THIS IS INTERESTING!!!

voltaire

When I went to mass last Sunday, as I walked in there was a stack of leaflets with a message from the Cardinal about pedophiles in the Church! I thought it was great. Can you imagine how you would feel if you went in to a KH and there was a copy Ray Franz's book for everyone? I know the Catholic Church is feeling great pressure, but I still feel a certain amount of respect for them. They are apologizing, they studiously avoid blaming the victims (even though some have turned out to have been making false accusations). They are paying compensation to the victims. I find it amazing that the "filthy whore" has more moral fiber than "God's faithful and discreet slave".

misty

I think that is because they have not been publicly denounced yet, whereas the Catholic church had been in the spotlight for decades about the pedophiles and the orphanages,etc. The JW's turn will come but not until some ex's like us go public - and they better be those that have no family in there still. Otherwise, they may never get these loved ones back - and it may even backfire - and make them even stronger (on account of them being persecuted for their faith and for the TRUTH).

SYN

The WTBTS has no moral fibre to start with.

I'm sure glad we don't vote anymore like we did before we got the truth. Now we get to complain about everything ALL the politicians do!
[SYN], UADA - Unseen Apostate Directorate, Africa

Amazing

Right on Voltaire! Excellent. Just a side thought about growth. The Catholic Church numbers about 62,000,000 in the USA and over 1,000,000,000 worldwide. The JWs number about 930,000 in the USA and about 6,000,000 worldwide.

If the Catholic Church grows in the USA by just 1% in one year, they increase 620,000 or about 67% of the total number of JWs in the USA. If the Catholic Church grows by 1% worldwide, they increase by 10,000,000 or 1.67 times the total JWs in the world.

In the year 2000, the Catholic Church grew by 1.3% or by 806,000 in the USA and 13,000,000 worldwide - more than double the number of JWs. In the 3 years, 1998, 1999, and 2000 the Catholic average growth rate was 1.14% with a high of 1.54%. Face it, at this rate the JWs can never hope to catch up.

Even with a growth rate of 3% per year, it would take the JWs over 170 years to catch up to where the Catholic Church is today. In the meantime at a 1% growth rate, in 170 years, the Catholic Church will have moved from 1,000,000,000 worldwide today to almost 5.5 Billion. Were the Catholic Church to have a major revival, which they have had from time to time in the last 2,000 years, and merely kept pace with the JWs at 3% per year, in 170 years they would reach nearly 163 Billion!

Obviously, it aint never gonna happen! But, the point is, that the Catholic Church has reached its growth equalibrium in its 2,000 year history ... and its growth rate will likely decline some, as well as the JWs.

RunningMan

What really amazes me is how slowly the Witnesses actually grow. When you consider that they are probably the most aggressive recruiting organization in the world, spending in excess of one billion hours per year recruiting, their growth is miniscule.

Whereas the Catholic church, that appears to do no recruiting whatsoever, adds 13 million additional adherents per year.

NameWithheld

What really amazes me is how slowly the Witnesses actually grow. When you consider that they are probably the most aggressive recruiting organization in the world, spending in excess of one billion hours per year recruiting, their growth is miniscule.
Whereas the Catholic church, that appears to do no recruiting whatsoever, adds 13 million additional adherents per year.

There is that saying about catching more flies with honey - the WTBTS 'good news' of gloom and doom, serve us by selling mags or die just isn't that appealing. The Catholics don't need to knock on doors since they know that the good old tried and true method of public preaching, word of mouth, family, etc are far more effective.

Oh and I bet that half of those 'billion hours' are faked/lied anyway, and of the remaing half a billion hours half again are spent at MacShack, donuts shops, etc. Then the remaing half is spent doing the 'witness shuffle' down streets knocking on each not-at-homes for 5 minutes or driving from one end of the county to the other to make 'RVs' - also 90% time not-at-home. I used to drive an hour to the mall - made a call first to 'start my time of course! Then a call after returning from the mall - easiest way to 'make your time' as a pioneer. Movies helped too!