The November 8, 2009 issue of Our Sunday Visitor gives some interesting statistics. Between 1994 and the end of 2007, there has been significant growth in the Catholic church in Africa. While the African population has grown by 33%, the number of African Catholics has grown by 60%. There has been a 49% increase in the number of African priests, and a 94% increase in the number of Catholic lay missionaries.
I'd love to be able to include statistics that show the rate of change for other faiths in Africa and the rate of change for Catholics as well as other faiths in the U.S. It would be interesting to see how they all stack up against each other. But I suspect that the rate of growth of the Catholic church in the States wouldn't compare favorably to that in Africa.
What is the secret of their success, and what can we learn from Africa?
What do you think?
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Don’t forget to enter this week’s contest,
found here.
____________________________________
And visit a special All Souls remembrance:
Click here throughout the month of November to offer prayers in memory of loved ones who have preceded us in death.
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1. They don't have the ACLU banning God and filing frivilous law suits every time some one says God or a prayer in public places.
ReplyDelete2. Perhaps they are to the point other religions failed to give them solace and hope like Christianity does.
It is also surprising that Christianity is also enjoying a rapid expasion in South America all the while Christianity in the United states is being strangled by Athiest and the ACLU gangsters using our tax dollars. The most surprising part is the U.S. Christians have been mostly silent while this is happening. Are we all asleep?
Have you ever had an African priest visit or be assigned to your parish? I don't know for chickens and eggs, but that's the key. We had a priest temporarily at one parish I worked for. The people who ran the office and the ministries all kind of had a look-kindly-at-him-and-pat-him-on-the-back-ut-don't-expect-anything-from-him attitude towards him as they went about their daily business in a very middle-management, worldly, practical, dull sort of manner that you could see in any Dilbert comic. Meanwhile this guy quietly went about his business and then meticulously wrote and transcribed homilies and letters that sounded like something from Cardinal Ratzinger -- full of love, full of the love of God.
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