Catholicism, Faith,

Gallery: Slideshow: Catholics around the Philadelphia region
Counting the flock is educated guesswork
Parish that values young people like gold has hit upon a way to lure them

Gallery: Multimedia | Pentecostal churches overtake Catholicism
Multimedia | Strenuous competition for the faithful
Multimedia | Pentecostal churches overtake Catholicism

Online Exclusive | Beliefs mix in an emotional faith - 03/27/2007
Catholic Crossroads: Latinos A tenuous grasp - 03/22/2007: Huge numbers of mostly Catholic Latino migrants flow to this region. The church faces many obstacles in keeping them.

By David O'Reilly, Inquirer Staff Writer

In fast-developing Chester County, there is a growing Catholic presence that is plain to see, and another that is not. One is manifest in the 30 parish churches and 14 parochial schools set among sprawling fields of subdivision homes. They brim with 153,000 suburban church members, a 60 percent increase since 1990. The beating heart of the other is tucked into an Avondale strip mall, in basement rooms lush with polychrome crucifixes and images of the Virgin Mary.
Catholic Crossroads Africa's star rising - 03/22/2007: Nigeria offers a portrait of steady Catholic growth on the continent - even producing a surplus of priests, some of whom end up here. Conflicts with Islam are a worry.

By Andrew Maykuth, Inquirer Staff Writer

Dressed in holiday finery, 500 Nigerian Catholics gathered on Palm Sunday last year at St. Michael's Cathedral, the central church in a traditionally Islamic corner of Africa's most populous nation. In much of the world, Catholics commemorate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem with a public parade. But in Kontagora, the faithful confined their procession inside the compound's 10-foot walls out of respect for - or fear of - the city's Muslim majority.
Rev. Robert A. Sinatra - 03/22/2007: Haddonfield

In eighth grade, Rob Sinatra was voted "Most Likely to Forgive." Maybe the other children knew something. Today he is a priest, a new priest - and thus a rarity in an era in which fewer and fewer men choose that path.
Profile in Faith: Andrea Grasso - 03/22/2007: Haddon Township

Andrea Grasso is the sort of Catholic who reflexively stops and says a prayer when she hears an ambulance siren.
Profile in Faith: Benjamin Kohler - 03/22/2007: Philadelphia

On the day before Easter, Benjamin Kohler did something he never thought he'd do. He shed his old religion and embraced a new one: Catholicism.
Profile in Faith Profile in Faith: Leonard Swidler - 03/22/2007: Philadelphia

Leonard Swidler, 77, is a professor of Catholic thought and inter-religious dialogue at Temple University. He once trained for the priesthood and served on the faculty of the University of Tübingen, Germany, with Joseph Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI.
Profile in Faith: Eleanor Walker - 03/22/2007: Philadelphia

In the American Catholic Church, Eleanor Walker, 65, is unusual: an African American, born and raised a Catholic.
Profile in Faith Profile in Faith: Jimmy Calvarese - 03/22/2007: Philadelphia

Even when he was a little boy, the Roman Catholic notion of sin made Jimmy Calvarese "deathly afraid of church." Now at age 20, as the Drexel University sophomore and Powelton Village resident explores the subtleties of Eastern mysticism, he belongs to no religion.
Profile in Faith: Carol Marshall - 03/22/2007: Washington Crossing

Carol Marshall left the Catholic Church many years ago. Now 63, she is an evangelical Protestant, a transformation that came from her search for a more personal faith.