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Over a BILLION people worldwide care to disagree with you.

Inflated numbers.

It's funny how Catholics love to appeal to numbers to make their church look great until it's pointed out to them that they number Kennedy and Pelosi and Chavez in their number and all of a sudden, those have *ex-communicated* themselves.

Not to mention, that I believe since I am a baptized Catholic I am still counted in that number, as are multitudes of other former Catholics who have left the church.

So the 1 billion plus is only trotted out when someone wants to make the church look good. Otherwise, those people are thrown under the bus with Catholic voting patterns are discussed, for example.

“Over a BILLION people worldwide care to disagree with you.”

Of course this counts, not the people who attend Mass every week, but everyone who claims they are catholic, despite their despicable lives and lack of involvement in following Christ.

Look at the largest catholic countries in the world and the character of the people. The claim doesn’t match the people’s character and actions. Sure, you can still claim them, but what does that mean?

Romans claim the syncretic religions that mix catholic teaching with paganism (not always clear in the best of cases anyway). Still, claimed as catholic.

Romans claim everyone in the mob who go to confession and get catholic funerals in churches.

Maybe there is a billion of something, but the argument that there are a billion actual Christians in the Roman church is only true if you change the meaning of Christian.

I can tell you for a fact that our local Roman parish has something like 2500 registered members. On any given Sunday, a few hundred show up. What does that mean?? I don’t know. Still, the big number is reported and acted on like it is true.

So, a billion? Probably not really. And the number that is less than a billion that is closer to the truth is composed of those that are not following Christ.

Example:

Belgium

57% Catholic according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Belgium)

Here is the rest of the story...

“Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium’s majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5.4% in Flanders compared to 12.7% in 1998. [7] For the total of Belgium, Sunday church attendance was 5% in 2009 and 11.2% for the total of Belgium in 1998.[8] Despite a 6% drop in Sunday church attendance from 11 to 5% in 9 years, Catholicism nevertheless remains an important force in Belgian society.”

“Until 1998, the Roman Catholic Church annually published key figures such as Sunday mass attendance and the number of baptized children. (Refer to the table for an overview 1967 - 2009.) In 2006, the church published the mass attendance figure for the Christmas period being 11.5%, and 7% average weekly (note not only Sunday) mass attendance [9] for the Flanders region. Since 2000, Sunday church attendance in Flanders drops by 0.5% on a yearly basis whereas this rate of decrease was previously 1%.[10]”

You could go down every country and find pretty much the same. Still the majority who never go to church are counted as part of your billion.

1 billion seems more than doubtful. To be clear, regardless of church, I wish everyone followed Christ. There are protestant denominations where the same could be said. They don’t seem to brag quite so much.