My sense is that there is a turn around happening that many libs are not seeing or ignoring.
There have to be "canaries in the mineshaft" that we can look at that might indicate if there is truly a shift going on. A couple of things that pop into my head are the $$ generated by Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" movie. How about the "Chronicles of Narnia" movie. How about sales of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church"?
We've had 2 generations of folks who have gone on "non-catechized" but the newer generation of religion teachers are more faithfull to the truth than in the past and this is resulting in parents questioning beliefs they have held and now think could be wrong.
When Catholic seminary applicants no longer have to pledge they will support women priests as a prerequisite to entrance, things are improving.
Were it not for immigration, the Catholic Church would be in decline.