I had seen where last year something like 80,000 people were baptised an 100,000 or so came into full communion. (I'm much fuzzier on the 2nd number) The fact that the 2nd number was larger than the first had me thinking that 80,000 were baptized and another 20,000 weren't baptized but came into full commmunion.
Now I see these diocesan stats: In some places the number for coming into full communion is smaller than the number baptized. Since every adult who is baptized enters full communion at once, I'm pretty sure that that what they mean is such-and-such a number were baptized AND came into full communion, and such-and-such more came into full communion without needing to be baptized. And now that I think of it, of course the second number should still be larger if that is so, since the Catholic church accepts as valid the baptisms of Protestants, Orthodox, Anglican and most non-denominationals (if not just about all of them). The largest group whose baptism is not accepted as valid is the Mormons, because they don't baptize in the Father, Son AND Holy Spirit.
That means we are getting some pretty impressive numbers!
With 940,000 infant baptisms, that's about 1.1 million new Catholics in a year.
Or to put it another way: If the newly baptized Catholics were counted as a separate denomination, they'd be one of the top 25 denominations in the nation, just on their own. If we counted just those baptized in three years at that pace, they'd be the 8th largest denomination, and may outnumber nondenominationalists as a whole.
Lastly, consider this:
There is one adult baptism for about every six infant baptisms. That means that if one out of six Catholics leave the Church, we'd still be gaining net converts.
Correct. Those who are Baptized receive all three sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist) on the Easter Vigil. They enter into full communion that night, having not been previously Christian. The latter are those who have not received all three sacraments - either Baptized Catholics who went no further in their walk, or Protestants who have only received valid Baptism. Orthodox do not need to receive any sacrament to come into full communion with the Church, as all of their sacraments are valid. They don't go through the RCIA process - I think they would only recite some sort of words that indicated their desire to become Catholic.
You are correct, Mormons are not considered Christian, so their baptism is not valid - they would require all three sacraments to enter into full communion of the Church.
I find the number of people coming into the Church as those never baptized as quite large, and apparently growing all the time. Indicative of our society, I guess.
Hope this helps.
Regards
There is one adult baptism for about every six infant baptisms. That means that if one out of six Catholics leave the Church, we'd still be gaining net converts.
Fortunately, it is far less than that. The number of apostacies can be counted through imputation of the numbers published by the Church annually (take the total population, add Baptisms and conversion and estimated immigration, and subtract deaths, the net result is apostacies). Over many years, stretching back to WWII, there have been several million apostacies, but this should be viewed in the context of around 100,000,000 Catholics living during that time period.