(RNS) — When it comes to going to church, a generational pattern is playing out in many households around the world: Grandparents never miss Sunday service; parents attend only on holidays; children, ...

Only a few decades ago, a Christian identity was so common among Americans that it could almost be taken for granted. As recently as the early 1990s, about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians.

The Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the universal call to holiness, in Chapter 5 of Lumen Gentium, was a landmark in the Church’s awareness of the vocation possessed by all the baptized. However, ...