[RobbyS]

Too true. Watch how silent the bishops will be as the anniversary of Roe v. Wade comes up. Watch how the wealth of the Church is consumed by lawyers.

[Clemenza]

The bricks-and-mortar Catholicism of the last hundred years--the intense desire of all those hard-working immigrants to build a visible monument of parishes, schools, hospitals, and orphanages--may well have disappeared by the time the total damage is calculated.

Those "brick and mortar" institutions have been dying, if not dead, since the era of upward mobility/white flight of the immediate post-war era. In NYC, you can see two Catholic Churches but two blocks from one another, which are nearly empty at 11AM on Sunday. Why should such structure be kept open if there are no parishioners or even potential parioshioners?

Which brings us to another aspect of "Catholic" upward mobility not mentioned by the author: declining religiosity of newly affluent Catholics. For people such as my father and mother, the Church represented the world of row houses, corner taverns, authoritarian nuns, and blue collar frustration. Affluence "liberated" them from that world. The Church for folks like my parents (and there are MANY like them) represents a "throwback" to a down-marker world that they have no desire to return to.

As far as the Church become a national joke, let's be real. The Church has a SERIOUS image problem. When one mentions the Catholic Church to the average man in the street, do they think Bells of St. Mary or do they think of Pervert Priests?