Counting the Flock

More Roman Catholics are being born than made: there are nearly a million more in the U.S. than a year ago, but just 125,670 are new converts, fewer than at any time in a decade. The 1963 Official Catholic Directory, a 7-lb., 1,540-page volume released last week, puts the Catholic population in the U.S. at 43,851,538 baptized church members, 23.3% of the whole U.S. population. That total marks a dramatic 44.1% increase in ten years. The largest concentration of Catholics is in the archdioceses of Chicago (2,293,900), Boston (1,733,620) and New York (1,704,350). Ordained Catholic priests number 56,540.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.