For over fifty years, the General Social Survey has asked a large, representative sample of Americans a battery of questions, including questions about religion. These data reveal a major problem—indeed, arguably the single biggest problem—for the Catholic Church in the United States. In 1973, 84 percent of all those raised Catholic still identified as Catholic when surveyed as adults. In 2002, that figure was 74 percent. By 2022, it had dropped to 62 percent. More and more of those raised Catholic are leaving. And Mass attendance has cratered.
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