I'm an atheist but purely as a matter of interest I find that amazing. Those are just gigantic numbers.
You’re an athiest? I find that amazing.
But I digress - the philly inquirer managed to attack 3 bishops on page 1 today. What is amazing is the church grows inspite of the attacks!
I knew it was growing, but the numbers really are amazing.
Of course some of the growth is due to the increase in Hispanics, but every RCIA class at my parish (a large one on the south side of Indianapolis) has had at least 30 people for the last 5 years.
And my nephew, a baptized but never practicing Catholic, has joined a downtown parish which has the Latin mass, which he prefers.
A lot of the growth is in the Third World, and is at least part of the reason for the mandatory sacrifice of ‘meatless Fridays’ being changed to ‘some other sacrifice’ - if people only have a chance at meat once a week, if that chance happens to come on Friday, nobody wants to do them out of it. It’s not supposed to be that burdensome, just enough to keep you cognizant. Since I live in the US, and can eat meat all day every day whenever I like, I do the meatless Fridays.