Crux, John L. Allen, Jr.: For most Americans and Europeans, the global north-south shift in the Church’s center of gravity over the last half-century truly comes home when they look around at priests and nuns these days, and see swelling numbers of Filipinos, Indians, Nigerians, Koreans, and multiple other nationalities.
St. Pope John Paul II used to say that the global south is materially poor but rich in humanity, and all you have to do is look at who’s keeping the Church afloat in most parts of the world to confirm the point.
However, the demographic transition that now sees two-thirds of a global Catholic population of almost 1.3 billion living in the southern hemisphere is also taking hold in other ways as well, including the Church’s perceived sense of pastoral and theological priorities. Report is here.
