Sep

17

Fun, Faith Filled Facts #3: How many Catholic Churches are there?

Posted By Geneviève | Filed Under Catechism, Geneviève Matthews 

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Fun, Faith Filled Facts #3: How many Catholic Churches are there?

The term “catholic”  means universal.  The profession of faith that we state after the Homily on Sundays during Mass states that, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.”

What most (Roman) Catholics don’t realize is that “one holy catholic” church is made up of 7 Rites (or types) of Catholic Churches:

7 Rites of the Catholic Church  listed in paragraph 1203 in the Catechism

-Latin Rite (aka Roman Catholic Church- probably what you are!)

-Byzantine

-Alexandrian or Coptic

-Syriac

-Armenian

-Maronite

-Chaldean

In “faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity, and that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way.” 

ALL of the above Catholic Rites acknowledge the Pope (the Bishop of Rome) as the successor to St. Peter the Apostle and head of the one catholic church. Attendance to Mass on Sunday, of any of these 7 rites, fulfills the Sunday Obligation (and the 3rd Commandment: Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy).

Incidentally, there are now over 30,000 Protestant Christian denominations that resulted from breaking away from the first Christian church- established and instituted by Jesus Christ:  the Catholic Church. 

Statistically speaking- the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) states these facts about the Catholic Church in the United States:

The Catholic Church

A Snapshot

The Catholic Church in 2006

69.1 million Catholics (23% of the U.S. population)118,992 parishes2 (46 new parishes in 2005)342,271 priests / 5,252 brothers / 67,773 sisters 4

573 Catholic hospitals treated 84.7 million patients in 2005 5

6,511 elementary schools and 1,354 high schools, with over 2.5 million students enrolled6

231 Catholic colleges and universities with a total of 763,757 students 7

In 2005, 73,684 people were received into full communion with the Catholic Church!9(These are folks who converted from another Christian denomination). In addition in 2005, 80,817 adults and 943,264 infants were baptized.10 
 

(more info and stats can be found at http://www.usccb.org/comm/cip.shtml#toc2)

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