According to the results of a new study, as published by The Christian Post, Catholicism has the lowest percentage of “strongly affiliated” followers of all of America’s religious traditions. The study, conducted by Philip Schwadel at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, shows about 56 percent of evangelicals say they are strongly affiliated with their religion while only 35 percent of Catholics say the same. Mainline Protestants are also apparently more devoted than Catholics; 39 percent agreed that they are strongly affiliated with their faith.
Although the study did not give a reason for the levels, Schwadel thinks that priest sex abuse could be a factor. Evangelicals have also became more visible and politically active in recent years, so Schwadel says it’s possible that their role in the public square encouraged more people to identify strongly with the faith.
The total number of strongly affiliated people in the nation has remained at around 37 percent, with a brief rise to 43 percent in the mid-1980s. Schwadel also found that African-American Protestants reported almost the same level of religious intensity (57 percent) as white evangelicals in 2010.
