Episcopal Church demographics are interesting. The only reason it has anything like the numbers it has is because it has attracted so many people who are on the way out of the Catholic Church; a large part of the Episcopal population today is made up of Catholic defectors.
I’ve noticed this for quite a while myself. The local ECUSA church has only two cradle Episcopalians on the vestry, the rest are RC converts. One RC convert told me she loves the Episcopal Church because they don’t tell you what to believe, you can believe whatever you want. sigh. I’m sure my ancestors are spinning in their graves.
BTW the reasons given for leaving the RC church are interesting. One left because the Sunday School teacher told her her son was too disruptive. Another’s priest told her that since she was divorced she couldn’t receive communion, she neither filed for the divorce nor has she remarried. Her ex is remarried and guess what? He receives communion even though there has been no annulment.
Interesting. I knew there had been some who’d made that change, but I didn’t know it was on such a scale.
I’ve often heard TEC referred to as “Catholic-lite”.
A few years ago I ran into an acquaintance who I knew was a non-observant Catholic. He told me he and his wife were now attending the Episcopal church. He said they were “Designer Catholics,” which meant they go to a church that had all the pomp and circumstance but they can pick and choose what they want to believe in.
Related to that is a comment I once got from a Catholic diocesan official, who said, “you Episcopalians get the worst of ours, and we get the best of yours.”