Many Roman Catholics and Protestants in America are leaving the churches of their childhood and either embracing other faiths or claiming no
religion at all, according to an extensive national survey released
The findings from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life illustrate the fluid dynamics of American religion.
More than a quarter of adults,or 28 percent, said they had left the faith in which they were raised.
If changes among types of Protestantism are included, 44 percent have switched affiliation.
Sixteen percent of adults said they are not members of any religious
group, making that "unaffiliated" segment the fourth-largest religious tradition in the U.S., comparable in numbers to the mainline Protestant
churches. The three largest religious groups, the study found, are Protestant evangelicals at 26 percent, Catholics at 24 percent and historic
mainline Protestants at 18 percent.
"One can certainly make the case that America will be a less Protestant and a less Christian nation a century from now. But how much less
Protestant and how much less Christian -- that's a little bit hard to gauge because of the dynamism," said John Green, a report author and a senior fellow at the Pew Forum.
The Catholic Church has lost more members than any other religious group, the survey found, making roughly 10 percent of all Americans former
Catholics.
Those losses, however, have been largely offset by Catholic immigrants entering the country, most of them from Latin America, the report said.
The result is that the total percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic has remained stable.
Researchers also found such a sharp decline in American Protestantism that "the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority
Protestant country."
The number of Americans who said they were members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51 percent. The Protestant population also
is diverse and fragmented, encompassing hundreds of denominations. The largest groups of Protestants are evangelical churches, mainline
churches and historically black churches.
Just 4 percent of Americans called themselves atheist or agnostic. The rest of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of Americans -- are almost
equally divided between the "secular unaffiliated," who say religion is not important in their lives, and the "religious unaffiliated," who say it
is at least somewhat important.
The findings came from a survey of 35,000 adults conducted last summer.
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