How many people convert each year?

[Roamin_Xian]

Is there an official cumulative account of how many people convert to Catholicism each year?

 

[eric_sammons]

I’ve heard two figures in this regard:

• About 150,000 Americans are received into the Catholic Church each Easter.
• About 50% of these people leave the Church by the next Easter.

The first figure you hear thrown around a lot, and I distinctly remember seeing a figure close to that the past two Easters. The second figure I heard from a class I took at Franciscan University, but I don’t have any support for it.

 

[Joannm]

I’ve heard two figures in this regard:

• About 150,000 Americans are received into the Catholic Church each Easter.
• About 50% of these people leave the Church by the next Easter.

The first figure you hear thrown around a lot, and I distinctly remember seeing a figure close to that the past two Easters. The second figure I heard from a class I took at Franciscan University, but I don’t have any support for it.

What do they mean by “leave the Church?” Do they formally disavow themselves from the Church or do they just become like millions of other Catholics or say they are Catholic but just don’t attend Mass regularly? And how do they determine this number? I don’t recall any tracking of people who enter the CHurch each year.

 

[Rolltide]

The recent Pew Report stated that about 2.5% of all Americans are converts to Catholicism. That means that if the population is around 300 million, that there is a total of approximately 7.5 million converts.

On the flip side, sadly, about TEN percent of Americans consider themselves to be former Catholics, or about 30 million people.

 

[AngloCatholic1]

If all goes well between now and Easter, you’ll be able to add 4 more souls to the tally! My wife and I, and our two teenagers will be confirmed at that time.

The weird thing is my wife and I come from extremely protestant families. Her grandfather back in England was a big-wig in the Orange Order, and my early American ancestors were anabaptists! Over the past century, protestantism has slowly drifted into atheism. Our own personal search for the truth has lead us into many dead-ends. But now here we are, falling in love with the Catholic Church. It’s the LAST place we thought we’d find ourselves.

How did this happen? Well, I think top of the list is EWTN. The strange thing is, we live in Canada and EWTN is not even allowed on the airwaves up here. We’ve been listening to radio broadcasts from across the border in New York State. The apologists are VERY, VERY GOOD. They KNOW protestant doctrines and they clearly explain why they’re out of order. It’s taken us over a year now, but we have come to realize that everything we THOUGHT we knew about Catholicism is bunk! Catholics really need to learn how to defend their faith against slander… which is something we are both now learning to do. Too many people are dragging your faith through the mud and almost nobody comes to it’s defence.

I made a trip to Buffalo last year to take my son to a hockey tournament. When I turned on the TV in the hotel room I was thrilled to see that EWTN has a TV station! I watched it all weekend, and it really got me interested. So if you’re a Catholic who’s concerned about church growth, then I say from the bottom of my heart that you should sincerely consider making a donation to EWTN.

 

[eric_sammons]

What do they mean by “leave the Church?” Do they formally disavow themselves from the Church or do they just become like millions of other Catholics or say they are Catholic but just don’t attend Mass regularly?

I imagine the latter, since it is quite rare anymore for someone to “formally disavow” being Catholic.

I don’t recall any tracking of people who enter the CHurch each year.

Each year the bishops release a statement that says how many people were received into the Church at Easter. I tried to find last year’s online, but could not.

 

[Stjudeprayforus]

I went through RCIA last year and at the Rite of the Elect, our names were put into the book.

So I imagine its pretty easy to keep track of converts.

Greatest decision I ever made!

 

[gntlmnr]

but we have come to realize that everything we THOUGHT we knew about Catholicism is bunk! Catholics really need to learn how to defend their faith against slander… which is something we are both now learning to do. Too many people are dragging your faith through the mud and almost nobody comes to it’s defence.

You are absolutely right about that we need to learn how to defend our faith, and that’s not an easy task to do, because the attack on the faith is extremely orchestrated and organized.

My uncle, his wife, and his five children left the Catholic Church not too long ago, and they became “Born Again Christians”. Now they are more anti-Catholic than anybody else on earth. I truly don’t know how they succeed turning devout Catholics into enemies of the Catholic Church. They are completely different people now. They are constantly trying to convert us and convince us to go to their church. Discussion with them is so impossible. They lost any concept of reasoning.