Or decline is the wages of sin.  The older generation chose to act like Episcopalians rather than transmit the faith, meanwhile the Episcopalians were flirting with UCC-ism, the UCC with UU, and the UU with atheism.  If the Catholic faith is what we were taught implicitly in the '80s there is no reason to bother.  

Maybe that is the Spirit at work.  The consequences of sin are God's law and natural, not some gratuitous punishment.