Are Catholics losing their faith?

The other day while sitting in my Liberation class, my teacher asked "How many of you are Catholic?" About half of the class raised their hands. He then went on to ask "How many of you go to church?" No raised their hand. Not a single person. When asked why no one goes to church, many of the students simply said because their parents didn't go either. They took them to be baptized, get first communion, confirmation and maybe the occasional Christmas or Easter Mass but did not go otherwise. USA Today reported that there are vastly fewer people going to church and there is no sign of return. Many people blame the sex scandals of the church on this factor but studies show that there is no definite link between these. Rather the changes come from other places.:
• Catholics are moving from cities in the Northeast and Midwest to the suburbs, South and Southwest.
• For decades, so few men have become priests that one in five dioceses now can't put a priest in every parish.
• Mass attendance has fallen as each generation has become less religiously observant.
• Bishops — trained to bless, not to budget — lack the managerial skills to govern multimillion-dollar institutions.
From 1990 to 2003, the number of active diocesan and religious-order priests fell 22%, and the number of parishes in 176 dioceses and archdioceses dropped to 18,441. That's a loss of 547 parishes, a 3% drop nationwide.
Much of this drop comes also from the shifting demographic. Many people are moving from the prominantly Catholic Midwest and Eastern Cities to the South. Catholics and the parishes and priests that serve them follow the same pattern: From 1990 to 2003, the number of Catholics in Dallas more than quadrupled. It's up another 153% in neighboring Fort Worth, and up 137% in Raleigh, N.C.
From 1990 to 2003, Pittsburgh closed 30% of its parishes; Grand Island, Neb., 29%; and Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., 27%.
In the same period, Springfield, Mass., lost 44% of active priests, Dubuque 41% and Rochester, N.Y., 40%. The national total fell by 9,264 priests, to 33,028.
As people become busier and more educated, their catholic faith is becoming just a title. They are starting to "view the Church as a mere sacramental filling station where they may go for weddings, funerals, baptisms, Eucharist and not much else" writes John Allen, Vatican columnist for the weekly National Catholic Reporter, a weekly newspaper. So what does this mean for the country and the way that people are going to live their lives? I guess we'll just have to wait and see. http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2004-11-07-church-main_x.htm