The emptying and graying of the churches feel much like climate change—something big and ominous is happening to us.

As I was in the thick of writing this book, my father died— two months after celebrating his one hundredth birthday. I loved and appreciated him every day of my life. He was a devout Catholic, and at his death my brother and I had to confront an unexpected problem: We couldn’t find a local priest whose schedule allowed him to conduct the funeral. If you had told me when I was a young man that the churches would be closing their doors and the seminaries and convents emptying, I wouldn’t have believed it. The emptying and graying of the churches feel much like climate change—something big and ominous is happening to us.

~ Thomas Moore, A Religion of One's Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World (Penguin, 2015)