[Onelifetogive]

I answered all those arguments you mentioned. They are not persuasive to me at all and have no backing in the data. None of them explain the sudden change in 1989.

Your statement was that there were "no other possible conclusions." Whether you find those conclusions persuasive or not does not refure the fact that there are other possible explanations!

[Hermann the Cherusker]

A possible explanation must be plausible, else it is not truly an explanation. Given that immigration has been steady throughout and illegitmacy has held steady or gone down, these cannot be seen as reasonable explanations for a sudden 25% rise in baptisms per marriage in a two year period.

To characterize a return to Humane Vitae as a "sudden change" also seems like quite a stretch.

To me, the most satisfactory answer is that younger married couples today are more likely to follow the teaching of the Church. This agrees with empirical and anecdotal evidence concerning Gen-X vs. the Baby-Boomers.

Honestly, I was quite startled to find the trend I did when I analyzed the data. I had expected it would confirm a collapse in the Catholic birth-rate.