And speaking of population implosions (see my earlier Note):

Ryan Burge, who specializes in useful (but often dismaying) statistics about the American religious scene, has carefully analyzed the official numbers supplied by the archdiocese, and calculated that at the present rate, dropping 4% a year, average Sunday Mass attendance, which was over 230,000 people in 2011, will fall below 100,000 by 2035.

Maybe you’re thinking: Oh, but Detroit’s population has been falling. True; the city’s population is shrinking. But the metropolitan area, which comprises the territory of the archdiocese, has seen modest growth in this young century.

Meanwhile, since 2000, church marriages by 71%, infant baptisms are down by 67%. That means it won’t be sufficient to bring young Catholics back to church; in another decade or so there won’t be enough of them to fill the pews. And the archdiocese can expect the number of priests available for ministry to drop by 40% in the next ten years.

The Archdiocese of Detroit has a rich history. So, in its time, did the Archdiocese of Carthage.