Peter Steinfels in a thought-provoking piece for Commonweal speaks about the hemorrhaging Catholic Church, the responsibility of the bishops and the reality of social understanding in the pews. He starts out with this:

“In February 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, based on interviews with a representative sample of thirty-five thousand adult Americans, reported that one out of every three adult Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church. If these ex-Catholics were to form a single church, they would constitute the second largest church in the nation.” (emphasis mine)

Definitely worth a read- and don’t skip the comments! (Thanks Cheryl!)