Roman Catholics: Counting the Flock

More Roman Catholics are being born than made: there are nearly a million more in the U.S. than a year ago, but just 125,670 are new converts, fewer than at any time in a decade. The 1963 Official Catholic Directory, a 7-lb., 1,540-page volume released last week, puts the Catholic population in the U.S. at 43,851,538 baptized church members, 23.3% of the whole U.S. population. That total marks a dramatic 44.1% increase in ten years. The largest concentration of Catholics is in the archdioceses of Chicago (2,293,900), Boston (1,733,620) and New York (1,704,350). Ordained Catholic priests number 56,540.