[jawns]

I went to a Catholic grade school in the 1980s and early '90s, with a graduating class of about 50.

Some 30 years later, we had a class reunion. And I found out that there was only one other "cradle Catholic" besides me who had never stopped actively practicing Catholicism. There were about six or seven who had stopped at one point and then returned, often when they had kids.

But that still means about 80% of our class are no longer actively Catholic.

To what do I attribute this decline?

I actually think it started two generations before mine. Back then, parents sent their kids to Catholic school to reinforce the faith they were exposed to at home. In the following generation, many parents sent their kids to Catholic school to teach the faith because they weren't exposed to it at home. But obviously, if that faith isn't being practiced at home, it's going to be unlikely to stick.

The horrible sex abuse scandals absolutely hastened this decline, but the ball was already rolling decades beforehand.