UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Oct. 27, 2012

Editorial

On Oct. 6, 262 bishops gathered in Rome for the 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to discuss “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.” One of the gathering’s primary concerns, particularly for those leaders of churches in the prosperous North, is how to reach out to disaffected Catholics.

That same day, half a world away in Bethesda, Md., researchers for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life were telling a gathering of religion writers that two new markers had been reached in the religion landscape in the United States: For the first time since the organization had begun surveying about such matters, the country was no longer majority Protestant, and one in five American adults now claimed no religious affiliation.

Though Catholicism showed no significant drop in…