We are everywhere...

As an Evangelical, I knew of a lot of Catholics who – for one reason or another – left the Catholic Church and joined Protestant ones. I never heard about folks going the other way, and I always assumed that the size of the Church was just because Catholics breed like bunnies.

Nope. Mark Shea quotes Sherry Weddell of the St. Catherine of Siena institute:

From my research of the past week (while re-writing a portion of Making Disciples, Equipping Apostles;
I'd like to add this bit of reality about adult conversions to the US Church:

in 1960, the pre-Vatican II height: 145,000 adults entered

in 1975, the nadir: 75,000 adults entered

Under JPII, the trend has completely reversed itself. Since 1994:

23,000 more adults have entered the Church every year than did in 1960:

An average 163,000 adults every year between 1994 and 2003. That's 1.635 million adult converts in only ten years.

If adult converts to Catholicism from those 10 years alone were a denomination, we would be the 16th largest in America, right behind the Episcopalians and ahead of the Churches of Christ and the Greek Orthodox.

And I will make this prediction. This week of incredibly powerful coverage of the Pope's life, faith, impact and the endless interviews with believing Catholics is going to be the catalyst of the spiritual awakening of millions around the world. I'm betting on a significant jump in adult converts on Easter, 2006 and an increase in priestly and religious vocations in the next two years.

God bless you, John Paul the Great. We owe you so much!

As I understand it, only two popes in history have been called "the Great." This is just one of the many reasons to make it three.