In an earlier article, I quoted statistics from a study conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. I noted that the statistics themselves can be somewhat misleading. Studies such as this can and often are used by either liberal or ultra-conservatives within the Church to advance their particular agendas.
In this article, I bring attention to the findings published in the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, 2015, (Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae), edited by the Central Office of Church Statistics of the Vatican Secretariat of State and published last April 6, 2017.
It may be of interest to note that Pope Francis may have called a special Synod of Bishops to focus on the Amazon region not primarily because of the rainforest’s key role in the ecological health of the planet, but mostly because he read in these statistics that the pastoral needs there require special attention.
In fact, while globally there are 3,130 Catholics for every Catholic priest, in South America the average priest serves 7,203 Catholics, according to Vatican statistics.
The Amazon Rainforest covers more than 2.1 million square miles in South America and includes territory in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Guyana and French Guiana. The Catholics-to-priest ratios in Venezuela (9,829-to-1), Peru (8,427-to-1), Bolivia (8,038-to-1) and Brazil (7,976-to-1) are even higher than the continental average.
In the United States and Canada, for comparison, the Vatican estimates that there are 1,916 Catholics for every priest.
The Amazon synod will be held at the Vatican in October 2019; the preparatory document for the gathering was to be released by the Vatican June 8.
The Catholics-to-Priest ratio is just one table in the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, which is published annually by the Central Statistics Office, a department of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
With more than 500 pages of figures and charts, the yearbook tracks everything from Catholic population to the outcome of requests for the declaration of the nullity of a marriage.
The figures are the result of information requested annually from every diocese and Church jurisdiction. Collecting and compiling the figures takes more than a year.
The numbers are interesting, but what is more so is the apparent lack of correlation that appears between the statistics and their interpretation.
For example, the same Yearbook tracks the number of Baptisms and Catholic Marriages in the world.
In 2016, more than 16.2 million people were baptized and more than 2.4 million were married in a Catholic ceremony.
But in 1986, the Yearbook reported 17.8 million Baptisms and more than 4 million Catholic weddings, that is a drop of 1.6 million Baptisms and 1.6 million Catholic Marriages over the course of the past three decades.
Yet, the Holy See cautions that a “general downward trend in the relative number of baptisms” does not always indicate a declining practice of faith, but closely follows the trend of a lower birthrate in many countries.”
Or, in reality, do the numbers not indicate the fact that fewer and fewer of so-called Catholics are in fact practicing their Faith but have chosen rather to abandon the Church altogether?
Another most interesting statistic refers to the year ending Dec. 31, 2016 and concerns the world’s 1.29 billion Catholics who were served by 5,353 Bishops; 281,831 Diocesan Priests; 133,138 Religious Order Priests; 46,312 Permanent Deacons; 52,625 Religious Brothers; 659,445 Religious Sisters; 345,743 Lay Missionaries; and close to 3.1 million Catechists.
The Vatican concludes that “globally, the number of Bishops, Diocesan Priests and Permanent Deacons all were higher than a year earlier, while the number of Religious Order Priests and Brothers, Religious Sisters, Lay Missionaries and Catechists all declined.”
But, the Holy See fails to highlight that it was the number of Diocesan Priests in Africa and Asia that rose significantly, whereas the numbers were only slightly higher in Latin America and Oceania, while the numbers were significantly, even drastically lower in North American and Europe.
One finding in particular bothered me and that is, that in the past 30 years, the percentage of the world’s Bishops who lead dioceses in a country other than the country of their birth.
In 1986, 16.7 percent of the world’s 4,027 Bishops were “foreign to country of residence.” In 2016, 16.6 percent of the Bishops were ministering outside their native land.
Could the disconnect between the Bishop and those entrusted to his pastoral care not be more pronounced?
How can a Bishop be expected to provide the level of accompaniment Pope Francis is calling for when he is a complete stranger to the culture and environment of those he has been appointed to shepherd?
The Holy See calls these “Bishop” appointments. I call them “Manager” appointments.
And so it goes.
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