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
10th Century	Erected		Diocese of Kraków (erected)
13 June 1805	Territory Lost	Diocese of Kraków  Diocese of Tarnów (suppressed)	Diocese of Kielce (erected)
Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
28 October 1925	Elevated	Diocese of Kraków	Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}
25 March 1992	Territory Lost	Diocese of Katowice  Archdiocese of Kraków {Cracow}	Diocese of Bielsko-Żywiec (erected)
25 March 1992	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.

http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dkrak.html

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.