By John Norton

What have you done to deepen your faith today?

Sometimes we get lucky. we went to press this week with our special In Focus section (see Pages 9-12) on how to win back the generation of U.S. Catholics, aged 30-50, whose childhood catechesis failed to impart to them the basic content of the Catholic faith, a poll was released that confirmed our thesis.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life issued the second part of its massive survey, based on more than 35,000 interviews, including some 8,000 Catholics, on the religious landscape of the United States.

Predictably, it provides a mixed bag.

On a positive note, the survey says an overwhelming 92 percent of Americans believe in God, and nearly 60 percent say they pray every day. Seventy-four percent of Americans believe in life after death, 63 percent believe that Scripture is the Word of God, 63 percent of respondents say they pray and read Scripture with their at-home children and 60 percent send their children to religious education programs.

But other data in the report fills out a picture started in the first part of the Pew survey, released earlier this year. Not only do Americans do a lot of church-hopping, Pew reports that they also take an approach to faith that is both nondogmatic and relativistic.

The questions in the survey gloss over some important nuances, but I'd guess the answers paint a pretty accurate picture.

And for the Catholic Church in the United States, that's frightening. Here's a sampling:

Eighty percent of U.S. Catholics think that many religions can lead to eternal life. And 77 percent think that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of Catholicism (but the meaning of that statement is a little ambiguous).

Only 60 percent of Catholics believe in hell (but 82 percent believe in heaven). Only 32 percent were able to describe the Catholic nonliteralist view of Scripture as the Word of God. Thirty percent think God is an impersonal force.

In short, a catechetical disaster. But there is a silver lining, as noted by Father J. Brian Bransfield, who works for the U.S. bishops' office for evangelization and catechesis. In a statement released on the bishops' website, he said Americans were thirsting for truth, as proven by the huge response to Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit to Washington, D.C. and New York.

Sometimes that thirst is directed to secularism, Father Bransfield acknowledged. But there is an answer: "The steady and ongoing response of the Church is an ever renewed commitment to robust catechetical efforts."

Robust catechetical efforts. And that applies to us, too. Not only do we need to share our faith more, to our fellow Catholics as well, we need to make a daily choice to deepen it for ourselves.