St. Joseph of the Lakes

What a huge week we have had between the Easter Vigil, Confirmation and First Communions we have brought over one hundred people into a closer contact with Jesus and His body here on earth. When you multiply those initiations by all the dioceses throughout the United States alone the numbers of people move into the tens of thousands. According to one source (Crux) among the 89 dioceses (and this is roughly half the number of diocese in the US) that have reported their numbers 37,000 are reported to have come into the Church at the Easter Vigil. Some of the largest U.S. dioceses are receiving more than 1,000 Catholics each into the Church at Easter. They include the Los Angeles, Galveston-Houston, Atlanta and Seattle archdioceses, and the Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina dioceses. 

The news tends to report about the “no-church” movement being reflected in both the Catholic and main line protestant churches. It can make it seem like the Church is shrinking.  There is a large population movement of Catholics from the east coast and central United States to the south and south western parts of the United States so much so that there are some dioceses shuttering their parishes while others in the receiving areas are being challenged to build bigger and more church buildings. There is a reflection of people not attending church as often as they had in 50’s and 60’s but the whole scale movement of leaving the Church is not as massive as has been reported. With the growth of the RCIA the entry into the Church can seem much more dramatic in such large numbers, but that is because we tend to gather all of our adults at one time for this experience. Before the RCIA the entry into the church tended to be on a more personal level. The Church was always growing but with the advent of the RCIA it happens at one specific time of the year.  

This is a happy time to watch the Church grow not only locally but throughout our country and even the world!