Perhaps you could have taken time to do a web search and then given us some insight into the matter. Since you have the personal experience in your background you could shed light on the issue.
Considering the size of the Catholic church, that number is somewhat of a joke, statistically speaking. Indeed, heaven rejoices over one sinner that repents, but that would be an impressive figure for a church with less than a million members. That would be approximately 15%, and considering most “conversions” happen at Easter in Catholicism, well, honestly, is this really supposed to be impressive? A church that boasts 1.5 billion members growing by .001%? Wow. That means that 99.999% of members are ineffectual in their outreach.
Conversion is a work of the Holy Spirit, which has no bearing whatsoever on the effectiveness of church members. And, if that 150,000 is only counting the US, it’s more like a 3% increase in American Catholics, not .001%.
Yeah, well, a Catholic was the one to bring up numbers to impress everyone. That’s why I asked the question about U.S. vs. worldwide conversions. But in any case, you’re appeal to the work of the Holy Spirit is only a half-truth. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. That shoe seems to fit. And does that include infant baptisms?
And if I do not pedal the first mile of my upcoming 12,000+ mile bicycle ride I will never get to the 12,000th mile. Statisically speaking that first mile is not that impressive, but highly necessary.
Don’t get me wrong, as I pointed out in my first response, there is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents; however, this attempt to impress everyone with numbers turns out to be not all that impressive from a “worldly” standpoint.
Some of us are working to change that.
Infant baptisms are not conversions, and infants are not typically baptized at Easter Vigil.
The article says that the 150,000 are all in the U.S.
:yyeess: Praise be to God!
I did not bring it up to impress anyone. I brought it up because i was surprised by the figures. All I seem to hear about in the mainstream media is that the Church is finsished but as so often happens to be the case the truth is different.
Actually just tonight on The Journey Home, the guest on there (the gentleman’s name is lost to me now) said there will be around 1,000,000 converts this year worldwide this coming Saturday.
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll ask again, does this number include infant baptisms? Maybe that should be obvious, but since I was never really exposed to this growing up in a broken Catholic family, I don’t know.Actually just tonight on The Journey Home, the guest on there (the gentleman’s name is lost to me now) said there will be around 1,000,000 converts this year worldwide this coming Saturday.
The article stated that infant baptism was not included in that number. This article is strictly about people converting. But I would guess that if whole families were converting to Catholicism this Easter Vigil, that there would possibly be infants being baptised also?