Religion: Catholics into Protestants

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"Doesn't a Roman Catholic ever become converted to Protestantism?" For years, says the Rev. Daniel A. Poling, people have been asking him this question —particularly whenever a prominent U.S. citizen announces his conversion to the Catholic faith. Last week Dr. Poling, editor of the interdenominational Christian Herald (circ. 376,783), gave his readers the answer: a resounding yes. The Herald's estimates, summarized in a report by Author Will Oursler: as against 1,071,897 people converted to Catholicism during the last ten years (most of them presumably ex-Protestants), some 4,000,000 Roman Catholics have become Protestants.

The Herald got its figures by polling a cross section of U.S. Protestant ministers. The 2,219 clergymen who replied to its questionnaire (out of 25,000 polled) reported that they had received a total of 51,361 former Roman Catholics into their churches within the past ten years. Projecting his sample, Poling got a nationwide estimate of 4,144,366 Catholic-to-Protestant converts in a decade. Writes Episcopalian Will Oursler:* "Even when allowances are made for error, the total national figure could hardly be less than two or three million and in all probability runs closer to five million."

Catholics cited a variety of reasons for embracing Protestantism, ministers told the Herald in their replies. Among them: "Intellectual differences with Roman Catholic dogma, rebellion against [their church's] 'iron discipline' ... the simpler and more direct Protestant approach to worship." Biggest factor: "Mixed marriages, in which the Catholic party adopted the Protestant faith."