Lost Sheep

A religious seeker who found her home in the Catholic Church, Flannery OConnor once noted that stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements, and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.

For American Catholics these days, the stories told by the statistics often can be troubling. A recent and much-publicized study by the respected This article appears in March 17 2008.