Protestant Perseverance and Catholic Decline?

Protestants with a strong religious identity continue to increase as Catholics with a strong religious identity continue to decline, according to a March study by the Pew Research Center. The proportion of Catholics reporting strong religious affiliation declined by almost twenty percentage points over the last few decades, from 46 percent of Catholics in 1974 to 27 percent in 2012. Protestants reporting strong religious affiliation increased more than ten percentage points during the same period, from 43 percent to 54 percent.

The contrast between Protestant and Catholic trends is not as straightforward as the numbers suggest. The data tell us more about intra-ecclesial changes than they do about inter-ecclesial comparisons. The data on Catholics indeed suggest reasons for some concern, but the data on Protestants are not quite as rosy as they initially appear.

Let’s start with the Protestants. The increase in the proportion of Protestants who report a strong religious identity may result not from an overall increase in the number of strong Protestants, but rather from a decline in the number of “weak” Protestants. These folks could have dropped out entirely from counting as Protestants—either now reporting no belief or reporting adherence to another religion. Thus the proportion of Protestants reporting a strong religious affiliation will appear larger, even though the absolute numbers have not changed at all.

The Pew Research Center chart below on “Protestants as a Share of the Adult Population” seems to confirm this claim. The proportion of the American population calling themselves strong Protestants has remained more or less steady at around 27 percent since 1974. During that time, however, the percentage of less strong “Other Protestants” declined by over one-third, from 36 percent of the adult population to 23 percent. While the absolute number of strong Protestants would have increased along with the overall increase in the U.S. population during this period, the decline in “other Protestants” accounts entirely for the reported increase in the proportion of Protestants with a strong religious affiliation.

While strong Protestants haven’t gained in the overall population, despite gaining proportionally among self-identified Protestants, they also haven’t lost ground in the overall population during this period. The news may not be as good as it seems, but neither is it as bad as it might be—which is to say, as bad as it is for Catholics.

Strong Catholics have lost ground, both proportionally among Catholics and also in the entire population. As can be seen in the chart below, the proportion of strong Catholics in the overall U.S. population has declined about 40 percent from 1974, from twelve percent of the entire adult population to seven percent. While the five-percentage point decline in the proportion of strong Catholics almost mirrors the four-percentage point increase in “other” Catholics, I suspect from other reports that the turnover is greater than the General Social Survey numbers pick up, with an increase in the Hispanic population in the U.S. masking the loss among Catholics of Anglo origin because of the relatively greater Catholic identification among Hispanics.

There seems to be some question whether Hispanics will continue as a group to make up for the loss of Anglo members in the U.S. Catholic Church. In a recent cover story, Time magazine reported (drawing on different data from Pew) that while currently two-thirds of Hispanics in the U.S. are Catholic, the expectation is that only 50 percent will be Catholic by 2030. “Among young Latinos,” Time reports, “the drift away from the Roman Catholic Church is even more rapid.”

Do Catholics have any reason for optimism? To be sure, a dynamic, vibrant pope from Latin America might excite Catholics about their faith, particularly young Hispanics in both Latin America and the U.S. Further, while strong Catholic identity may be declining overall in the U.S., my impression is that there is a steady stream of converts from Protestantism to Catholicism at elite levels. Some of these converts are Evangelicals; others are from mainline denominations, or even from no religion at all.

A trickle of high-profile converts cannot numerically offset the laity leaving Catholicism for other churches or no church at all, but their conversions—often made with some reference to perceived Catholic intellectual vibrancy—may reflect a strength in the Catholic Church not captured by the numerical measures.

That said, while the movement into the Catholic Church at elite levels is often discussed separately from the movement out of the Catholic Church at the popular level, I wonder whether both are, in part, a reflection of the same cause: the evaporation of much of the traditional social stigma of being a Catholic in the U.S. The effect would be most direct at the elite level. Decreasing prejudice clears the way for conversions among elites, at least at the margin, by decreasing the social and economic penalties.

But likewise, in the more common case of laypeople joining Protestant churches, I wonder whether anti-Catholicism in the past might have constructed a hedge that served as much to keep Catholics “in” their Church as a result of their exclusion from fully interacting with Protestants in American culture. This might plausibly have created a psychology of “us versus them” that may have helped—again, at the margin—to sustain commitment to Catholicism.

