Are there more Protestants converting to RCC than vice-versa?

[Pythagoras]

In the US, are there more Protestants converting to RCC than RCCs converting to Protestants?

 

[Kristina_P]

I don’t know. Wasn’t that a useful response?
Actually, I’m curious, too. Seems I’ve met more former Catholics than former Protestants, but anecdotal evidence isn’t that trustworthy. I would think the only way to figure this out would be to compare the number of new Catholics to the number of new Protestants. So, let’s just count the Catholics and then check that secret database that has the membership rolls of all Protestant churches. Isn’t it in the Vatican? That’s what Jack Chick said.

 

[Atreyu]

This is all I could find, from religious tolerance:

People who have switched denominations or religion:

The ARIS survey asked the subjects whether they had changed their religious identification during their lifetime. Some results:

• About 16% of adults have changed their identification.
• For the largest group, the change was abandoning all religion.
• Baptists picked up the largest number of any religion: 4.4 million. But they also lost 4.6 million.
• Roman Catholics lost the greatest number, 9.5 million. However, they also picked up 4.3 million.

The pollsters commented: “Some groups such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to attract a large number of converts (in-switchers), but also nearly as large a number of apostates (out-switchers). It is also interesting to note that Buddhists also fall into this category of what one might call high-turnover religious groups.”

not really good news… But personally I speculate that there are a large number of Catholics leaving due to the indifference and ignorance that is rampant in the Catholic ranks. This is something we should all work at changing! There is a link at the religious tolerance site directing you to the survey, but for those who can’t be bothered checking it out, I think the survey was confined to the US.

 

[FuzzyBunny116]

Atreyu:

This is all I could find, from religious tolerance:

not really good news… But personally I speculate that there are a large number of Catholics leaving due to the indifference and ignorance that is rampant in the Catholic ranks. This is something we should all work at changing! There is a link at the religious tolerance site directing you to the survey, but for those who can’t be bothered checking it out, I think the survey was confined to the US.

The good news is, its sort of a survival of the fitest-the Protestants coming back know lots about the Catholic faith having researched it, and the ignorant leave, leaving the Catholic Church more knowledgeable as a whole, and less prone to apostaty(sp).

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

I also think it’s important to note that although Catholics lost the most people, we’re also the largest religious denomination in the US, so we might have lost a smaller percentage than many other groups.

 

[RyanL]

Couldn’t really say, but I found some information from the U.S. Census Bureau…

Total Pop (1990) ----- (2001) -given in thousands
175,440 ---------------207,980

That’s a 16% change.

Total Christian:
151,496 ---------------159,506

That’s a 5.1% change. Not tracking total population expansion, therefore declining.

Catholics:
46,004 ---------------50,873

That’s a 9.6 % change. Not tracking with total growth, therefore declining. Outpacing total “Christian” growth, therefore relatively expanding.

Baptist:
33,964 --------------- 33,830

That’s a** -.3%** change. Not good.

Methodist:
14,174 --------------- 14,150

Same story.

Mormons
2,487 ---------------2,787

That’s a 10.8% change. Doing ok, but still not tracking total population growth.

JWs:
1,381 --------------- 1,331

Shrinking. Sorry, Charlie (Russell).

Church of Christ:
1,769 ---------------2,593

That’s a 31.7% increase. We need to learn how to evangelize like this!
**
No Religion Specified **(Athiest, Agnostic, Humanist, Secular, “No Religion”):
14,331 --------------- 29,481

That’s a change of 105%.

Keep in mind when reading the percentages that it’s much easier for small groups to have larger percentage changes. For example, if I lead a cult of 10 people, and we recruit another 10, we have increased by 100%. If my “church” has 10 million, adding a mere 10 folks doesn’t change a whole lot.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Pythagoras]

FuzzyBunny116:

The good news is, its sort of a survival of the fitest-the Protestants coming back know lots about the Catholic faith having researched it, and the ignorant leave, leaving the Catholic Church more knowledgeable as a whole, and less prone to apostaty(sp).

Yeah, it’s better to have fewer but really practicing and giving good examples Catholics than have a bigger non-practicing and bad influence Catholics. Protestants can get all those bad Catholics as they want too, and hopefully maker them better Christians

 

[Atreyu]

Well I would prefer if they would all come back to Rome, and we could sort out our differences in-house…

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Well I would prefer if they would all come back to Rome

Probably many prodigal sons on the way home … eventually.