Roman Catholic Church Remains Largest and Fastest-Growing in U.S.

[Contarini]

This would make Henry VIII lose his cool, if not his head…
After successfully carrying out the Reformation and foiling Guy Fawkes, the British establishment now faces the possibility that Roman Catholicism will become the dominant religion in Britain.
Media reports earlier this year have told us that a great exodus of immigrants from Eastern Europe means that the number of Catholics in the UK has risen to new and unseen heights.
Figures for 2005 show that there were 4.2 million Catholics in England and Wales.
At present, both Catholic and Anglican churches report about 1 million churchgoers. With the new arrivals, Catholicism may be the leading religion.

Well, that’s very encouraging. I would hope that even an anti-Catholic would agree that it’s better the Catholics than the Muslims! And of course I would like nothing better than to see Canterbury reunited to Rome.

Edwin

 

[Cathdefender]

Well, that’s very encouraging. I would hope that even an anti-Catholic would agree that it’s better the Catholics than the Muslims! And of course I would like nothing better than to see Canterbury reunited to Rome.

Edwin

Yes, something we agree on Contarini!..:extrahappy:

 

[Ridgerunner]

I do not, and would not, argue for the accuracy of a particular number. Nor would I necessarily attribute increased numbers in the South to immigration.

When it comes to church adherence, the ground is not all that stable. People lose their affiliation officially or de facto, and people join churches, then change. But it does not mean any of those changes are permanent.

I do not live in the Southeast. Rather, I live in the southernmost part of a “Border State” that is much more Southern than it is anything else. Very much a protestant fundamentalist and evangelical area, historically, with Southern Baptists very much predominating. We do have immigrants here. No question about it. But we also have a lot of converts from fundamentalist and evangelical churches. Very, very few leave the Church on a permanent basis, and those mostly have to do with divorce. Whether that is typical of the “South” or not, I don’t know. I do know that Flannery O’Connor, famed Southern novelist, predicted that someday the South would be the greatest source of converts to Catholicism of any part of the U.S.

I am not particularly familiar with the Northeast, but I do get the impression that people are rather more secular there generally than here, regardless of religious origins. Catholics here, for example, would never vote in a Kennedy or a Kerry, even if we had the numbers to do it.

 

[Cathdefender]

I do not, and would not, argue for the accuracy of a particular number. Nor would I necessarily attribute increased numbers in the South to immigration.

When it comes to church adherence, the ground is not all that stable. People lose their affiliation officially or de facto, and people join churches, then change. But it does not mean any of those changes are permanent.

I do not live in the Southeast. Rather, I live in the southernmost part of a “Border State” that is much more Southern than it is anything else. Very much a protestant fundamentalist and evangelical area, historically, with Southern Baptists very much predominating. We do have immigrants here. No question about it. But we also have a lot of converts from fundamentalist and evangelical churches. Very, very few leave the Church on a permanent basis, and those mostly have to do with divorce. Whether that is typical of the “South” or not, I don’t know. I do know that Flannery O’Connor, famed Southern novelist, predicted that someday the South would be the greatest source of converts to Catholicism of any part of the U.S.

I am not particularly familiar with the Northeast, but I do get the impression that people are rather more secular there generally than here, regardless of religious origins. Catholics here, for example, would never vote in a Kennedy or a Kerry, even if we had the numbers to do it.

Well I live in the Northeast, and it is predominantly Catholic. There’s a church on every corner from Boston to Rhode Island. We have many Catholic schools here also.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Well I live in the Northeast, and it is predominantly Catholic. There’s a church on every corner from Boston to Rhode Island. We have many Catholic schools here also.

I don’t doubt it for a moment. Still, when a Kerry and a Kennedy and a Giuliani get elected over and over again, one has to wonder about at least some Catholics in the Northeast.

 

[Cathdefender]

I don’t doubt it for a moment. Still, when a Kerry and a Kennedy and a Giuliani get elected over and over again, one has to wonder about at least some Catholics in the Northeast.

What are you getting at? What would one have to wonder about ONLY in the Northeast?

 

[Ridgerunner]

What are you getting at? What would one have to wonder about ONLY in the Northeast?

Did I say one would have to wonder about some Catholics ONLY in the Northeast? No I didn’t. I was responding to a previous poster who talked about the Northeast as if it had no problems among Catholics. California elects Nancy Pelosi. Kansas elected Kathleen Sebelius. New Mexico elected Bill Richardson. A lot of Catholics voted for pro-abortion candidates in the Democratic primary, and will likely do so in the general election. There are obviously a lot of Catholics who pay no attention to the doctrines of the Church. What are YOU getting at?

