What's your religion? In America, a common reply now is "None"

Ground Report | New Delhi: Why Americans Are Leaving Religion; A Pew Research Center survey of the religious practice of American adults found that the percentage of Catholics who prayed every day decreased from 59% in 2014 to 51%; while the proportion of those with no religious affiliation continues to rise.

Those are some of the highlights of a new survey from the Pew Research Center, which focuses on changes in America's religious landscape. The responses show that much of the country is still religious, but significantly less than it was before.

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Why Americans Are Leaving Religion

All religions in the United States have been trending downward in various categories except "nil." The "none", which includes atheists, agnostics, and those who identify as nothing in particular, now represent almost 30% of the population, up from 23% in 2016. In 2011 they were 19%.

As the latter group grows, the Christians decline. Today, the Christian population - which includes Catholics, Protestants, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Orthodox - represents 63% of the total population of the United States, according to the survey.

While the proportion of Protestants in the population has declined 10 percentage points in the past 10 years, those who identified themselves as Catholic have remained "relatively stable," the survey found.

In 2021, 21% of American adults identify as Catholic. The proportion of Catholics in America's population, which had been in decline since 2007, is now back to where it was in 2014, Pew found.

1 in 5 Catholics do not pray regularly

While 20% of Catholics say they do not pray or pray infrequently, the other 80% pray more regularly.

According to the Pew study, only 51% of Catholics pray every day, 29% reported that they pray weekly or monthly. However, much of these prayers must be happening at home or elsewhere, because only 26% of Catholics say they attend religious services at least once a week. (Why Americans Are Leaving Religion)

In comparison, 61% of Protestants reported that they pray every day, while 22% say that they pray weekly or monthly. Only 10% of Protestants rarely or never pray.

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Also, slightly less than 10% of Catholics participate in religious services once or twice a month. In other words, the vast majority, 65%, attend a few times a year or less. 14% of Catholics said they "never" go to religious ceremonies.

Value the importance of religion

According to the survey, religion is very important in the lives of 48% of Catholics; however, this is 10 percentage points less than in 2014. Also, a little more than 3 in 10 Catholics say that religion is something important to them; an identical figure to that of 2007.

For almost a fifth of Catholics today, religion is not very important or not at all important. This is a 10% increase in 2014. On the other hand, according to the study, 65% of Protestants affirm that religion is very important in their lives and 27% said that it was something important. Only 8% of Protestants said that religion was not too important or not at all important in their lives.

The "none" also pray

According to the survey, in the group of Americans who say they do not belong to any religion, 71% indicated that they rarely or never pray, 13% do so daily and 16% pray weekly or monthly.

The Pew Research Center study also noted that not only has the percentage of the "none" group increased, but each subgroup within that population has also grown. In 2007, 2% were atheists, 2% were agnostic, and 12% identified as "nothing in particular." Today, 4% are atheists, 5% are agnostic, and 20% identify as nothing in particular.

A decline in daily prayer

The survey indicated that less than half (45%) of Americans pray daily. That is 10% less than in 2014 and 13% compared to 2007. Just over a fifth of adults pray weekly or monthly, the same as in 2007. Yet the proportion of Americans who say they rarely or never pray has risen from 14% in 2007 to 32% today.

A quarter of Americans attend religious services once a week, while only 7% attend once or twice a month. In 2007, 54% of Americans attended religious services monthly or more. Also, according to the study, 68% of Americans attend religious services a few times a year. 27% indicated that they never participate in these celebrations.

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