“Numerically, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is growing rapidly. The 2000 CARA Report, Catholicism Today, puts it rather dramatically: in the year 1900 one out of seven Americans was Catholic (11 million in a population of 76 million). Today more than one in five Americans is at least nominally Catholic (60 millions in a population of 267 million). The factors that account for this demographic development include the impact of immigration, intermarriage leading to adult reception of spouses into the Catholic Church, and, of course, natural increase through family growth. All of these factors have made the Catholic Church the largest single denomination in what was for two centuries a dominantly Protestant country.” A Portrait of the Catholic Church in the United States, Bryan T. Froehle and Mary L. Gautier, Maryknoll, New York, 2000.
No comments:
Post a Comment