Second, even if you happen not to be a Catholic, surely you have Catholic family members, spouses, close friends, or colleagues who are Catholics. Almost half of the U.S. population has a “strong” connection to the Catholic Church. We have often found the Catholics closest to us to be dismayed by the situation in their church — angry, stunned, confused, or even in denial. Fellow Christians should share their agony.

The other Christian churches should want a healthy, robust Catholic Church, not the gravely weakened one of the present. American Catholicism was losing members alarmingly even before the current phase of the Catholic crisis. It is said that the second largest American denomination, after the Catholic Church, is ex-Catholics.

Not all of that decline is due to the clerical scandals; the general repagination of American society has surely played its part. But it seems likely that many former Catholics have abandoned their church (or at least are boycotting it) because of the scandals. The abuse scandals may also be playing a role in this repagination — after all, abuse of young boys was a pagan practice that early Christianity condemned and sought to stamp out.