Article by John Dilulio in America, the Catholic magazine: Catholic Leaders face challenges their predecessors could not fathom

John, J. Dilulio, in the May 11, 2009 issue of America presents a wake-up call to leaders in the Roman Catholic Church. According to the Pew Forum survey in 2008, "a third of Americans who were raised Catholic had left the church. One in 10 Americans are ex-Catholic. Ex-Catholics outnumbered converts to Catholicism four to one."
The article goes on to report a significant decline in church attendance according to another survey that between 1990 and 2008 the church’s flock fell from 26.2 percent to 25.1 percent of the total U.S. population, even though roughly half of all immigrants to the United States were Catholic. (National American Religious Identification Survey)
Read article in America/May edition or visit www.corpus.org and click on e-corpus to read article online.
I believe that many Catholics are alienated from the institutional church for a variety of reasons, but close to the top is its discrimination towards women. The full equality of women in the church is the call of Christ in our time. Roman Catholic Womenpriests are practicing prophetic obedience to the Gospel by offering the church the gift of a renewed priestly ministry in a renewed community of equals.
In order to change an unjust law, we must break the law, and out of the ashes the new will rise, like the phoenix. It has happened before and it is happening now.
Alleluia!