{"id":12191,"date":"2014-06-11T20:35:24","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T01:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=12191"},"modified":"2014-12-27T11:46:03","modified_gmt":"2014-12-27T16:46:03","slug":"catholicism-the-true-mega-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2014\/06\/catholicism-the-true-mega-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Catholicism: the True Mega Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Lest you are somewhat dismayed at times over the gloomy news of the state of our culture, be of good cheer.<\/p>\n

Deacon Kandra reports here<\/a> that the Catholic Church ain\u2019t going out of business anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the church continues to grow around the world \u00a0and the twentieth century was boom time.<\/p>\n

Viewed globally the Church experienced \u00a0a spectacular growth over the twentieth century which shows little sign of slowing.<\/p>\n

In 1900 there were roughly 266 million Catholics in the world. This rose to 1,045 million by 2000. By 2010 there were\u00a01,197 million<\/a>\u00a0[just over a billion], according to the 2012 edition of the\u00a0Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae<\/em>, the \u2018Statistical Yearbook of the Church\u2019. Over the last 40 years, Catholics have consistently made up between\u00a017 and 18pc of the world\u2019s population<\/a>; having been\u00a0steadily about 17.3pc<\/a>\u00a0in recent years, they now are probably about 17.5pc. Current growth in the world\u2019s Catholic population is slightly\u00a0outpacing general population growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peter Seewald was right to say to Pope Benedict, when interviewing him for 2010\u2019s\u00a0Light of the World<\/em>, that:\u00a0\u201cNever before has the Catholic Church had more believers, never before such extension, literally to the ends of the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026Over the course of the twentieth century, the population of Latin America and the Caribbean rose from about 60 million to 561 million, while the number of Catholics there rose from 53 million to about 449 million.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You know Joel Osteen visited the Pope the other day. Maybe Osteen was learning the true definition of \u201cmega church\u201d<\/p>\n

Go here<\/a> for Deacon\u2019s full article.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lest you are somewhat dismayed at times over the gloomy news of the state of our culture, be of good cheer. Deacon Kandra reports here that the Catholic Church ain\u2019t going out of business anytime soon. Indeed, the church continues to grow around the world \u00a0and the twentieth century was boom time. Viewed globally the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCatholicism: the True Mega Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lest you are somewhat dismayed at times over the gloomy news of the state of our culture, be of good cheer. 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