Did you answer the national census this year?

Do I care if you did? No. But it does give me the opportunity to segue ever so smoothly into remembering that, a few years ago, the Vatican released a census statistic of its own. You remember. The one that says there are now some one billion Catholics in the world. For those of you who are already good with numbers, that’s 1,000,000,000. Or — as Jethro might cipher it — one, comma, naught-naught-naught, comma, naught-naught-naught, comma, naught-naught-naught.

Now, when the federal government puts out that kind of multi-digit pronouncement it tends to come with all sorts of disclaimers, and tables full of variations on the pronouncement, resulting from various types of “adjustment.” Sometimes it’s “seasonal adjustment,” sometimes it’s “adjustment for constant dollars,” that sort of thing. These adjustments are designed to take into account the ebbs and flows of inflation, fiscal economic patterns, consumption trends, phases of the moon, the general effects of watching too much television, and the negative impact on intellectual development of dehydration-due-to-too-much-time-spent-wearing-sweaty-synthetic-fibers-during-the-1970s. The objective of adjustment is to bring the original startling number into more reasonable perspective: deterring either unreasonable fear or irrational exuberance of the sort that has everybody emptying their kids’ piggy banks into mutual funds.

One billion Catholics. What’s not to like — right? Can’t be wrong. Right? Who’d lie about a thing like that? Right? Even people who never give the Church a break couldn’t help but report it.

Personally, I think it’s great news. But before budding apologists among you start flogging the air with this cat-o’-nine-zeros, you may want to approach it with a little of that adjustment mentality. For instance: What might this number yield if adjusted for, say, “sacramental participation among Catholics not living under a repressive regime”? I’m not even talking about all the sacraments. Let’s just adjust for Eucharistic participation, defined in our methodology as showing up for Mass on Sunday and receiving Communion. You can even leave after Communion and still qualify.

Since that one billion figure presents the image of a united front, prepared to defend the Faith en masse, the temptation is toward bravado. Well, while the bingo chip manufacturers may be popping the champagne corks, the rest of us may do well to be somewhat circumspect. ’Cause we’re about as “en masse” in defense of the Faith as we are “at Mass” on any given Sunday.

Let’s see. Around the time this statistic first hit the news, a national women’s magazine quoted an actress — in a story unrelated to the stat — as saying she’s a practicing Catholic. A one-in-a-billion woman, you might call her. In addition to telling her interviewer that she’s Catholic, she also revealed that she doesn’t go to Mass regularly.

That’s okay, I guess, since she’s just practicing. When she gets better at it, maybe she’ll show up more often. In the same interview, she also proudly discussed having posed in recent memory (and in little else) for a national men’s magazine: a mention far more revealing than that of her Catholicism. This one’s enough to bring the government’s adjustment computers to a complete standstill. I doubt that Jethro could even cipher it. Actually, he probably wouldn’t care much. I’m pretty sure the Clampetts aren’t Catholic.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Jethro’s last name is Bodine.

Anyway, this actress doesn’t go to church, therefore doesn’t receive Com-munion, and yet identifies herself as a practicing Catholic. She has engaged in decidedly un-Catholic behavior in the pages of a decidedly un-Catholic publication, yet feels no guilt — also decidedly un-Catholic. If one could estimate the number of such relativist actresses worldwide, and somehow adjust for it, we would see our one billion figure begin to decline.

We all know she isn’t alone. There are many women and men among the rank and file — genuine registered parishioners — who behave in much the same fashion. Okay, most are probably safe from the possibility of being asked to pose nude (I know I am), but that’s not the point. The point is the potential of statistics to mislead.

Nothing makes an imperfect person feel better than the fact of someone else’s imperfections. Works for me every time.

Catholic apologists often cite the existence of some twenty thousand different Protestant denominations as proof that Protestantism is wandering the desert in search of the Truth it abandoned. It’s a great public relations tool, as is a Catholic census totaling one billion. But the trouble with a great public relations tool comes in trying to figure out how to use it.

Since that one billion figure presents the image of a united front, prepared to defend the Faith en masse, the temptation is toward bravado. Well, while the bingo chip manufacturers may be popping the champagne corks, the rest of us may do well to be somewhat circumspect. ’Cause we’re about as “en masse” in defense of the Faith as we are “at Mass” on any given Sunday — which is to say, not very — we need to be careful about throwing such a number around.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting that those of us who go to Church regularly are any great shakes. We’ve all got a few loose panes in our glass houses. If there are one billion people calling themselves Catholic, there are three billion cockerels in the wings, waiting to crow at any given moment.

But those of us who do show up for Mass more often — and who genuinely care about the Faith — are in a good position to share the benefits of true faith and sacramental participation. When confronted with people who have become lukewarm, or who have fallen into the relativist mindset, people of more fervent faith ought to share it. If we’ve been down a hard road to get it, we need to share a few of the falls we’ve taken — or rather, chosen to take — along the way. At the very least, we’ll cheer somebody up.
Nothing makes an imperfect person feel better than the fact of someone else’s imperfections. Works for me every time.

Hey, face it. We’re human.

I have, on occasion, even shared the essentials of my own greatest personal slap in the Faith to date — with people who I thought needed to hear them — and believe I’ve had a positive effect.

If we’re honest about the weaknesses in that one-billion-brick wall, and avoid using it for cheap statistical impact, we stand a chance of making it into what it seems. While it doesn’t currently represent a united front, it does represent incredible potential, and hope for a united front. In fact, it represents Hope itself.

Next time you pray the Rosary, say that second Hail Mary with feeling. There are one billion souls riding on it.