In this widely acclaimed book that will long remain an indispensable work on American religion and the Catholic Church, one of its most influential laymen in the United States says that the Roman Catholic Church in America must either reform profoundly or lapse into irreversible decline. In addition to providing a spiritual identity for over 60 million Americans, the church is the nation's largest nongovernmental provider of education and social services, as well as the largest not-for-profit provider of health care. But even before the recent revelations about sex abuse by priests, American Catholicism was already heading for a major crisis, with its traditional leadership depleted by the decline in religious vocations and paralyzed by "theological gridlock." Catholicism in the United States confronts hard choices among contrasting visions for the future, choices with huge implications for American life. Analyzing these choices in ways that escape all the familiar labels of conservative or liberal, Steinfels points to the directions the church must take to survive. Kevin Starr Los Angeles Times Book Review Peter Steinfels is among the most distinguished and respected Catholic commentators in the country.... A People Adrift is balanced and judicious. Alan Wolfe The New Republic The moderation and the heartfelt sincerity on display throughout Steinfels' book constitute, at least for this non-Catholic, an exceptionally persuasive defense of Catholicism as the church goes through its difficult days. David O'Brien National Catholic Reporter Peter Steinfels is uniquely qualified by his experience, his access to sources and his journalist's professionalism to survey the state of contemporary American Catholicism. Garry Wills The New York Times Steinfels' balance makes all the more unsettling the harsh conclusions he draws, in his quiet voice, from looking at every aspect of Catholic life....[A] disturbing book. Peter Steinfels , former co-director of the Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture, is a university professor at Fordham. He was religion columnist for The New York Times and editor of Commonweal . Steinfels is the author of A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (Simon & Schuster, 2003). He lives in New York City. Introduction Today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgoing transformation. A few years ago, that proposition might have seemed melodramatic, typical journalistic sensationalism. Then, in the first half of 2002, the church was hit with a gale of revelations about sexual molestation of minors by priests, and as the winds of scandal continued to howl and howl, it seemed that no statement about the Catholic Church was too melodramatic or exaggerated to get a serious hearing. My own analysis of the sex scandal, somewhat different from the standard versions, will come later. But the important point is that the church faced these rather stark alternatives of decline or transformation before the revelations and would do so today even if this shocking sexual misconduct had never occurred. The reasons the church faces major choices about its future, while not unrelated to aspects of the scandal, go even deeper, to two intersecting transitions in American Catholic life. How the church responds (or fails to respond) to those transitions will determine its course for much of this century. That future is obviously of great interest to devout Catholics. It should be of interest, in fact, to other thoughtful Americans, and to non-Americans who recognize the place that the American church occupies in both the world's most powerful nation and the world's largest single religious body. The fate of American Catholicism will have a significant impact on the nation's fabric, its political atmosphere, its intellectual life, and its social resilience. It will have a significant impact on worldwide Catholicism; in short, on the world. The American Catholic Church is a unique institution. In ways obvious or mysterious, profound or trivial, the Catholic Church provides a spiritual identity for between 60 and 65 million Americans, approximately one-fourth of the population. These millions are Catholic in amazingly diverse ways. For some, their faith is the governing force of their lives. For others, it is a childhood memory with little impact (so they think) on their adult existence, something casually evoked by a poll taker's question, for want of any other religious label. There are Catholics for whom the church is the source of peace and joy, and Catholics for whom it is the cause of fierce anger and outrage. Not infrequently, these are the same Catholics. In recent years, if the Gallup poll is believed, approximately 30 million Catholics go to Mass at least once a week, although this total appears to have at least temporarily dropped by several million because of the sex scandal.