The New York Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan recently raised concerns over the huge numbers of people leaving the Catholic Church in the United States. Dolan quoted studies that found one-third of Americans born and baptized Catholics have left the fold in recent years. The study also showed that only 50 percent of young Catholics marry in church, while Sunday mass attendance had gone down to 35 percent from 78 percent in the 1960s.
The Catholic Church has been embroiled in controversy after controversy over the last few years, with the child abuse scandals and subsequent cover-up attempts rocking the church to its very core.
Dolan admitted that to turn around this mass exodus, the Catholic Church would need to get its house in order but at the same time he stressed that Roman Catholic Church officials would not be gagged on controversial social issues such as abortion, gay marriages and immigration.
Dolan made the comments in his new capacity as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Interestingly enough, Dolan made history in winning because the position normally goes to the incumbent conference vice president. However, the incumbent, Gerald Kicanas, was himself weighed down by criticisms of how he handled the case of a priest accused of molesting more than a dozen boys.