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More than thirty million Americans, over 10% of the U.S. population and the entire population of Canada, consider themselves former Catholics. Young adults are disengaged and abandoning the Church at an alarming rate.  Over 70% of American Catholics do not attend church on Sunday, and only 17% attend every Sunday.

In the U.S., the number of Catholic weddings has tragically decreased,  in the past twenty years we have closed more than three thousand parishes and a Catholic school every four days, and many parishes and dioceses are in serious financial trouble.

A smaller Church conflicts with our mission.  Our planning at the national and diocesan levels focus the challenge of a shrinking Church, similar to contemporary Catholicism in Europe.  England is the bright light of Catholicism in Western Europe — Catholicism is the dominant religion again since King Henry VIII and the Reformation.

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