I received a brochure in the mail a couple days ago from the conciliar church that I am a member of since I moved and before becoming more Traditionalist. I keep on the list because I want to know what is going on. I am nosey that way.  :detective:

Anyway here are some statistics from the Archdiocese:

-The six county Archdiocese has 4.4 million people.

-Thirty-two percent are believed to be Catholic.

-Over 90% of Catholics live in the suburbs or rural area.

-Seventy percent of parishes are located in suburbs or rural areas.

-Fifty percent  of the Catholics are registered with a parish (720,000)

-Thirty percent of those attend Mass regularly (216,000 of the total)

-Thirty percent of registered parishioners contribute to the parish.



The Archdiocese and all diocese I imagine are embarking on a future plan called "Together in Faith" which includes:

Clustered and merging parishes, personal priests for specific ethnic groups, short term assignment of priests and priests travelling from parish to parish. There's others but I will discuss later as it doesn't have to do with management or structure.

Ages of priests in years:

5% are 20-29
23% are 30-39
67% are 49-49
76% are 50-59
71% are 60-69
31% are 70-79
6% are 80-89
1% are 90-99

It looks like it is only a matter of time for the conciliar church even with all their "accomodations" to appeal to modernity and their "outreach" to other communities.

I don't think that this is true of only this Archdiocese although this area may be slightly worse off.Nonetheless, I find the statistics deeply disturbing. and scary.

The Diocese of Belleville, IL also sends out letters talking about "clustering" of some parishes.  They also speak of town hall meetings and only submitting "serious" requests.

I would like to see the SSPX, or ICKSP, or CRMI/SSPV or some independent SEDE group take over a couple of the Belleville parishes.

I agree with you that this is an opportunity to save souls and grow the True Catholic Church.

Maybe some catholics will naturally migrate to independent or SSPX churches in the rural and suburban areas. Some will but probably not enough.

I think that this is a chance for the Traditional movement to make a huge stand. But I don't know...afterall, there's all those angels dancing on pins that we have to take care of.

 :rolleyes: