PRINCETON, N.J.  The Roman Catholic Church in the United States appears to have gotten a drop in mass attendance under control, according to a recent Gallup Poll.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that attendance and membership among Catholics that appeared in the months after the clergy sex abuse scandal broke two years ago may be reversing itself.
The percentage of Catholics who said they had attended mass in the previous week dropped between August 2000 and March 2002 (two months after the clergy abuse scandal first broke in Boston) from 52 percent to 45 percent. Attendance fell even further to 35 percent in February 2003, according to Gallup.
Since then, attendance bounced back, showing 45 percent in November 2003, the most recent Gallup measurement.
The percentage of Catholics who claimed membership of a parish slipped from 80 percent in August 2002 to 68 percent in March 2002. It also rebounded, to 75 percent as of November 2003.
