Back to that NCR thread* about the recent USCCB-sponsored "Fortnight for Freedom" rally about which I wrote earlier today: the article reports that some 2,000 attended the "freedom" rally in D.C. last Sunday. Anytime the Catholic media issue glowing reports about the numbers flocking (not!) to the "freedom" rallies, right-wing Catholic who love playing the numbers game offer comments about these reports suggesting that many more Catholics are rallying to the bishops' side than to the nuns in the Nuns on the Bus tour.
But as a commentator called Also Anonymous writes in response to the NCR story,
Comparing the turnout in DC at an event promoted heavily in every single parish in the archdiocese (mandatory) with full-color inserts to bulletins for several weeks now every week (complete with America flags), brochures on display on racks in the parishes, etc - an event much hyped, the cover story of the Catholic Standard, led by the Cardinal with the Papal Nuncio in attendance - also hyped probably to try to increase attendance - only 2000, filling up fewer than half the available seats in the Smith Center, and most of the attendees were "mandatory" attendance people?
The turnout coming to see the Nuns on the Bus is amazing compared to that given that it is not announced in every single parish, nor hyped with mandatory bulletin inserts, no multi-colored trifold brochures on display in every parish, nor the cover story of diocesan newspapers, nor announced from every pulpit.
And as another marvelously sassy Anonymous states,
Since we're comparing the numbers....
200,000+ Girl Scouts assembled at the national Mall on June 9 in support of strong girls and women. (Remember, the bishops are looking for condoms in the cookie boxes...)
And they're both exactly right.
*It's a Catholic News service article uploaded to NCR.
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