Why does St. Mary Church have the Traditional Latin Mass?
When Pope Benedict XVI came to the United States in April 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released some telling statistics about the state of Catholicism in the United States which in many ways reflects the demographic changes within Norwalk. “No other major faith in the U.S. has experienced greater net losses over the last few decades as a result of changes in religious affiliation than the Catholic Church,” the Pew report notes. Citing the extensive survey the Pew Forum explains that “roughly one-third of those who were raised Catholic have left the church, and approximately one-in-ten American adults are former Catholics.” Nonetheless despite the wholesale exodus of “cradle Catholics,” the Catholic proportion of America’s overall population has remains constant, according to the report, thanks to the large number of Catholic immigrants, primarily from Mexico. Hispanics now account for 29% of the Catholics in the US, and nearly half of those under the age of 40. This is
