As previously reported, Pope Francis will be delivering his upcoming Sept. 23 mass in Washington, D.C. in his native tongue: Spanish.

The Argentine-born leader of the Catholic Church no doubt feels that using a language common to the 54 million Latinos living in the Unites States is an ingratiating move.

Whatever the reasoning behind delivering the liturgy with Latinos in mind, the gesture, and other changes to the church's Latino outreach, is likely seen as a necessity. The Associated Press reports the number of U.S. Latinos in the church is falling.

As recently as 2006, around eight in 10 Latinos who were raised in the church maintained the tradition as adults. According to the The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), as of last year this number has gone down to 7 in 10.

For Latino immigrants, leaving the church might simply be a case of location trumping tradition. Mark Gray, the polling director at CARA, explains that: "One of the challenges for Latino immigrants is they continue to show up in places where there's not a Catholic Church nearby."

"Sometimes, they end up in an evangelical church," he adds.

Peter Faletti, archdiocese director of research and planning in Atlanta, feels that the situation of a shrinking number of Latinos attending mass is one that could be rectified by simply trying to accommodate the faithful.

To this end, he has been renting schools, former movie houses, and even old car dealerships, to provide a place of worship. "We have Hispanic Catholics who aren't being served because they can't get in the door," explains Faletti.

Archbishop Wilton Gregory sees that the act of accommodating Catholic Latinos will require some added ingenuity, saying, "The challenge is that we not only have to provide physical space for the communities who are expanding, but we also need to develop a spirit of inclusion."