I beg to differ. Despite the heroic efforts of folk down the ages, after 2000 years "Christianity" (by which we lump in Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, JW's and Mormons) has claimed just a little over 30% of the world's population.* How much of that number owes a tip of the hat to the '62 Missal and Breviary remains to be seen.
JW's and Mormons aren't Christian, they are cults. The Protestants aren't true churches, as the current Pontiff has said. Much of Europe was re-Catholicized after the counter Reformation, when large territories that had gone over to Protestantism was reclaimed. Plus, many of the Amerindian tribes of current day Latin America were converted to Catholicism, and the Church has been decimated there since V II.
Keep in mind many people who attend the NO don't believe in the Real Presence, don't go to Confession
One is hard pressed to find a practicing Christian who attends the revised Mass and Office who actually doesn't believe in the Real Presence and Confession. I don't have time to go into it right now, but the surveys that traditionalists often cite to show the supposed drop in belief in these things are very misleading, and were intentionally designed to be so.
Practicing Catholics usually at a hefty percentage rate believe in the Real Presence, but few who go to the Novus Ordo go to Confession.
For decades before Humanae Vitae Catholic priests in the United States and Europe had been advising couples to use contraception. As such, the idea that the rise of the current anti-life mentality has something to do with the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI is incorrect.
Go to your average Novus Ordo parish, and you'll find few families headed by couples 40 years old and under who have more than three kids. This could be in some cases due to issues like infertility, but more often it's more than likely due to the fact they are practicing contraception. Relatively few priests who say the NOM preach against contraception in their homilies.
Well, I don't know if the "amazing spread" has been all that amazing. While the numbers have increased, the % has stayed flat.
In the last 100 years the number of Christians has
literally risen by 6,708%. You did not read that wrong, that number of Catholics in Africa has risen in the last 100 years by 6,708%.* Anyway you parse it, that's amazing!
* Source:
The Rise of Christianity in Africa: Does more churches mean more healing of the sick? -
http://stanford.edu/class/humbio129s/cgi-bin/blogs/privatesector/2009/05/07/the-rise-of-christianity-in-africa-do-more-churches-mean-more-healing-of-the-sick/Funny, I was just thinking yesterday how some folk are so doom and gloom even awesome news like the rise of Christianity in the Africa and Asia is downplayed. BTW, by Asia we chiefly mean China.
And as far as post V2 evangelization, that is really nill these days. We have been dealt with a major guilt complex, and evangelization in the post-conciliar Church is dealt with hesitantly, if not at all
See above (and for heaven's sake, think outside of the West).
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You keep conflating the terms "Catholic" and "Christian" which is at times misleading. Catholics are Christians, Orthodox are schismatics, Protestants do not belong to true churches, so any conversion to any Protestant denomination by anyone in Africa or Asia only means they are getting an incomplete and many times false messages.
As far as thinking outside the West, you sidestep the fact the Church has lost many adherents in Latin America, and even the Philippines is having a vocations crisis.
