In my part of the world, they are as strong as ever. There are seasonal and other trends that affect the church parking lots.

All the logical people in the world can only hope so

Perhaps they found sanity! The only ones that show up at church any more seem to be alt right trump supporting fascists that wave the flag and yell freedom thinking it’s only for them while not realizing all of America is being screwed them included... yes, my opinion of religion has come to this and while I know its not all of them it’s way to many. A 3/4 empty parking lot could be a sign of a progressive community?

This has been an ongoing problem in many parts of the world for a long time. The present pedo-priest scandal in PA with the promise of more to come, is not really new; these kinds of scandals have sucked billions out of the church in direct costs and dog knows how much in indirect costs, for literally decades. There's the remarkable way in which the public has turned on the Church in places like Ireland, too.

Huge cathedrals with a dozen elderly people attending services have been commonplace in the UK and Europe for even longer, I'll wager.

It does seem to be reaching some kind of critical mass / tipping point though, with the Pennsylvania thing. If it were anything but the RCC hiding behind the skirts of "religious freedom", I think that PA and other states (and, eventually the US) would eject this nest of pedophiles and pedophile enablers from even being allowed to operate. That, at this point, would be the rational response.

But I'm not holding my breath.

I would hope that all the bad news the church is receiving would cause the catholics to take a hard view of the churches teachings.However i do not believe they will. Some will begin to attend other churches like the Episcopal and Lutheran and many will just stop going to church but not identify with any religion or position. The latter are the people we should reach out to.