Over the last fifty years, the Hartford Archdiocese has imploded.  From 1965 to 2015, Connecticut’s population grew by 30%, and the number of parishes grew by 9%.  Over the same period, the number of Catholics declined by 27%, mass attendance declined by 69%, nuns by 78%, priests by 65%, seminarians by 88%, parochial students by 81%, marriages by 76%, and infant baptisms by 74%.

The decline in the number of Catholics is lagging all of the other statistics, but will inevitably fall in line with them.  Currently, there are 3 nuns for every priest, whereas fifty years ago there were 4.  The erosion of parochial education has been, and will continue to be, a challenging deficiency in the Archdiocese’s evangelization of future generations. 

There have been several comments regarding religious education, implying that evangelization of youths ought to be a parental duty.  Given the Church’s hierarchical and magisterial structure, how can that happen?