Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be - you overstate the sources and actual claims for decline in U.S. Catholicism. A recent e-mail from a source at the North American Forum for the Catechumenate suggested an average of 800,000 people a year are entering RC through the RCIA programs nationwide.

You also uncritically demonize the role of secularity which has both positive and negative impacts. The positives include democracy, personal freedom, religious tolerance and human rights.

The negatives are a tendency to de-value the role of religious traditions which in some respects gave birth to secularism (dignity of the person must have roots some where and the "...where...is the ʝʊdɛօ-Christian tradition). And there can be a danger in de-valuing sɛҳuąƖity and it's power. But within church circles that devaluation may have come as a pendular swing from the other extreme when prior to Vatican II there was a sheer obsession with sɛҳuąƖity. Coming back to the center would be the wise tack to take.

The thoughtful stance of Benedict who both confirms the values of secularity but argues that the ʝʊdɛօ-Christian tradition provides the moral values to stop the moral erosion of secularity are to be taken as wise steps in coordinating a healthy rather than antagonistic view towards secularity.