The surrender of the church to the "Gay Pervert Lottery" is the root cause.
Many Catholics simply refused to pay the bill, directly or indirectly.
They would have preferred to throw the pervert priests under the bus. The religion wasn't to blame; nor the parishoners.
Why should they bear the payment of billion$?
Most would have spent the money, defending the parishioners' church.
According to the data gained by this report, that's not true (and it surprised me to read that, as well).
There is a whole section of the report, beginning on p23, that discuss the reasons why Catholics left.
When asked to say whether or not each of a number of specific items was a reason for leaving Catholicism, most former Catholics say they gradually drifted away from Catholicism. Nearly three-quarters of former Catholics who are now unaffiliated (71%) say this, as do more than half of those who have left Catholicism for Protestantism (54%).
Majorities of former Catholics who are now unaffiliated also cite having stopped believing in Catholicism’s teachings overall (65%) or dissatisfaction with Catholic teachings about abortion and homosexuality (56%), and almost half (48%) cite dissatisfaction with church teachings about birth control, as reasons for leaving Catholicism. These reasons are cited less commonly by former Catholics who have become Protestant; 50% say they stopped believing in Catholicism’s teachings, 23% say they differed with the Catholic Church on issues such as abortion and homosexuality, and only 16% say they were unhappy with Catholic teachings on birth control.
Perhaps not surprisingly, those who express dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church’s teachings on birth control, among those who are currently unaffiliated and Protestant alike, overwhelmingly contend that the Catholic Church is too strict and conservative on this issue; very few say the Catholic Church is too relaxed and liberal about birth control.
Among former Catholics who are now Protestant, 71% say they left Catholicism because their spiritual needs were not being met, making this the most commonly cited reason for leaving the Catholic Church among this group. A similar number (70%) say they left the Catholic Church because they found another religion they liked more. Having found a religion they liked more than Catholicism is cited by almost equal numbers of formerly Catholic evangelical and mainline Protestants (70% and 69%, respectively). By contrast, lack of spiritual fulfillment is a particularly common impetus for leaving Catholicism among those who are now members of evangelical Protestant churches (78%) but is cited less often by former Catholics who have become members of mainline Protestant churches (57%).
The survey finds other interesting differences between those who have left Catholicism for evangelical and mainline Protestant churches. Most converts to evangelicalism (55%), for instance, say that dissatisfaction with teachings about the Bible was a reason for leaving the Catholic Church, compared with only 16% among current mainline Protestants. The two groups also express concerns of a different nature about the Bible. Most evangelicals who left Catholicism over concerns about teachings on the Bible (46% of all formerly Catholic evangelicals) say the Catholic Church did not view the Bible literally enough. Mainline Protestants, however, are not only much less likely to say concerns about the Bible led them away from Catholicism, but those who were led away by such concerns are also much more evenly divided as to whether the church viewed the Bible too literally (6%) or not literally enough (8%).
Mainline Protestants are much more likely than their evangelical counterparts to say they left Catholicism because they married a non-Catholic (44% vs. 22%) or due to dissatisfaction with the priests at their parish (39% vs. 23%). In addition, nearly one-third of formerly Catholic mainline Protestants (31%) say unhappiness with the Catholic Church’s treatment of women led them away from Catholicism, compared with only 11% among evangelicals.
Overall, fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics agree that the clergy sexual abuse scandal played a role in their departure from the Catholic Church (27% among those now unaffiliated, 21% among those now Protestant). About one-in-five former Catholics (19% of those now unaffiliated and 20% of those now Protestant) say they left Catholicism due to discomfort with the feeling of community at their parish. Those who take this view tend to say their parish did not have enough sense of community. Significant minorities, however, say their parish community was too close, with too many people involved in other people’s business.
Please actually open up the PDF at the above link and look at the section starting on p23. There are some tables there that I don't want to take the time to reproduce here that break the numbers down further.
Bottom line is that it appears to me that most who left were either not properly catechized or were CINOs to begin with. To the CINOs, I say "have fun." But we can fix the problem with the ones who weren't properly catechized.