Trained Catholic exorcists in the US

From 2005 to 2023, the number of trained Catholic exorcists in the US and the number of industrial robots installed worldwide both grew substantially, maintaining an r of 0.9673. This pairing raises the question of whether the Church has identified something in the machines that secular observers have not, and has been quietly staffing up in response. The International Federation of Robotics reports over 500,000 annual robot installations by 2023; the US Conference of Catholic Bishops reports over 100 trained exorcists. Whether these numbers are adequate to each other remains an open theological question.

Both metrics reflect growth from a small base over the same 18-year period through entirely independent institutional mechanisms. Industrial robot installations grew from roughly 120,000 worldwide in 2005 to over 500,000 annually by 2023, driven by automotive automation, electronics manufacturing in Asia, and declining robot unit costs enabling SME adoption. Catholic exorcist training expanded in the US following Vatican encouragement in the 2014 Catechism revisions and the establishment of formal training programs by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, growing from an estimated 12 trained practitioners to over 100. Both are upward-trending series with similar growth shapes, which is all the correlation requires.

When two institutions both grow from a small base over the same long time window, their correlation will be strong regardless of their domains. The shape of exponential-adjacent growth from a small base is the same whether you are describing robotics adoption or religious ministry expansion, and the r-value cannot tell the difference.