Boston, New Orleans statistics off in new Official Catholic Directory

Published: 2006-07-10

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- For people who look to annual statistics to discern church trends, the statistical tables at the end of the 2006 Official Catholic Directory can be misleading. The 2,043-page tome, also known as the Kenedy Directory after its New Jersey publishers' imprint, came out at the end of June. Because of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina last August, the New Orleans Archdiocese said it could not provide accurate year-end statistics, so the entire statistical column under New Orleans is blank. And a transposition of two figures for the Boston Archdiocese led to an overcount of about 2.1 million in the total number of Catholics in the country: The directory shows the total population in the archdiocese as 1,845,846 and the Catholic population as 3,974,846. The larger figure should be the total population and the smaller figure the Catholic population. Nationwide the directory reported a net increase of about 1.3 million Catholics in the United States and its possessions last year. But if one subtracts the 2.1 million overcount in Boston and adds the roughly 500,000 Catholics New Orleans had before the hurricane, the net result is a decline of about 300,000 Catholics.

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