The article linked below by Chris Manion goes far in explaining why so many have left the Church. When the guard at the gate blows a faint trumpet, who will respond? The City of God is under siege and those with the responsibility to protect the people have abandoned their posts.
What's Going on in the Catholic Church? or Why is Cardinal Dolan ranting again?
Manion points out that the Catholic Church gets over a billion dollars a year from the feds and then tells us something his dad use to tell his law students, “if you take the first bribe, you may as well take the rest.”
Consider what's going on in the collapsing German Church which gets megabucks from the government and ask if the same thing, in a different way, is happening here in the U.S. A billion dollars (plus the tax exemption) can buy a lot of silence, don't you think?