Thursday, August 7, 2008

Reports, Rumors, Ramblings and Ravings

is a column by Charles M. Wilson in the (subscriber only) Christifidelis newsletter of the St. Joseph Foundation. In the July 31, 2008 issue he notes a few statistics from the 2008 Official Catholic Directory.

The total of seminarians rose from 4,588 to 5,029 since the previous year's Directory. That includes both diocesan and religious order seminarians. As you might have expected, there were declines in the total number of priests (42,307 to 41,406) and parishes (19,628 to 18,890) in the United States.

What you might not have expected is that "the Catholic population decreased by 398,000". I've never heard of any previous decline.

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