"Election" Returns

With the week's diocesan newspapers beginning to drop, some added numbers are coming in from the weekend's Rites of Election... and while Hotlanta's throng of 2,000-plus catechumens and candidates was impressive given its Catholic population of roughly a million, an even higher ratio was drawn from the archdiocese of Denver (Catholic pop. 385,000), which welcomed over 1,100 newcomers in advance of their Easter Night reception.

Likewise no slouch was the diocese of St Petersburg (spring training home of your NL champions) -- on the mother of all episcopal blogs, Bishop Bob Lynch reported that the 425,000-member church likewise boasts a convert class of 1,000-plus. New York, meanwhile -- with 2.5 million Catholics, the second largest diocese in the country -- saw 600 catechumens at last weekend's rites in St Patrick's Cathedral, with another 850 candidates to be received this coming weekend. (Counting absentees, archdiocesan officials estimate at least 1,600 RCIA participants this year, and possibly even more.)

All told, the Stateside church initiated "as many as" 150,000 adults at last year's Easter Vigil.

Whatever the figures by diocese, the Mothership's recent reminder is worth repeating: namely, that the work of welcoming and making the newest among us feel at home is never just for these pages or the papers, but the lot of us all... so, well, let's to it.

PHOTO: St James Cathedral, Seattle

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