[Hermann the Cherusker]

I find that Hermann gets some idea in his head and becomes a monomaniac on the subject and it's useless to debate with him. One example is when he carelessly tosses around numbers about baptisms, showing a lack of rigor with the statistics.

I think I've adequately answered your objections on this topic, especially your assertion that the modern increase in the baptism to marriage ratio is based on Hispanic influx. As I pointed out before, most Hispanics in this country are not registered Catholics, and the numbers of Catholic Hispanics are declining as a percentage of the total even as the numeric total increases. It is relatively straightforward to show that many Hispanics are not Catholic by comparing Catholic registrations in their neighborhoods versus the total population. Look here at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia as an easily demonstrated example.

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/a.PDF
Archdiocese - 182,727 Hispanics, 44,819 registered Catholic

The City of Philadelphia Parish clusters below encompass 95%+ of the city's Hispanic population. ~34,000 of 116,000 are registered Catholics.

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/14.PDF
Parish Cluster 14 - 5,966 Hispanics, 384 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/15.PDF
Parish Cluster 15 - 13,850 Hispanics, 2,298 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/16.PDF
Parish Cluster 16 - 18,367 Hispanics, 1,533 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/19.PDF
Parish Cluster 19 - 50,100 Hispanics, 23,344 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/20.PDF
Parish Cluster 20 - 3,278 Hispanics, 797 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/22.PDF
Parish Cluster 22 - 7,774 Hispanics, 1,012 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/24.PDF
Parich Cluster 24 - 2,837 Hispanics, 407 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/25.PDF
Parish Cluster 25 - 14,448 Hispanics, 4,337 registered Catholic

Out in Chester County, where there is a large Mexican farm worker population, the situation improves somewhat for that area, but not for the Hispanics of the steel town of Coatesville or in the county seat of Norristown, Montgomery County.

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/41.PDF
Parish Cluster 41 - 8,031 Hispanics, 5,625 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/42.PDF
Parish Cluster 42 - 2,330 Hispanics, 400 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/52.PDF
Parish Cluster 52 - 3,605 Hispanics, 691 registered Catholic

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/clusplan/cr2/72.PDF
Parish Cluster 72 - 4,569 Hispanics, 706 registered Catholic

These data are also broken down by Parish. They utterly demolish the unfounded assertion by some, such as some HLI spokesman, that you seem to join yourself to, that the Hispanic immigrants are "replenishing" a "dying" American Catholic population.

If you feel you have some actual contribution to make, as opposed to gratuitous and unsupported assertions, I would be interested in hearing it. I may try to publish the findings, so I am interested in all valid and factually supported criticism.

[Maximilian]

I may try to publish the findings, so I am interested in all valid and factually supported criticism.

I'm sorry, but that's not true. You rejected out of hand the criticism that was supplied by several posters at the time you first published the numbers. It's not my job to keep track of whatever you posted several months ago, but I recall that your data was extremely suspect, and there were several replies that pointed out gaping flaws, but you rejected them out of hand, without seriously considering the implications. It is no personal criticism to say that you are not a statistician, not many people are, but you should have made the effort to consider the criticisms that were offered.