By the Numbers: Did Aparecida Work?

And for his part, Pierre told America that a better understanding of Aparecida, its document, and its effect in the Church across South and Central American could help the U.S. bishops to address declining rates of faith in their country. But if the Aparecida approach is the model — it seems worth asking whether it’s worked. In the wake of the Aparecida conference, has a phase change in evangelization resulted in a Church more alive, more evangelical, and more fruitful in South and Central America than in the United States? Of course, it’s impossible to capture faith and evangelization entirely with the blunt tool of statistical data.  But since Pierre argued that the U.S. suffers from empty churches and that — in other parts of the Americas — the Aparecida style has borne fruit, The Pillar took a look at the numbers.