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Latest
Statistics for the Catholic Church in From Thomas in
Jesus Beer Glass - Dying New
Church Hoped To Attract Youngsters During Christmas New Church Glass Nearly Empty as
English Catholics Call Last Round Christmas 2007 Update The collapse has continued! The Guardian newspaper here in the UK ridiculously
claimed on Sunday 23rd December 2007, that “a survey of 37,000
churches, to be published in the new year, shows the number of people going
to Sunday Mass in England last year [2006] averaged 861,000, compared with
852,000 Anglicans worshipping. The rise of Catholicism has been bolstered by
an influx of immigrants from eastern Europe and Africa, who have packed the
pews of Catholic parishes that had previously been dwindling.” The truth is that over a million economic
migrants from Eastern Europe have flooded into the UK over the last year or
so, most of them Catholics from Poland. Far from “packing the pews” left half
empty since Vatican II, something in the order of 90% of them have left off
attending mass within a single year of arriving in the UK even though there
are still plenty of New Church parishes here and it is easy to get to one in
most localities. Perhaps this is an historic record! But to The Guardian it
is “the rise of Catholicism”! New Church is stubbornly blind and that is why we
have said that it may not last another decade here in the UK. The hierarchy
is always right, no exceptions ever! Well, those who cannot be wrong cannot
correct themselves and such arrogance must end in ruin. Christmas 2006 The Roman Catholic Church in “According to official
Church statistics mass attendance in
According to the Census, Roman Catholic mass
attendance has “dropped by almost a third” in the last seven years. “‘Britain is showing
the world how religion as we have known it can die,’ Callum Brown told the
Chicago Tribune. Brown is a historian at the University of Dundee in
Scotland. He was pessimistic about the future, observing that after two
generations of people with little experience of regular church participation,
it will be difficult to turn the situation around.” Such are the fruits of
Well, Traditionalist Catholics too should laugh at
New Church and its “popes” have been teaching
that all relgions are started by the Holy Spirit and that God uses them as
means of salvation by giving people belief in the religions. Antipope John Paul II: “In Christ, God
calls all peoples to himself and he wishes to share with them the fullness of
his revelation and love. He does not fail to make himself present in many
ways, not only to individuals but also to entire peoples through their
spiritual riches, of which their religions are the main and essential
expression, even when they contain gaps, insufficiencies and errors. […] Does
it not sometimes happen that the firm belief of the followers of the
non-Christian religions -- a belief that is also an effect of the Spirit of
truth operating outside the confines of the Mystical Body -- can make
Christians ashamed at being often themselves so disposed to doubt concerning
the truths revealed by God and proclaimed by the church?” (Redemptoris
Missio, Dec. 7, 1990) Antipope John Paul II: “The ‘seeds of
truth’ present and active in the various religious traditions are a
reflection of the unique Word of God, who ‘enlightens every man coming into
world’ (cf. Jn 1:9) and who became flesh in Christ Jesus (cf. Jn This universalism is contrary to what the
Catholic Church has previously believed. It is a new and different religion,
with a new universalist gospel of a salvation that is offered to men through
the belief and practice of the various religions. New Church claims to recognize Pius IX as a true
pope, but he defined at Council Vatican I in 1870, how God uses his grace to
save people only in the Catholic religion and how the other religions are “false
religions” which people adhere to through “human opinion”. A sharp distinction has been drawn between the
Catholic religion and the false religions, and between those who adhere to
these. To save men, God provides
“supernatural virtue” as an “efficacious aid” to help them accept the truth
of the Catholic religion. He “excites the erring by His grace” to embrace it;
and He “confirms in His grace” those who adhere to it, who do so “through the
heavenly gift of faith”. Wherefore the condition of those who adhere to the
Catholic religion is “not at all equal” to “those, who, led by human
opinions, follow a false religion.” God did not start the various religions
to save people. He saves them only in the Catholic Church. The other
religions are “false religions” and people are not influenced to adhere to
them by God but are “led by human opinions”. The Roman Catholic
Church has apostasized from the true religion of salvation
through faith in Jesus. It is preaching a new universalist gospel of a
salvation that is offered to men through the belief and practice of the
various religions. “As we said before, so
say I now again, -- If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
which you have received, let him be anathema [accursed].” (Galatians 1:6-9) Consequently, we have no pope and no Catholic pastors with jurisdiction
or authority. They are all heretics who have been automatically
excommunicated from the Church. Their appointments were null and void in the
first place. The heretics are anathema. Sede vacante. Pope Paul IV:
“If ever at any time it shall appear that ... even the Roman Pontiff, prior