 

[lak611]

I have known a lot of Catholics who have joined other churches. However, my point rather concerns the first group. All churches that baptize infants tend to have lots of people on the rolls who don’t necessarily attend. (Let me note that I belong to such a church–in fact, I’m officially on the rolls of a parish I no longer attend because I have moved away, although I do attend another Episcopal parish.) So the number of people attending such churches is almost always going to be inflated compared to “believers’ baptism” churches.

Edwin

I was a fallen away Catholic for 5 years. During that time, they sent me an envelope packet every month but nobody from the church ever bothered to contact me when those envelopes never showed up in the collection basket. I never joined another church. I did not practice any religion during that time.

I had a conversion experience and went back to the Catholic Church. I might have returned sooner if somebody had asked me. Nobody ever noticed when I was gone.

 

[jblake]

lak611;:

I might have returned sooner if somebody had asked me. Nobody ever noticed when I was gone.

There is a fine line between asking people to come to a service, with them feeling that the request is caring, and them perceiving it as pure pushiness.

Part of the reason for Priests, and Protestant clergy to make home visits, was to encourage attendance at the service. Alas, few clergy bother to do that anymore.

Currently, the most effective way to increase service attendance retention rates, appears to be for the congregation members to be actively involved in their church.

What Rick Warren and other megachurch leaders have found, is that active participation by an individual in small groups, is correlated to how long the individual stays in the congregation. (Roughly six months after the small group activity is dropped, the congregation has been dropped by the individual. If the individual does not initially participate in small group activity, it takes six to nine months for that person to leave the church.)

xan

jonathon

 

[rien]

These numbers are so unfounded it’s actually pathetic. No disrespect but the RCC still counts as members former members that have not officially announced their resignation from the church. I still receive plenty of mail from them and haven’t been attending nor do I consider myself RC for years. Rome tries to report 1.2 billion but the real number is around 950 million RCs in the world.

In the US Northeast where the RC was once the mainstay of society membership has declined miserably. The only reason the RC maintains its numbers in the US is because of immigration which accounts for why we see the growth primarily in the south and southeast states where immigration is the highest.

Christianity itself is declining which is more alarming. Over 400 Christian churches closed their doors last year in the US.

PEACE

I agree. The US Catholic church is in collapse as much as the Espiscopal church. Come on, hundreds of Catholic churches are closing or being merged into “common churches”. Except for the Hsipanic immigrants, the catholic church in America is in no better shape and perhaps worse shape than the maninline churches. Like them, the belief seems to vary depending on the pastor or diocese. IMO the Catholic church is just 20 years behind the Episcopal church. BTW, the Episcopal church does not have the luxury of Hispanic immigrants. That is all that, IMO , is holding up the US church today. But if you disagree, please tell me where I am wrong.

This post is so off-base it is sad. That anyone would really believe this stuff. You might as well tell us the sky is green.

 

[vocatio]

I agree. The US Catholic church is in collapse as much as the Espiscopal church. Come on, hundreds of Catholic churches are closing or being merged into “common churches”. .

Fr. Mitch Pakwa explained the problem with this one night on one of his shows. He said that while some Catholic churches are being torn down, new ones are also being built.

 

[notself]

Since many of you must have missed this when it was posted earlier, here is the largest, most accurate study of religious affiliation in America and a quote from the study. The emphasis is mine.

Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes. **While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration. **The Landscape Survey finds that among the foreign-born adult population, Catholics outnumber Protestants by nearly a two-to-one margin (46% Catholic vs. 24% Protestant); among native-born Americans, on the other hand, the statistics show that Protestants outnumber Catholics by an even larger margin (55% Protestant vs. 21% Catholic).

religions.pewforum.org/reports

It is clear that some parishes are growing in size due to consolidation of churches and to immigration, but the Catholic Church in America over all is losing members.

 

[Ignatius]

Twenty years ago there was one Catholic Church in our town, today there are five. Four years ago we did a church expansion to alleviate for the overcrouding at our parish. Now we are already standing room only again.

I would say the OP is correct.

 

[notself]

Twenty years ago there was one Catholic Church in our town, today there are five. Four years ago we did a church expansion to alleviate for the overcrouding at our parish. Now we are already standing room only again.

I would say the OP is correct.

Local anecdotal evidence always trumps a well defined national survey, you must be right.

