I read with interest the results of the Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. It was one of the largest polls ever done on religious demographics, involving as many as 35,000 interviews.

And like so many other young adult Catholics, I was sorry to learn that our faith denomination, according to this poll, lost more members than any other faith community in the country.

Of course, Catholics aren’t the only ones trying out new religions like they are the new spring colors. More than 40% of the people interviewed told pollsters that they had changed their religion since childhood.

And although Catholicism was the “biggest loser” with only 68% of people still Catholic since their childhood, Jews weren’t that far behind at 76%, and Protestants at 80%.

But why? Why are we losing people, and especially young adults?

It’s an appropriate question to ask, given Pope Benedict XVI’s first papal visit to the U.S. when the U.S. bishops and prominent theologians will be asked to weigh in on the state of the Catholic Church in America.

Rod Dreher, a fellow blogger at Beliefnet.com, recently asked his readers if Catholics leave the Church because they get fed up with the dogmatism of the Church, that maybe they no longer believe pastoral statements issued by their bishops or they disagree with what the Vatican disseminates.

The most frequent question I hear from non-Catholics in my age group is “I don’t understand how you can be Catholic. You’re intelligent, so how can you go along with all that nonsense they want you to believe?”

At which point I usually just change the subject because unless a person really wants to learn about my love for the Catholic faith, I’m not going to expend the energy.

Popular Catholic blogger Amy Welborn believes that the Catholic Church is losing members because the American Church hasn’t “made the case for Christ ... for the necessity of Christ being the center of one’s life and the sure means of finding and staying connected to Christ being through his Church.”

I disagree with that. Having been a counselor one year at an evangelical church camp where you’d hear Jesus’ name after every third word, I don’t think we need to take the same approach as our Protestant sisters and brothers.

Yes, many campers were converted that summer – because the other counselors would pin them down and ask them to take Jesus into their hearts right then and there.

But that’s not how we Catholics operate. Thank God. We’ve always solicited new members in a more tactful way: “Hey, no pressure, but we’ll take you if you’d like a community with which to pray.”

I’m afraid if Church authorities become too obsessed with polls like this one, the Vatican might start behaving like a politician who wants desperately to win the election, and so adjusts his beliefs according to every public poll, and we’d lose the very grace and beauty that exists in our faith community.

Heck, maybe I’ve been to too many 12-step support groups that are founded on a policy of “attraction rather than promotion,” but I say let’s be ourselves and stop worrying if we win or lose. Then the right people will come.