[Maximilian]

More good news about the pope -- now he's confronting the feckless French bishops.

On the other hand, this article points out the futility of those who want to blame the American bishops. The particular bishops in America are not the source of the problem. We are actually doing much better than other countries with large Catholic populations. The problem is world-wide. Those who laughed at the "springtime decay" mathematical function in the last article about vocations, the one that predicted virtually no seminarians in a couple of decades, can merely look to France and other European countries that are a little bit ahead of us on the curve to see where we are headed.

[malakhi]

In the latest in a series of blunt messages to visiting bishops from France, Pope John Paul II spoke of the "alarming" decline in the number of priests serving the Church in that country.

The supply of imams, on the other hand, is growing rapidly...

[CatherineSiena]

In the latest in a series of blunt messages to visiting bishops from France, Pope John Paul II spoke of the "alarming" decline in the number of priests serving the Church in that country.

Intriguing. Given the commentary we have seen regarding the reporting of other declining numbers...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1061488/posts?page=7#7

does this mean that the Pope is guilty of using the "wrong" statistics perpetuated by "Chicken-Little 'Sky Is Falling'" types? Perhaps the Pope's "failure to take into account obvious factors and using the wrong data set shows an intention to promote an agenda rather than diagnose a problem"? Are the Pope "and his source dishonest at best"? ;-)

Most of the information I have seen relates to the Church in the U.S., so I'm not intimately familiar with the situation in France. I'd be interested to see the entirety of the quote containing the word "alarming" and the corresponding numbers.

[Loyalist]

Islam will kill the Church in Western Europe as surely as it did in North Africa and Asia Minor.

If Western Europe doesn't want to make even an effort at saving itself, it isn't worth saving.