 

[Cathdefender]

Since many of you must have missed this when it was posted earlier, here is the largest, most accurate study of religious affiliation in America and a quote from the study. The emphasis is mine.

religions.pewforum.org/reports

It is clear that some parishes are growing in size due to consolidation of churches and to immigration, but the Catholic Church in America over all is losing members.

This is incorrect. According to the Christian Resource, every six people on the planet is Roman Catholic. Today there are 480 million Protestants.
More and more people are coming home to Rome, not leaving it.

 

[vocatio]

I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Non-Catholics are trying to “PROVE” that Catholicism is dying. You know, that’s rediculous to think that Catholics are going to walk away from the Church so easy. That would be like Buhdist or Muslims becoming scarce all of a sudden. Increases and declines are natural and occur for variouis reasons. It also depends on how the study is conducted and by whom. Even the wording of the survey can have a major effect on the outcome.

Some of us try to excercise academic honesty. Some organization are agenda driven.

 

[jblake]

vocatio;:

I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here.
Non-Catholics are trying to “PROVE” that Catholicism is dying.

If there is an overarching pattern, it is to prove that Christianity is dying.

There are any number of ways to slice up the statistical data, to “prove” a point.

• If a church has not had an increase of at least ten percent per year, for the last decade, in attendance at services, it is dying;
• If the congregation has no debt, it is dying;
• If the congregation has not produced at least one cleric per year, it is dying;
• If a congregation has not planted a new congregation in the last five years, it is dying;
• If church revenue does not increase by ten percent per year, it is dying;
• If the number of funerals outnumbers that of weddings, it is dying;
• If the number of weddings outnumber baptisms, it is dying;
• If the number of confirmations outnumbers that of baptisms, it is dying;
• If the number of funerals outnumber confirmations, it is dying;
• If the number of funerals outnumber baptisms, it is dying;

There are a slew more similar datapoints that can be rolled out, to “prove” one, or more of the following:

• A specific congregation is dying;
• A group of congregations is dying;
• A denomination is dying;
• A religion is dying;

To counter that type of statistic, congregations will play all sorts of games to define their membership numbers. Some of the more egregarious are::

• Anybody who attended a service in the last year, one or more times, is a member;
• Anybody who was baptized, confirmed, or married in the church is a member;
• Anybody who has financially contributed to the church is a member;

Some of us try to excercise academic honesty. Some organization are agenda driven.

All organizations are agenda driven. The issue is whether or not people reading their reports know how to factor out the bias that the organization has.

xan

jonathon

 

[vocatio]

Okay, let me say this politely. It’s not going to be liked. But it makes sense to ME. I think the attack on Christianity as a whole is because or the continued expanding disunity in the Church…notice not church [case sensative]. We believe in one Church, but as a whole now there are way to many churches with different beleifs and some try to claim the apostolic succession they do not possess - impossible. Anciet documents reveal that the churches believe in ONE HOLY CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH. They believed in the “REAL PRESENCE”, CONFESSION, CONFIRMATION or CHRISMATION, HOLY MATRIMONY, ORDINATION [priestly apostolic], BAPTISM, etc. read them… I did and it changed my life and fits in with history.

So many groups are manipulating statistic to kill religion altogether. And they’re agenda is mixed with other groups that hate Christianity.

 

[notself]

The name of this topic is
“The Catholic Church Remains the Larest and Fastest Growing in US.”

I provided a link that makes it clear this is not true. It may be growing in other parts of the world but that is not what the OP said.

I am not anti Catholic. I am merely pro accuracy.

 

[vocatio]

All organizations are agenda driven. The issue is whether or not people reading their reports know how to factor out the bias that the organization has.

xan

jonathon

In the psychology world this is considered “all or nothing thinking”. I’m talking about political outcome changing agenda driven. But I believe I know what you mean. And it’s true that many if not most organizations or agenda driven. I also concede to that. But if the agenda is a positive one that is attempting to work positively without trying to destroy a good organization like Christianty as a whole or the Family Unit, etc. Then even thought the agenda to to help guide people to godly happiness and an ordered life, then I take issue with calling that a negative agenda. So from my view it is not so much as agenda as it is to show truth. Statistics can reveal patterns of something, its just that if someone twists and contorts the data to make it do something, then that is NOT academic honesty. But it happens all the time.
I could build a book out of this one.
Example:
Democrats are liberals that are not God fearing that believe abortion is acceptable. Gay unions are okay. They are are not patriotic.

Republicans are God fearing conservatives that believe in God, family and the sanctity of life. They reject abortion. They are patriots.