Pope on the Net
Saw a headline that indicated the Pope was sending email, skimmed the article to find out more about that aspect. It didn't say much about it, just that it was the first message the Pope has personally sent over the Internet, and that it was 120 pages long. That's a lot for a first email. (Maybe it wasn't an email, just a file posted to the Vatican Web site?)
Anyway, most of the article focuses on the fact that the message apologizes for sexual abuse by the clergy, but I thought these two paragraphs were especially interesting:
The bishops of Oceania had expected John Paul to travel to the island of New Caledonia this fall. But the 81-year-old pontiff's declining health weighed against a long journey to the South Pacific, and he decided instead to address his audience over the Internet.
John Paul's message of yesterday also apologized for the forced evangelization of aboriginals, whom the pope said were subjected to "shameful injustices" by Catholic clergy, including the separation of children from their families.
The letter itself elaborates on the theme of Church interaction with aboriginals. The award for "greatest departure from traditional Catholic attitude" goes to this line: "it is the Church's task to help indigenous cultures preserve their identity and maintain their traditions."
In marginally-related (but three-month-old) news, several third-world cardinals apparently have a shot at the papacy when John Paul's time in office is over: men from Mexico, Nigeria, Vietnam, Colombia, Honduras, and Cuba are listed as front-runners.
Old ways giving way to new ways. I wonder if "Is the Pope black?" will become the canonical rhetorical question.
That article also notes that there are 1 billion Roman Catholics, half of them in Latin America. That's a lot more than I expected from a church that I keep hearing is in decline. (Appears to be roughly half the world's Christians, and only a little less than the total number of Muslims in the world.)
This page on the number of people in various religions notes that the annual growth rate of Roman Catholicism is 1.3%, and adds: "Since the growth rate of humanity is above 1.4%, the 'market share' of Roman Catholicism appears to be dropping."
Even in the US, Roman Catholics are the biggest single religious group at 63 million people, 23% of the population. Who knew? (Probably everyone but me. When I was a kid, I thought of Catholicism as the main stream of Christianity, with Protestant groups as offshoots; sometime around college I heard enough times to believe it that Catholicism was dwindling and of less and less importance in the world. I should've checked the statistics.) Though that number apparently includes everyone who's been baptized, so numbers might be lower if you asked for self-identification.
That page starts with a cool note on how many religions there are in the US, which concludes: "The total number of faith groups in the U.S. cannot be calculated; the value depends upon exactly how one defines 'faith group' or 'religion.' Perhaps we can say that every person's religion is somewhat unique. Thus there are over 200 million religions in the U.S." If you want to become a minister of your own religion, stop by the Universal Life Church.