This is a sad part of human nature - we are attracted to negativity and bad news about others. Think about it - when was the last time you passed an auto accident and didn't look?
It would be easy to listen to the reports of parish and Catholic school closings in some part of the country along with the near-constant bashing of the church in the mainstream media and come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was dwindling in size.
Despite some midwest and northeast areas shrinking in size, the Catholic Church is bursting at the seams and is one of the few religious groups in the United States growing at double-digit numbers. Take a look at this graph:
The truth, and the story you rarely hear, is that the Catholic Church is alive and well. In the words of Nashville Bishop Choby quoting Pope Benedict, "The Church is constantly young and forever reborn." Despite all the naysayers, the Church keeps on growing. The Catholic Church in the South is growing at an incredible rate.
Some of this growth comes from immigrants flooding into America, an estimated 300,000 a year. From 1990 to 2009, that's 5.7 million immigrants. The remaining 6.3 million are from population growth and huge numbers of converts from other religions.
What do you think?
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