Thanks to illegal immigration.
Pray for vocations! Tomorrow, the first Sunday of the month, we will be gathering early to pray the Rosary for our parish and especially for vocations.
In the interests of fairness, I ran across these blurbs today. Just a wee error in the Boston count:
Boston, New Orleans statistics off in new Official Catholic Directory
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- For people who look to annual statistics to discern church trends, the statistical tables at the end of the 2006 Official Catholic Directory can be misleading. The 2,043-page tome, also known as the Kenedy Directory after its New Jersey publishers' imprint, came out at the end of June. Because of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina last August, the New Orleans Archdiocese said it could not provide accurate year-end statistics, so the entire statistical column under New Orleans is blank. And a transposition of two figures for the Boston Archdiocese led to an overcount of about 2.1 million in the total number of Catholics in the country: The directory shows the total population in the archdiocese as 1,845,846 and the Catholic population as 3,974,846. The larger figure should be the total population and the smaller figure the Catholic population. Nationwide the directory reported a net increase of about 1.3 million Catholics in the United States and its possessions last year. But if one subtracts the 2.1 million overcount in Boston and adds the roughly 500,000 Catholics New Orleans had before the hurricane, the net result is a decline of about 300,000 Catholics.
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Most U.S. Catholic figures show decline
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. Catholic population apparently rose by more than a million last year according to figures in the 2006 Official Catholic Directory, but it actually may have fallen once a correction is made for the plainly erroneous figures for the Boston Archdiocese. The 2006 figures are also skewed by a lack of any data from the New Orleans Archdiocese, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina last Aug. 29 and unable to provide statistical data for this year's directory. Even with adjustments to account for lack of data from New Orleans, the U.S. church clearly registered declines in Catholic school enrollments and in almost every area of sacramental practice between 2005 and 2006, according to the directory. The 2,043-page tome, also known as the Kenedy Directory after its New Jersey publishers' imprint, came out at the end of June. It lists all ordained U.S. Catholic clergy, parishes, missions, schools, hospitals and other institutions. It also gives statistical data on the church by diocese and nationally.
The sad tale of the tape:
"the U.S. church clearly registered declines in Catholic school enrollments and in almost every area of sacramental practice between 2005 and 2006,"