At 6 p.m. in Rome, the longing sight appears above the church of Sistine: White Smoke.

In a day and a half, more than 130 members of the Cardinal Academy have decided who should lead the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. On May 8, 2025, they elected Cardinal Robert Prevost, who chose the name Leo Xiv - becoming the first pope in the United States.

Our conversation We asked USC researcher Maureen Day to write several books on the contemporary church to explain how Catholicism looks in the United States at this high-stakes moment.

How did Catholic identity and practice in the United States change compared to a generation?

In 1987, the first year of American Catholic poetry survey, nearly half of American Catholics say that faith is the "most important" or "most important" in their lives. Now, only 37% say the same thing.

Others left the Catholic Church altogether. A national survey conducted annually or two years since the 1970s, a national survey asked people about their beliefs growing up and their current religious identities. According to our analysis of the data, in 1973, only 10% of Catholics changed religion, and another 7% left religion altogether. By 2018, each of these percentages had increased to 18%.

A 2024 study by Pew Research Center found that for every American who converted to Catholicism, there are 8.4 more. The only reason Catholics can maintain a relatively stable share of the U.S. population (about 20%) is due to the high percentage of immigrants and immigrants among Catholics.

So my co-author and I have very intentionally chosen our 2025 book, Catholicism. For decades, the church has faced challenges across the country and around the world. This is not only related to disagreement, but also to issues such as the crisis of sexual abuse and the reduced impact of bishops on the personal decisions of lay Catholics.

In response, church leaders primarily offer smaller adjustments, such as encouraging parishes to become more family- or younger-friendly. They have not made a bigger shift yet, which could significantly change some of these trend lines.

Some of your work focuses on what you call "cultural Catholic" - defined as Catholic who is less than once a month. How do you describe the cultural Catholicism in America today?

Now, a big problem for Catholic leaders is reducing mass attendance, because weekly mass is an important precept for the Catholic Church. Sunday Mass is a place where Catholics attend the sacrament, strengthen their faith and establish relationships with other Catholics.

One thing Catholic leaders tend to attribute attendance is the broader trend in secularism. There may be some advantages to this, but it's not the whole story. For example, in our analysis of general social survey data, the proportion of Protestant Christians who say they attend weekly services was 35% in 1950 and 40% in 2023. However, during the same year, the weekly mass attendance rate dropped from 63% to 30%.

"Cultural Catholics" say they attend Mass "several times a year" or "seldom or never," accounting for 53% of American Catholics. Many of them otherwise demonstrate close ties to Catholic teachings. For example, about 70 to 80% of cultural Catholics say helping the poor, dedication to Mary and performing daily prayers is “essential” or “somewhat essential”.

There are explanations where you find yourself lent to “half-air glass” or “half-full glass”. For example, Catholic leaders may know that 62% of cultural Catholics say it is important that their descendants are Catholics—although this is much lower than 89% of those who regularly attend Mass.

What does that mean when these cultural Catholics think that their family descendants are Catholics? Perhaps this only requires some milestones, such as baptism, first exchange, and possible confirmation – these three sacraments bring one into the Catholic faith. For many Catholic leaders, many cultural Catholics are loosely bound to the way the church is, and this is a very caring person.

What are your main challenges for the next Pope’s American Church?

I think the biggest challenge for the American church is how to heal factionalism within itself.

On the one hand, there is much in common among the most active Catholics, even though there is still diversity here. According to our analysis, 20% of Catholics are “high commitments”: those who say they attend the weekly mass are unlikely to leave their faith, and the church is very important to them. If these Catholics do not align with Catholic teachings, they are more likely to deviate from the party’s position on the issue. For example, senior commissioned Catholic Republicans are more likely to support the bishop’s position on making the immigration process easier for families. Meanwhile, senior commissioned Catholic Democrats are more likely to oppose abortion than their moderate or low social centers.

In other words, these high society Catholics tend to have less polarization and can find common reasons with each other.

But there are more extreme pockets, such as those who question the legitimacy of Pope Francis, which is more radical in their vision of Catholicism. Although these Catholics are small in number, they are very vocal. After Francis's Pope, some marginal groups mobilized to try to change the direction of the Catholic Church, which they saw as a series of liberal reforms.

In more mainstream Catholicism, worship styles are divided, with the media flocking to more conservative or traditional parishes for some young Americans. But sociologist Tim Clydesdale and religious scholar Kathleen Garces-Foley found that young adult Catholics were divided: While some were attracted to churches, whose pastors appeared to be "orthodox", similar numbers prefer "openness."

Do you want more people to know more about Catholicism in the United States?

I think the “missing works” of many people are the incredible diversity of our Catholicism, from race and race to politics and practice. Many Americans tend to associate religion with one or two issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and assume that Catholics are quite single in demographic and political terms.

Catholics themselves can also forget - or never learn - they are a small part of Catholicism not all about Catholicism.

It will be crucial as the church moves forward, recognizing and improving unity with individual and collective unity.

This article was updated on May 8, 2025 and includes the election for Leo XIV.