Some Stats: teaching the faith works, abandoning it to relativism doesn't.



Last Tuesday my post drew attention to the fruits issuing forth from Krakow with regard to vocation and certainly due to pastoral direction of the new Archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewki. 

Today I would like to draw your attention to Archbishop Gadecki – the President of the Polish Episcopal Conference - who is good news too.

Both he and Archbishop  Marek Jedraszewki are contemporaries –and (like most Bishops in Poland – but very few Bishops in the UK), hold Doctorates.

Encouraging Polish priests to have Doctorates was part of the long term planning by St John Paul II when he was Archbishop of Krakow.

I have heard that Fr. Rene Latourelle sj (one of the best Jesuits teaching at the Greg 40 years ago) said to a friend that Cardinal Woytila always used to visit him in his office at the Greg to chat about how the Krakow priests doing Doctorates at the Greg were getting on.

Further good news is found in Polish ordination statistics. The Germans may have loads of money – but they don’t have loads of vocations.

Funny that.

While the German High Priests may wish to throw their considerable financial weight around, I suspect that the Polish Bishops will not take kindly to Teutonic bully-boy tactics.

And the Polish Bishops have the ultimate deterrent – because many German parishes rely on Polish priests to staff them. So the Polish Bishops could potentially pull their priests out of Germany.

Now let's look at some of the stats worldwide:

And compare and contrast the number of Catholics & and the number of priests in (to take a particular country purely at random)…… Argentina with the numbers in Great Britain (the stats for GB are for England, Wales & Scotland – but not Ireland).

Argentina:      total Catholics = 34,480,000 ; total priests = 5,648

Great Britain: total Catholics = 4,787,000 ; total priests = 5,653

See here.

So if we are worried about the numbers of priests in Britain,  think what it must be like in a country the size of western Europe – with seven times the number of Catholics and FEWER priests.

Hardly a success story.

And then look at the stats of a random Diocese in Poland. The stats for Krakow are particularly eye-watering!

The really key statistic is the ratio of priests to people:

1950 = 1000 priests

2016 = 2000 priests – despite losing territory in 1992 to newly created dioceses.

Historical Summary

Date
Event
From
To
Diocese of Kraków
Erected
Diocese of Kraków (erected)
Territory Lost
Diocese of Kraków 
Diocese of Tarnów (suppressed)
Diocese of Kielce (erected)
Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
Elevated
Diocese of Kraków
Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
Territory Lost
Diocese of Katowice 
Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
Diocese of Bielsko-Żywiec (erected)
Territory Lost
Diocese of Częstochowa 
Diocese of Kielce 
Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
Diocese of Sosnowiec (erected)


Statistics

Year
Catholics
Total Population
Percent Catholic
Diocesan Priests
Religious Priests
Total Priests
Catholics Per Priest
Permanent Deacons
Male Religious
Female Religious
Parishes
Source
Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
1950
1,200,000
1,208,000
99.3%
560
520
1,080
1,111
1,207
2,300
320
ap1951
1969
1,738,946
1,779,427
97.7%
894
699
1,593
1,091
1,373
3,043
322
ap1971
1980
2,125,000
2,332,500
91.1%
985
649
1,634
1,300
1,479
2,954
331
ap1981
1990
2,200,150
2,246,900
97.9%
1,185
785
1,970
1,116
2,195
2,994
470
ap1991
1999
1,616,850
1,657,853
97.5%
1,046
842
1,888
856
1,908
2,738
390
ap2000
2000
1,615,785
1,666,884
96.9%
1,054
887
1,941
832
1,939
2,758
398
ap2001
2001
1,607,313
1,659,092
96.9%
1,064
907
1,971
815
1,880
2,689
400
ap2002
2002
1,572,266
1,634,465
96.2%
1,058
909
1,967
799
1,909
2,989
409
ap2003
2003
1,562,904
1,618,378
96.6%
1,066
936
2,002
780
1,921
2,869
610
ap2004
2004
1,566,555
1,618,593
96.8%
1,077
949
2,026
773
1,904
2,937
414
ap2005
2010
1,556,000
1,601,000
97.2%
1,121
968
2,089
744
1,828
2,673
439
ap2011
2013
1,551,000
1,589,000
97.6%
1,162
965
2,127
729
1,723
2,660
444
ap2014
Note: Any changes in boundaries over time are not indicated in the above table.

I heard from one of the Vocations Directors in another Diocese that the recruitment levels in the USA had grown considerably in the dioceses that have followed the Vatican Instruction of 4 November 2005: Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.

This was issued a year after the John Jay Report was published – which indicated that one in five US homosexual priests was accused of child abuse while less than one in a hundred US heterosexual priests was accused of child abuse.

The UK Bishops denied that there was any connection between homosexuality and child abuse. But they had not commissioned the sort of detailed report that the US Bishops had. And they had not been faced with bankruptcy as many US Dioceses were.

In short, this is fairly convincing evidence that holding and teaching the faith works, abandoning it to relativism doesn't.


Comments

  1. And we thought Argentina relied upon "the hand of God"! Happy Christmas!

    ReplyDelete

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