Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Statistical Oddity?

According to Catholic-Hierarchy.org, which cites the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican's semi-official annual directory of the Catholic Church, the Diocese of Rochester had some 341,500 Catholics in 2004.

Yet, according to the Ministry Area Profile used by DOR for Pastoral Planning purposes, the diocese had a 2005 total population of 1,504,019, 37.1% of whom were "likely to prefer" Catholicism. That translates into 558,000 people who, if they were not already Catholic, at least preferred Catholicism to any other religion.

Is this just some statistical fluke or are there really some 216,500 people out there just waiting to join the Church, if only someone would invite them in?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Mike Shea said...

I thought about saying something like that, Dr. K., but I didn't want to steal your thunder.