The traditional white demographic  base of the Catholic Church is in rapid decline as the population ages and fewer and fewer young adults remain in the Church. Without the influx of  Hispanics  who  represent 71 percent of the country's Catholic growth the figures would be dismal. During the 1960s, 10 percent of Catholics identified themselves as Hispanic. Today,  the  number has grown to almost 40 percent  as approximately 30.4 million people in the United States self-identify their religion as Catholic and their ethnicity as Hispanic.  The only thing that is keeping Church number stable is the influx of Hispanics half of whom are immigrants or the children of immigrants.