Catholics set to exceed Anglicans {in the UK} for first time since Reformation due to younger churchgoers

Catholic Herald ^ | 9th April 2026

[Cronos]

Catholics are on course to outnumber Anglicans in Britain, with the growth spearheaded by younger churchgoers who outnumber their Anglican brethren by more than two to one, a report by the Bible Society reveals.

A “quiet revival” in UK Catholicism appears to be occurring, especially among those age groups referred to as Generation Z and younger Millennials, reportsThe Times of London, while noting that Catholics are rapidly catching up with Anglican numbers across all age groups.

It means that Catholicism could soon overtake Anglicanism to become the country’s largest denomination of worshippers for the first time since the English Reformation initiated by King Henry VIII in 1527. Anglicans could even slip into third place behind Pentecostals among churchgoers aged under 35 years of age.

“Our report does not challenge the well-established fact that fewer people in England and Wales are choosing to identify as Christian,” Dr Rhiannon McAleer, director of research at the Bible Society, said. “However, it is the first large-scale study to concentrate not on self-declared Christian identity but on actual Christian practice. By this measurement, the Church is in an exciting period of growth and change.”

So while the average Briton is still more likely than ever to be a non-believer, according to the new report, those who do still identify as Christian appear to be “practising their religion more intentionally”, with an increase in the number who say they attend church at least once a month, reports The Times.

---

TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS:

[Cronos]

According to the surveys, in 2018 Anglicans made up 30 per cent of regular churchgoers aged between 18 and 34 – including all adult members of Generation Z and the youngest cohort of Millennials – while Catholics made up 22 per cent and Pentecostals 10 per cent. By 2024, Anglicans made up just 20 per cent of this group while Catholics made up 41 per cent. Pentecostals are now not far behind Anglicans at 18 per cent.

[Cronos]

The statistics appear in a Bible Society report and are conclusive: among the under-25s, the ratio is about to shift to two to one in favor of Catholics. If the trend continues, Catholicism could become numerically the largest Christian denomination in England for the first time since the Reformation. Anglicans could even drop to third place, behind Pentecostals.

[proust]

Christ is King.

[Right_Wing_Madman]

The big knock against the Catholic Church today is their endorsement of open borders. The open borders policy of the late 1800s and early 1900s in Europe and the United States was a major cause of World War I (and World War II). And the Church, through their good and noble intentions, is laying the groundwork for the next Great War.

[Reverend Wright]

Catholics may be growing faster but the Anglicans supposedly bottomed out in ~2015.

One anecdotal, we were there for a few weeks in june 2014, and attended St Martins in the Fields. There were several hundred in the church each Sunday, but nowhere near 900, as reported here.

https://x.com/PeterOuld/status/2046610290427429284

[Cronos]

Just some points:

1. Nationalism, not ‘open borders,’ was the primary engine of both World Wars — this had been building since the nation-state “in this land and no one else allowed” was inaugurated by the French in the French revolution.

WWI was the result of rigid ethnic borders and imperial land-grabs, and WWII was driven by a radical ‘blood and soil’ ideology that was the literal antithesis of the Church’s universalism.

2. The Church teaches taht nations have a right to regulate their borders for the common good. The Church seeks a ‘New Creation’ where the Gospel unites people across tribes. When the Church looks at a migrant, she sees a soul first and a ‘foreigner’ second.

The ‘Great War’ the Church is worried about isn’t a conflict between nations—it’s the ‘culture of indifference’ that forgets that every person is made in the Imago Dei. You might see ‘open borders’ as a political failure, but the Church sees the Great Commission as a borderless mandate. Which one should a Christian prioritize?

[Cronos]

I have been to St. Martin in the fields only for a concert.

The interiors were kind of cold for such an old church

[Reverend Wright]

You mean in terms of decoration, or temperature ?

[fortes fortuna juvat]

For Rome that may sound encouraging but there’s a problem: the Anglican Church is arguably now, due to 60 years of VC-II degradation, more ‘Catholic” than the RCC!

[Cronos]

oh, decoration - in terms of temperature, you should see the 13th century or earlier gothic churchs in Torun - brrrr..

[only1percent]

What’s even more telling is that much of the regular attendance of young people at the Church of England are African and black Caribbean immigrants and their children. The (ethnically) English have statistically given up on Anglicanism.

[Reverend Wright]

Some of that is just Catholic vs Anglican which usually has more restrained interiors.

Current St Martins is Neoclassical from the early 1700s, while that Basilica is considerably older.

[Wilderness Conservative]

Pedos and Islamos rejoice.

[Cronos]

Anglicanism was favorable to Islam - right from Queen liz 1 allying with the Turks, to the subservience of the EIC to the Mughals to the Victorian alliance with the Turks in the Crimean war

[montag813]

I think this is primarily driven by young men, who are sick of these short-haired lesbian Anglican priests and bishops, preaching communism from the pulpit. The Catholic church is the only one that still restricts this to men.