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jueves, 14 de marzo de 2013

Good luck to Pope Francis – perhaps he will be able to start that re-evangelisation of Europe

Pope Francis and the Church he Must Shepherd


On a momentous day for the Catholic Church (and the whole world I would argue, but that might be more contentious) in which we have seen the election of the first successor of St Peter from the Americas, I thought it appropriate to bring some demographic news from the Catholic world. This piece (1) from Northern Voices Online was written before today’s news so is a little dated. However, what is clear from the article is that the heartland of Catholicism in terms of practising members is no longer Europe, but is Africa and Latin America:

“When weekly Mass attendance is at an all-time low in Western Europe and the population of Catholics declined in the continent, in Africa their number grew from 55 million to 146 million between 1978 and 2007. Now the number has reached 176 million. Though the population increased in the natural process yet it is also true that the Church gained a large number of converts at the expense of Muslims and indigenous beliefs such as voodooism or animism, in which spirits are believed to inhabit objects in nature. However, Latin America has the largest concentration of Catholics. Forty-two per cent of world’s Catholics live there. Brazil has maximum number of Catholic population in the globe.”

.... Finally a couple of interesting facts about the Church in Africa:

“Our Lady of Peace Basilica in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast in West Africa, is one of the largest churches in the world––larger even than St Peter’s in the Vatican…The Roman Catholic Church provides half of the continent’s AIDS care…The Roman Catholic Church runs 55,000 schools and 20 universities in the continent that provide degrees for hundreds of thousands of Africans who would have otherwise little chance to get educated. This is because they provide free education and religious instruction. In several African nations, half of the population is Catholic and the Church is perhaps the biggest non-government aid agency…So if in Europe and the United States the Church’s stand on gay marriages, abortion, family values etc is being ridiculed, in Africa the situation is entirely different.”


hRead more: www.mercatornet.com



(1) http://nvonews.com/2013/03/13/papal-conclave-2013-huge-jump-in-catholic-population-in-africa-decline-in-europe/



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