Posted on 10/20/2019 1:08:09 PM PDT by ebb tide
DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - Irreligious adults — called "nones" — now outnumber adult Catholics in the United States, according to a recent poll.
A report by Pew Research Center released Thursday is showing that 26% percent of America's adult population identify as nones, a group composed of atheists, agnostics and irreligious. This dwarfs the mere 20% of U.S. adults claiming to be Catholic.
The poll found the percentage of U.S. adults professing to be nones surged in just one decade from 17% in 2009 to 26% in 2019. During the same period, the adult Catholic population fell from 23% to its current level of 20%.
Driving the decline of U.S. Catholics is the rapid exodus of Hispanics from the Catholic Church. Fifty-seven percent of Hispanics in the United States identified as Catholic 10 years ago; only 47% do today. This is despite the massive push by U.S. bishops to welcome Hispanic immigrants.
The quality of nones has also taken a turn for the worse. Some nones simply describe their religion as "nothing in particular." But the survey found the number of atheists in this group doubled over the past decade and the number of agnostics nearly doubled.
Democrats were becoming nones in droves, according to the poll. While Republicans jettisoned Christianity at a rate of 13% over the past decade, 31% of Democrats swelled the ranks of nones.
Young people too made the greatest shift. The survey found that of those over 40, 14% left their Christian heritage behind. Those under 40, however, uprooted their Christian faith twice as fast at 29%.
The overall Christian population fell in 10 years from 77% to 65% of the adult population, said the poll. Protestants sustained greater losses than Catholics. In 2009, 51% of the U.S. adult population identified as Protestant. Today, just 43% do so.
Religious attendance amongst those claiming to be Christian remained steady, as per the survey.
"Today, 62% of Christians say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, which is identical to the share who said the same in 2009," said the report.
The survey also broke down the dwindling Christian membership of past generations as follows:
While 1 in 10 Millenials identify with non-Christian faiths, said the report, 4 in 10 profess to be nones.
The fact that Americans are becoming less religious doesn't bode well for the future of the country, according to Attorney General William Barr. During a talk at Notre Dame on Oct. 11, Barr recalled how the Founding Fathers held up religious-minded people as the underpinnings of a free society:
In short, in the Framers' view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people — a people who recognized that there was a transcendent moral order antecedent to both the state and man-made law and who had the discipline to control themselves according to those enduring principles.
Barr's talk was aimed at preserving religious liberty in this country for those upholding Judeo-Christian ethics. But as more and more Christians are giving up their former religious beliefs to become nones, they'll have fewer Christian values to defend.
Usually with some pretty drastic resolutions.
That's for sure.
You may be right but "Catholic education" MUST begin in the home...where DAD insists on saying grace, DAD goes to Mass on Sundays and DAD obeys the ten commandments.
Boys and girls learn what MEN and WOMEN are supposed to be from DAD and Mom. That usually, but not always, requires an intact family.
Children don't START Kindergarten until they are five...and by then the "cake is baked."
Am I off-base here?
“Poll: Nones Outnumber Catholics”
I had to take a double take with this title. I wondered why the sisters were not considered to be Catholics. Then I relised it was not talking about nuns.
The growing population of Nones is going to have corrosive effects on our society. You live your life differently as a Christian who looks forward to eternity than you do as a thoroughly secularized person who thinks one must cram as much enjoyment into this life as they can while they’re here.
Inflate the numbers of the latter into the tens of millions and the broader effects will be profound.
It already has, just look at the "trans" effect on society.
20-25 years ago, if a man in a dress went into a ladies restroom, he'd be beaten to a pulp and thrown in jail {if he survived the beating}.
Today, if you hit him, you go to jail.
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