Bishop Mark O'Toole of Plymouth has called on every Catholic in his diocese to be a "disciple-making disciple".
In a pastoral message the bishop noted that less than one per cent of the population in the region were church-going Catholics. This, he said, was "something akin to the percentages in countries like Pakistan or Myanmar (Burma). So we are very much in mission territory."
Bishop O'Toole pointed out that the number of Mass-goers in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset had nearly halved over the last 30 years, from 27,000 to 14,000. He said that, while people speak of a "crisis of priests", he sees a "crisis of disciples".
