Posted on 07/19/2014 7:36:47 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
Well, you tell me. If they dont lose numbers, they dont gain numbers but they maintain the numbers they have what word would you replace maintain with?
Ok, so you dont have a word to replace maintaining. But dagnabit, it aint maintaining right?
Along time ago I read an article that the floor of hell is covered with the skulls of bishops and priests. I thought at the time that was nuts, then I grew up and found how many bishops and priests do God awful things..and don’t tend their flocks but love mammon.
No, it isn’t maintaining just because the numbers don’t change. When I get into my car the number of Catholics in the world is the same too, and yet getting into cars does not “maintain” the number of Catholics. It isn’t like people not getting into cars makes the numbers go down. And if somebody actually decides to make the absurd statement that “getting into cars is how Rome gains or maintains Catholics” they would be wrong then too. The fact that getting into cars causes no net change in the number of Catholics does not actually argue for it being a way to “maintain” the number of Catholics. Going to Mass and participating in the faith does maintain the number of believers because doing this actually does encourage retention, but simply moving form one place to another does nothing at all. Nothing. And doing nothing is not “maintaining.”
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