to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated
from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy ... the promotion or
elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent
of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless ... Everyone shall be
permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion
to those thus promoted or elevated and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens,
publicans, and heresiarchs.” (Cum Ex Apostolatus) England endured a sede
vacante from the period of Henry VIII to the restoration of the Catholic
episcopal sees in 1850. That situation is now spread abroad. St. Athanasius († 373) wrote as follows to
confirm the faithful during the Arian crisis, when Liberius and all the
“approved” bishops in the world went over to Arianism and Athanasius and the
few other orthodox Catholic bishops were excommunicated by Rome. “Even if Catholics
faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the
true Church of Jesus Christ.” (Epistle to the Catholics) If the faithful have
been reduced to a handful today, The Zenit article follows. Protestant sects are
gaining recruits from the Afro-Caribbean community but the Roman Catholic
Church continues to decline apace. Code: ZE06093002 Date: 2006-09-30 Churches Face a
Continuing Fall in Attendance The report, the 2005
English Church Census, shows that from 1998-2005 “only” a half-million people
stopped going to church. The good news was that this was half the loss
sustained in the nine-year period prior to 1998. The press release
accompanying the report was titled, “Pulling out of the Nosedive,” and it
claimed: “Many churches in The census found that
there are two major reasons for the slowing decline: the number of churches
are growing; plus there was a considerable increase of ethnic minority
churchgoers, especially blacks. The data were
collected from surveys sent to 37,500 churches, of which about half
responded. The attendance figures are those for Just over a third of
churches, 34%, are growing. This compares with 21% in 1998. A further 16% are
stable, up from 14% in 1998. The proportion of churches in decline has fallen
from 65% in 1998 to 50%. Nevertheless, the losses from declining churches
outweigh the gains from those with increasing numbers. And this continuing
decline is taking place in a situation where church attendance is already at
extremely low levels. The Catholic and
Anglican churches accounted for over half of the numbers in the census, with
each having just over 800,000 people in church the day the data were
collected. Next in order of numbers were the Methodist, Pentecostal and
Baptist churches. Numbers for the Catholic
Church were slightly ahead of the Anglican level. But compared with 1998 the
decline in attendance for the Catholic Church was much greater than for the
Anglicans. In 1998 the Sunday participation for Catholics was just over 1.2
million, meaning that in the previous seven years their numbers have dropped
by almost a third. Another problem is
that churchgoers are significantly older on average than the population. No
fewer than 29% of churchgoers are 65 or over, compared with 16% of the
population. Believers in the younger age groups also tend to go to church
less often, and there is a progressive decline in belief as age drops, with
very few churchgoers in the younger age brackets. Less than 10% go to church
in the 20-29 age group, and this falls to 5% in the 15-19 group. Regarding the question
of increased participation by ethnic groups, the census found that blacks now
account for 10% of all churchgoers in Catholic problems A more detailed look
at the situation of the Catholic Church came in another report, published
this summer by the Over the same period
baptisms were halved, while marriages and confirmations plunged by 60%. As well, first
Communions declined by 40% and the number of adult converts fell 55%.
According to the Times, more recent figures, from 2004, show little
improvement in the situation. Numbers going to Mass on a Sunday in 1991 in The Web site for the
Catholic Church in The number of
marriages in Catholic churches fell precipitously, from 29,337 in 1981 to
11,013 in 2003. The Web site estimated weekly Mass attendance at 915,497. Last April 10 the
Telegraph newspaper published a detailed article on the situation of Catholic
monasteries and convents. Citing official figures the article said that only
a dozen people entered monasteries in 2004, thus continuing a decline that
has persisted in recent decades. Vocations to monastic
orders were 107 in 1982. By 1990 this had fallen to 52, and in 2000 only 20
entered. The total number of monks in The situation of nuns
is similar. In In The average age of
priests in “It can die” The Chicago Tribune
newspaper last May 11 examined the crisis of faith in “ A new ad campaign is
trying to reach to young people in order to overcome this problem. The
campaign’s tactics, among them an image showing Christ’s face on the side of
a beer glass, have come under criticism for their superficiality. The
campaign is being organized by an ecumenical group, the Churches’ Advertising
Network. Another tactic of the
campaign, reported the Telegraph on Sept. 15, is setting up a page for Jesus
on the MySpace Internet site, a social networking page very popular among
adolescents. Amid doubts over the
future of organized religion in Moreover, she
commented, scientific developments are in danger of “outstripping our ethical
imagination.” Source: http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=95720 |
