By Paula Day

The growth of the Catholic population in the Atlanta archdiocese is no secret. But a new, nationwide, county-by-county church membership survey produced by an ecumenical team of researchers indicates the extent of that growth in the last 10 years.

Data compiled at the Glenmary Research Center in Atlanta and the Statistical Research Center of the Church of the Nazarene in Kansas City and published by the Glenmary Center shows a 62.5 percent increase in active membership in the Church of North Georgia. Catholics now make up 3.59 percent of the total population in the area.

"The 62.5 percent growth rate is significant," commented Father Lou McNeil, director of the Glenmary Center and a member of the committee overseeing the study. In the South Atlantic region, made up of the states on the East Coast south of the Mason Dixon line, the Catholic population increased by 19.6 percent in the past 10 years.

Father McNeil points out that the survey is of active Catholics counted in parish censuses and does not reflect immigrants who are Catholic but have not affiliated with a specific parish.

"Immigration from other Catholic areas in the country is significant," Father McNeil said. "We counted registered Catholics, the only hard numbers available. This doesn't account for the unregistered in the Catholic population, regardless of their ethnicity."

There is a discrepancy between the 3.59 percent Catholic population reported by the researchers and a higher percentage cited by diocesan planners. The archdiocese reports 170,000 or more Catholics while the 1990 census reported 149,139. Father McNeil says a possible explanation for this difference is the survey counts active Catholics recorded in parish censuses.

On the other hand, the 1990 census reported a total of 108,000 Hispanics living in Georgia. Since two-thirds of the state's population live in North Georgia it can be estimated that 70,000 Hispanics are in the archdiocese. Under 10,000 are registered in parishes and so a "great challenge" facing the archdiocese, Father McNeil said, is to reach out to the unregistered Hispanics and also find the finances and staff to meet their needs.

While 17 counties in the archdiocese have no Catholic parishes, a close look at four diverse counties that do have Catholic congregations gives some insight into the growth.

In Union County in the North Georgia mountains there were 50 Catholics in 1980. In 1990 Catholics numbered 210. Queen of Angels parish in Thomson in eastern rural McDuffie County had 70 Catholics in 1980, 350 in 1990.

Metropolitan Atlanta counties having a large population base also show an increase. Cobb County's Catholic population grew from 13,589 in 1980 to 28,647 in 1990. Long-established urban DeKalb County had a Catholic population of 22,600 in 1980 which had increased to 36,400 by 1990. Recent growth in suburban Fayette County brought the Catholic count from 908 in 1980 to 3,613 in 1990.

The four counties in the archdiocese with the largest Catholic populations are DeKalb with 36,400; Fulton with 28,786; Cobb with 28,647 and Gwinnett with 22,028.

In the near future Father McNeil and his staff hope to compile information from various other sources including censuses and national surveys that will give a profile of the Catholic population according to age, income and other noteworthy facts.

Martin Bradley, research director of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, chaired the four-person committee overseeing the national study. At a press conference, spokespersons for the group said the survey is the most comprehensive of its kind and a significant advance over those done in previous decades. They admit that it remains imperfect. There is no information, for example, on major Eastern Orthodox bodies and Muslims. Using an appropriate formula, Father McNeil said the study estimated the number of black Baptist and Jewish communities. Protestant denominations, independent of the mainline churches and with over 300 in their congregations, reported two million members.

The entire project, including gathering and compiling data and preparing it for publication, took two and a half years.

The Glenmary Research Center was founded in 1966 to study the context for ministry in the home missions. Originally located in Washington, D.C., the center relocated to Atlanta in 1982. Father McNeil had been its director since 1986.