Catholic church's inflated numbers

So Im sitting here watching tv and the "catholics come home" commercial comes on. In it they claim to have 1 billion members. As an atheist who used to be a catholic I am still counted as a member of the church. Makes me sick thinking about it. So I wonder, if the church would subtract everyone who doesnt attend mass regularly how big that number would actually be? I kind of chuckled when my father told me the other day that there were actually a couple kids at mass when he went the previous day. He still attends almost every weekend but is worried the local parish will be closed soon due to dwindling numbers. We can only hope that we see religion become extinct in our lifetimes, but I fear I wont see that happen.
I would like for my name to be officially removed as a member of the church but not sure if there is a process. Does anyone know how I could go about this? I'm sure the vatican doesnt make it very easy.
Also I'm curious what everyone else thinks might be the "actual" count of catholic church members. To me the 1 billion number seems quite inflated.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by erik112358 on January 4, 2012 at 7:34am

Are you sure there is an actual master list? Maybe your particular church does keep one, but I doubt the Vatican cares whether Joe Schmoe in Anywhere, USA is catholic or not. And then if you think about all the less developed countries in central and south america and africa, there's no way they have any accurate records. I could be wrong, but I bet that commercial just made an optimistic guess (or pessimistic, depending on your point of view), maybe based on some kind of official census.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dave G on January 4, 2012 at 4:02pm

I believe they do. There was a movement a while back to get people to send in requests to their local diocese to be removed from the rolls if they were no longer Catholic. The Catholic Church responded by halting processing of these requests.

▶ Reply

RSS

Welcome to
Think Atheist

Get Started Now
or Sign In

Or sign in with:

What's new today

1	insane comment following tornadoes in Oklahoma
2	EMPOWERING WOMEN!!!!!!!!
3	Should illegal aliens in the US be denied medical care?
4	Seen a FB about Tornados today in KS and OK.
5	I have a question...
6	The mob psychology of human sacrifice.
7	An Atheist's Creed
8	My First Ultramarathon