2017 USCCB Convocation Participants Guidebook and Journal | Page 22

The Call to Missionary Discipleship
acquisition of information is often instantaneous, though
not always accurate, and that events that occur across the
world are known by everyone right away.
• The societal, cultural, and political climate within the
United States (and in many cases, around the world), has
shifted dramatically, even in the last year.
• Due to globalization, we have a deeper understanding of
how we all affect one another.
• Family life has been affected intensely by socio-cultural
dynamics, technology, availability of work, high mobility,
and so forth. Family structure and stability has experi-
enced major shifts, and various challenges have arisen
from or been associated with the sexual revolution,
the erosion of marriage both culturally and legally, and
socio-economic difficulties.
• Geographically, the traditionally strong presence of
Catholics in the Northeast has been shifting to the South
and West.
• Languages spoken in Catholic Churches in the United
States have shifted over the last fifty years, with more
Spanish, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Korean, for example.
Here are a few statistics to set the scene for the discussion at
the Convocation:
Catholic Population in the United States
• The overall Catholic population has risen over the past
fifty years, from 48.5 million in 1965 to 74.2 million in
2016 . . . but so has the number of former Catholic adults
in the past forty years, from 7.5 million in 1975 up to 30.1
million in 2016.
• Almost half of Catholics who are now unaffiliated (48
percent) left Catholicism before reaching eighteen years
old . . . an additional three in ten left the Catholic Church
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