In this article, which is barely worth mentioning except to show the continuous stream of illogic that flows from the Chancery Office, the Catholic Star Herald claims that a 4% drop in Catholics in the entire state of NJ justifies closing half the churches in South Jersey. But that's just the beginning. It gets worse.

Do they really not know how to read stats? No, the Diocesan Administration just intentionally misleads. It's really hard to see it any other way when you look at the actual numbers. These numbers took 10 minutes to figure out, by the way.

As anyone with a brain in their head might know even without looking at actual census data, the population of the state of NJ has increased overall, by almost a million people, from 7,730,188 in 1990 to 8,682,661 in 2008. This total population increase has led to a total increase of 2.5% of Catholics in the state of NJ. Statewide, this amounts to a 90,000 Catholic increase in the state during those years. That means that while the proportion of Catholics in the state has decreased from 46 to 42% due to an overall population increase in the state, the total number of Catholics has actually increased. Catholics in the state of NJ have gone from 3,555,886 in 1990 to 3,646,717 in 2008, an increase of almost 100,000 people.

The Star Herald's Headline, "Survey Shows Decline of Catholic Population in NJ," seems to be, well, not the case. Would we say that the Diocese is lying? We certainly have our opinion, but we'll let you be the judge. The bottom line is, they appear willing to say anything to justify their agenda.

Oddly, they also fail to mention that in Gloucester County alone the Catholic population could have increased by almost 20,000 people. How do we get that number? We know that in Gloucester County, the county in which St. Mary's is located, the population has increased 20% from 1990 to 2005. The county has gone from 230,082 to 276,910. If we may safely extrapolate from statewide numbers (the same numbers used by the Hartford survey the Diocese cites) and apply them to Gloucester County--and they very well may not be applicable since the Catholic population in Gloucester County could actually represent a higher percentage--then roughly 42% of the total population of Gloucester County may be Catholic. If this is the case, then of the 276,910 people living in Gloucester County, there would be a 20% increase in Catholics since 1990 (19,700 more, to be exact).*

Ironically, the increase in total population but decrease proportionately, not numerically, of Catholics in the state is due to an increasingly diversified population, something the Diocese purports to celebrate.

And as far as leading your sheep along the right path, oh shepherd Galante, perhaps it bears repeating: The truth shall make you free.


* Since typically census data is found online, we could probably prove this definitively but since we only have a few minutes, we're not going to dig around to further discredit the Galante Administration. Maybe later we'll have time to find the actual numbers of Catholics in various counties.