistic like Donahue... yet like I said the Church is grownig still even if in the west we suffer the tyrrany of excessive secularization.
In the west we will have to suffer for our faith and if we truly are faithful to the Chuch we will have to endure these hardships.
After all it's not about numbers and statistics...
... if Jesus said that the gates fo Hell would not prevail on his Church I think he meant it...
even if in the west there will e only '0.001% (true) catholics '...
PS: if it's all about numbers then let's found a Facebook Church.
ReplyDeleteThe priest writes 'Body of Christ' and we click 'I like'...
Also I still se young people in Church... and by young I mean 20-30 somethings (I do not count children, who just follow the parents)... I do not only see kids and old folk.
This means that some young people are still interested in being serious Catholics.
Catholicis is NOT dead yet, no matter how much Sherry Weddell wants to play doomsayer.
Sure she might be right (and probably is) and Cultural Catholicism mighr be dead... ok, that's for the best.
Being Catholic should NOT be 'conforming to the culture' anyway.
This is amazing information!! I had known that the protestant faith was not growing much, and figured the Catholic faith was the same. I had no idea!!!
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