Catholic Church has “Robust growth” in U.S.· March 24, 2010

      Catholic News Agency reported that “The Catholic Church’s membership in the United States grew at the ‘robust’ rate of about 1.5 percent in 2008, according to National Council of Churches’ (NCC) new 2010 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches…
      “The figures come from 2008 statistics. The growth outpaces the estimated U.S. population growth rate in 2008, listed as 0.9 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook. There are now an estimated 68.1 million Catholics in the United States.

      Though the Morman Church and the Assemblies of God church grew in membership, but the “Presbyterian Church (USA) shrank 3.3 percent and now has about 2.9 million members. American Baptist Churches in the USA decreased two percent to 1.4 million, while the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lost 1.9 percent of its membership, which now stands at 4.7 million.

      “The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest denomination after Catholics, lost 0.24 percent of its membership and now stands at 16.2 million. It also declined in membership in the year prior…

      “The Yearbook shows a decline in reported membership of almost all mainline Protestant denominations.

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