Naturally, I know many actual Catholics from my parish, but the self proclaimed Catholic people I've worked with, or live among in my neighborhood, will have their children baptized so they can get into the parish school, or because their parents are Catholic and it is just something one does when one has a baby.
I think Jewish people also have a cultural component to their self proclaimed religious affiliation, but you rarely hear that one is a Methodist or Lutheran for cultural reasons.
>> I don't think membership numbers are an accurate portrayal of actual Catholics. In my experience with people I am not related to, most people are baptized Catholics for cultural or practical reasons, not religious ones. <<
Yes, but while Gallup might consider such people Catholics, the dioceses do not.
>> the self proclaimed Catholic people I've worked with, or live among in my neighborhood, will have their children baptized so they can get into the parish school, or because their parents are Catholic and it is just something one does when one has a baby. <<
The good news, supposedly from the 1980s, was that such Catholics do come back to truly living the faith. But I've seen data that sharply refutes the notion that that is currently happening.
>> I think Jewish people also have a cultural component to their self proclaimed religious affiliation, but you rarely hear that one is a Methodist or Lutheran for cultural reasons. <<
You picked at least one poor group for an example. Lutherans and Anglicans are even more culturally-affiliated than Catholicism.
>> I think Jewish people also have a cultural component to their self proclaimed religious affiliation <<
I've often tried to use the Jews (when the context allowed me to without risking promoting anti-semitism, or the appearance that I may be anti-semitic) as an example of merely cultural religious affiliation, to explain that these so-called Catholics like Pelosi and Kennedy are anything but. (Nothing helps them Saturdays pass like a good ol' pork roast*, huh, Sen. Schumer!)
(* No, that's a purposely ouotrageous example. For Schumer to do that would be like for Kennedy to pee in the communion wine: it would come off as purposely offensive to his constituents whom he is trying to snowjob. Then again, Kennedy does get drunk alot...)