I refer to John Guillaumier’s letter ‘The decline of faith’. His tirade was an extension of Ramon Casha’s promotion and adulation of the Malta Humanist Association (‘Growing beyond religion’, April 15) after a heartfelt description of the decline of faith in Malta, only with more details of the European saga.

So what? Even I had a dig at the local Church’s warning: what with the empty pews and white-haired congregants in churches that were built for the thousands. But this is happening only in Europe and locally. Elsewhere, the world is witnessing a multitude of religious conversions.

So, after all, Guillaumier’s exercise is futile because we both agree that ‘the triumph of faith’ (the name of the book) is no longer true in contemporary Europe. But I don’t like unfinished symphonies and would listen to the finale.

Truly enough, this book emphasises that the world is more religious than ever while atheism has remained static. Catholicism is growing much faster than any other religion, particularly in Latin America.

In China, despite the disapproval of the communist regime, Catholic conversions are on the increase, the number of Catholics estimated at about 100 million while membership of the Communist Party stands at 85 million. It is predicted that in a few decades, China will be the largest Christian country in the world.

Brazil boasted 80 million Catholics in 1950; now there are 123 million.

African Catholics totalled 45 million in 1970; in 2012 they stood at 176 million.

Asia boasts 12 per cent of the total Catholic population in the world.

Need I furnish more statistics?

Despite the atheists’ apparently enjoyable lash-out at religion, little do they realise that, although the era of Western Christianity may have declined, the day of Eastern Christianity is actually dawning.

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