They Kinda Missed This One...
Didn't they?
Remember just a few short days ago, all that noise about how great things are going for Catholicism in America? All that crap about the number of Catholics grew, etc, etc, ad nauseum... they just sort of glazed over this lil' stat;
US conversions to Catholicism plummet 9% in 2008
Despite an increase in the Catholic population of the United States during 2008, the number of baptisms, confirmations, first Communions, and marriages all declined, according to The Official Catholic Directory. While the number of baptisms and confirmations declined by less than 2% and the number of marriages declined by less than 3%, the number of adult baptisms and receptions into the Church plummeted by 9% in a single year-- from approximately 136,000 to 124,000.
Didn't they?
Remember just a few short days ago, all that noise about how great things are going for Catholicism in America? All that crap about the number of Catholics grew, etc, etc, ad nauseum... they just sort of glazed over this lil' stat;
Despite an increase in the Catholic population of the United States during 2008, the number of baptisms, confirmations, first Communions, and marriages all declined, according to The Official Catholic Directory. While the number of baptisms and confirmations declined by less than 2% and the number of marriages declined by less than 3%, the number of adult baptisms and receptions into the Church plummeted by 9% in a single year-- from approximately 136,000 to 124,000.
posted by Kevin Whiteman at
5:17 AM
3 Comments:
Could it be that there are more catechuminate programs actually teaching what the Church stands for. I can just hear the complaints of some former, befuddled Catholic wannabe catechumen or candidate say: "Gee . . . Sister Mary Stretch Pants over at St. Gaia's parish told me that there is no longer any problem with artificial birth control. Nobody important believes in that Humane Vitae stuff now. So when I signed up for the Catechumenate program at St. Thomas Aquinas parish, the pastor explained what the Catholic Church believes and teaches. Right on the top was Humane Vitae, and the Real Presence, and Heaven and Hell, and the male ministerial priesthood, and .... I have been misled!"
Of course that is not likely the real reason for US conversions plummeting. The decline in conversions is more likely due to those Evangelical Churches teaching potential converts to "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and Him risen from the dead." This is something Catholic priests should be preaching EVERY Sunday from the pulpit. Instead what we get is social justice without God, which BTW used to be called communism.
I wonder if the annullment stat went up?
I have never been able to find good stats on ecclesiastical annulments in the U.S.--i.e., info with solid references to check the data underlying the stats.
In 1997 the Traditio web site had 57,000+ annual. Another site (I forget which one) more recently had 60,000+ annually. Then some other Catholic website (again, senior moment-itis hits me!) had a reduction in recent years to 40,000 or so annually. Even if the 40,000 number is accurate, this represents a hell of a lot of annulments! Divorce by any other name?
And can one also claim that the annulment process has the charism of infallibility? If not, then at least some of the annulments themselves are not valid. Thus, there must be at least some remarried Catholics who have obtained an annulment for a previous marriage likely living in objective adultery, although they may not be personally responsible in the moral sense because they relied on the integrity of an annulment process that may not always enjoy such integrity. What a mess!
I look at the contemporary Catholic annulment practice3s as liberal, clerical Catholic elements trashing the laity's sacrament. Do you see them frequently "annulling" ansacerdotal ordination because they found out later that some failed priest had a theology that was only skin deep (yes . . . I am referring to the likes of Fr. Cutie)? They wouldn't dare because of all those consecrations of the Holy Eucharist, absolutions in the confessionaol, etc., that would have to be considered null and void.
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