EACH year in the United States 150,000 converts enter the Catholic Church. Considered by itself, this is a rather impressive figure. But when we consider that ours is a nation of some 170 million people (well over 100 million of them still outside the Church) and when we remember that there are some 40 million potential Catholic apostles, these convert statistics leave us little cause for complacency. The trial balance is even less encouraging when we recall that a considerable number of Catholics lapse from the Church every year. ‘But as far as conversions are concerned', says Fr Sheerin in The Catholic World, ‘Catholicism and Protestantism in America are like two great forces that have reached a stalemate in competing for the minds of Americans. Neither side is making any great gains.'

But the prospect of a nation's conversion must go beyond mere statistics. The mysterious workings of God's grace must be taken into account.