“Nones”, those who profess no religious affiliation, are now the largest subgroup in American society, their numbers having grown in the past decade while the percentage of Catholics in the US slipped over the past 10 years.
In a Pew Research Centre ‘religious landscape’ report issued last week, nones have jumped from 17% of the adult population in 2009 to 26% in 2019. Catholics have slipped from 23% in 2009 to 20% today.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church can no longer claim a majority of the nation’s Hispanic population. The figure dropped from 57% in 2009 to 47% in 2019, although the latter number still represents a plurality.
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The percentage of Hispanics who say they are unaffiliated climbed from 15% in 2009 to 23% in 2019, and those who say they are Protestant went up one percentage point from 23% to 24%.
Amid a number of setbacks for religionists outlined in the study, it did say 62% of those who profess Christianity say they attend services at the same rate they did in 2009 – at least twice a month. Overall, 65% of respondents described themselves as Christians.
However, the study’s numbers also suggest that the overall number of Christians has dropped in the US over the past decade, from 178 million in 2009 to about 167 million today, while the number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated grew by close to 30 million.