The removal of much of the hedge of prejudice against Catholicism in the U.S. could thereby allow easier entry into the Catholic Church at the very same time it allows easier exit from the Catholic Church relative to earlier times.

The implication of the Pew report seems to be status-quo holding for Protestantism: It is maintaining its core members while losing its more peripheral members (hence core members make up a greater proportion of Protestants, even though core members are not increasing numerically faster than population growth). The implication is more concerning for Catholics: Even though overall numbers are maintaining, core membership is declining.

Like I said church going Catholics and church going protestants vote the same way, and non-church going Catholics and protestants vote the same way. Makes no difference at all what demonination someone might be. Practicing christians do not vote democrat. End of story.

That simply isn't true even the most ultra conservative Catholics are only somewhat conservative, and it doesn't change the fact that republicans have won the Catholic vote 5 times in our history, and that the democrats have won the Protestant vote 3 times, 1932, 1936, and 1964 and Protestant isn't a single denomination but includes black churches and left wing Episcopalians, etc.

Look at this chart for 2004, even racially pure white Catholics, devout, church going still only went about 3% more republican than Protestant Hispanics, and about 24 points below their Evangelical counterparts, or even slightly less than the liberal mainline Protestant denominations.

“That simply isn’t true even the most ultra conservative Catholics are only somewhat conservative”

Let me get this straight. I am a Catholic and if I got any further to the right I’ll run into the Atlantic Ocean. All my Catholics friends believe in exactly the same things that I do. That is no abortion of any type, for any reason. No homosexual marriage, no homosexual civil unions. No women ordination. I believe in building a fence around the US, and my friends believe in the same thing. I believe in a strong national defense and the defense of this country. I support the US military 100%. The military does not make the sometimes boneheaded decisions that affect them. These are made by the politicians who call the shots. But I always support the military. I retired as a senior NCO in the US Air Force. I am a Vietnam Veteran. I also believe in a balanced butget and I don’t believe in borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Most of my Catholic friends believe exactly like I do. So can you please tell me what you consider the “somewhat conservative” views that I have listed above. I’d sure like to know. One more thing. I started voting in 1968 and I have never in my life voted for a democrat at any level. Never. I have occasionally voted for the Constitution Party candidate, because he was a hell of a lot more conservative than the republican who was running.

Good Lord man, no one is talking about you as an individual, or any other individual.

Voting in presidential elections are about large groups, the Catholic denomination vote majority pro-abortion democrat, a minority of Catholics are of varying degrees of conservatism.

But as a group, even “conservative” Catholics aren’t exactly right wingers, that is why even when you separate the most conservative sub category of Catholic, it still doesn’t vote like a denomination such as Southern Baptist for instance.

Church going Catholics vote conservative. Exactly the same way as church going protestants. The exception being blacks, who vote based on the color of someone’s skin. The only Catholics that consistently vote for democrats are Catholic in name only. This can not be said of protestants. Hundreds of thousands of black protestants, who consider themselves Christians and go to church a couple of times a week, flock to the polls and vote for the most pro-abortion, homo-marriage-loving candidate who ever lived, ONLY BECAUSE of the color of his skin. What should be investigated are why blacks vote for someone who wants to abort their children, since 75% of abortions are performed on young black girls. The most reliable democrat voting block in American are blacks. No other group even comes close.

Looks to me like “weekly attending white Catholics and weekly attending white Protestants” are almost identical.

What you need to figure out is why do you have a distain for Catholics. I’ve had these silly debates with you before. Without Catholics, who stood alone after Roe v. Wade, there would be no pro-life movement in this country.
There has been Catholic orphanages close down because they will refuse to play a child in a homosexual home. The Catholic Church has no liberal or gray areas when it comes to social issues,unlike many of the some 35,000 protestant faiths, which are as different as night and day. Their is no structure in these faiths and no authority figure. Each and every protestant faith waves in the wind trying to figure out how to deal with social issues, when the only thing necessary is to open up the Bible. Like the Constitution, the Bible does not change with the times.

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