Welcome back to Shemis Popery. I'm Joe Heschmire, and I want to explore the question of whether an

American Catholic revival is underway, whether the American Catholic Church is dying. Because if you do

something like Google, Catholic Church droves, at least in my experience, the top two results are a video

explaining why Catholics are leaving the church in droves

and why young men are joining the Catholic Church in droves. And you might be saying, well,

which of those is right? And the answer in part is both of them. So it's not just, you know,

the first two videos you pull up when you Google this. You'll find all sorts of seemingly

contradictory sources about this. So recently the New York Post had two videos you pull up when you Google this, you'll find all sorts of seemingly contradictory

sources about this. So recently the New York Post had a piece on young people converting

on mosques to Catholicism and told some of the personal stories. But then you also have articles

like Eric Salmon's article about how for every 100 new Catholics, 800 people are leaving the Catholic Church in America,

and that the numbers were actually even worse somehow than that sounds, fittingly, for Crisis Magazine.

And even my friend and colleague Trent Horn did a video recently on why he says Protestantism is winning,

and the lesson this provides for Catholics.

Now, I want to

agree with everybody in part and disagree with everybody in part on this because it's not just the

kind of headlines that can cause this confusion. It's also when you get into the data. So,

Trent and Eric and people who are focusing on some of the alarming signs are largely

looking at a Pew Research Study that came out in February of this year. And although it's called

decline of Christianity in the U.S. has slowed, may have leveled off. Nevertheless, the article

has some pretty ugly news for the state of the Catholic Church in America,

namely that bit about how for every 100 people who join, some 840 people have left Catholicism for something else.

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