www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Apostolic Chruches circa 2020

Dear Forum:

Made public at noon last Friday, September 20, 2002 is a religious demographic map of the United States (all 50 states) as of December 31, 2000.

This is the result of a survey of religious affiliation and distribution by county of responding religious groups covering a 10-year period from January 1, 1991 through December 31, 2000.

The survey was co-sponsored by Glenmary Research Center, owned by a Catholic congregation of priests/brothers/lay missionaries, assisted by the Glenmary Home Mission Sisters, now based in Tennessee, as a tool for their evangelization work. Protestant and other denominations, also, are using the results as a valuable tool in their own missionary efforts.

Of note is the emergence of Islam (included in this survey for the first time) as one of the fastest-growing religious groups in the U.S.

Based on the results, there are about 140 million Americans who are "unchurched," or who declared their non-affiliation with any organized religious group.

This datum should stir up the missionary zeal of our Apostolic Churches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox) if we are to outpace the emergence of Islam and the resurgence of Protestant fundamentalism. (You will note that the Eastern Churches, even in their totality, are sadly missing from the resulting demographic map.)

Our missionary zeal up to the year 2020, the next survey, should match our sometimes undbridled bravado on the "trueness" and "progress" of our particular Churches here and now, without a credible basis for such confidence.

For the lead story, go to:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4093953.htm

Let the missionary work begin!

AmdG

Dear Amado,

I agree with everything you say!

But I had to laugh out loud when you mentioned "bravado."

This morning, someone got a package meant as an insult that had nothing but women's bras in it.

I told him to forget about it as it was simply misguided "bra-vado."

Alex

Shlomo Amado,
Thank you for pubishing this important information. After I looked over the survey I sent a letter to the director of communications. Below is what I posted to her.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon
**************************************************

Shlomo (Peace to you in Aramaic) Ms, Hurley,
I have just read part of your survey Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States: 2000, and first I would like to commend you for fine work, but I have some points that I would like to make as well.

First, the use of the term Roman Catholic is both inaccurate, and slightly offensive to those use Eastern Catholics who are in union with Rome, but not under the Patriarchal authority of the Roman Pontiff. Secondly, you list separately all non-Catholic Eastern Churches, but don't do that for the Catholic Churches, may I ask why? At the present time we have two Maronite, two Chaldean, one Syriac, one Armenian, one Melkite, four Ruthenian, four Ukrainian, one Syro-Malabar and one Romanian Catholic Jurisdictions in the United States. Further, we also have Russian, Ethiopian, Syro-Malankar, etc. parishes that are under Latin Ordinaries, but are still Eastern Catholic.

Thank you for your time, and I hope the next survey you do like this will be more reflective of the TRUE makeup of the Catholic Church in America. Please remember not all Catholics are Roman Catholics.

Poosh BaShlomo (Stay in Peace),
Shawn (Yuhannon) Dorisian

The main page for the study:
http://www.glenmary.org/grc/RCMS_2000/release.htm

Some interesting numbers are at this link:
http://ext.nazarene.org/rcms/groupnumbersandchange.html

Lance, Joe T, Lemko Rusyn, Ung Certez - you might like to note that Cambria County is a bright spot on the map at this link:

http://www.glenmary.org/grc/RCMS_2000/maps/All_Groups.jpg