Catholic Population in New England Plummeting

I previously wrote about the decline in the percentage of Americans who consider themselves Christian and also the increase in the portion of the Americans who label themselves as having no religion. Buried within that larger story is the steep exodus of individuals from the Roman Catholic Church in New England, once the Catholic bastion within the country. As the Boston Globe reports, the decline in the number of Catholics is rather staggering and in my mind reflects a trend that will continue in many parts of the country unless and until the Vatican (1) does the right thing and cleans house within the corrupt hierarchy and (2) begins to bring the Church into the 21st century. Personally, I do not see either development occurring any time soon and certainly not under the Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI. Nonetheless, eventually the decline of the Church in the west will hurt the Church's cashflow position and as it has throughout history, the Church will change when the loss of money gets sufficiently bad. Here are some highlights from the Globe:

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The Catholic population in New England, long the most Catholic region in the country, is plummeting, according to a large survey of religious affiliation in the United States. . . . The American Religious Identification Survey, a national study being released today by Trinity College in Hartford, finds that the Catholic population of New England fell by more than 1 million in the past two decades, even while the overall population of the region was growing. . . . the six-state region is now 36 percent Catholic, down from 50 percent in 1990.

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In Massachusetts, the decline is particularly striking - in 1990, Catholics made up a majority of the state, with 54 percent of the residents, but in 2008, the Catholic population was 39 percent. At the same time, the percentage of the state's residents who say they have no religious affiliation rose sharply, from 8 percent to 22 percent.

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The study did not ask New Englanders why they ceased identifying with Catholicism, but the researchers said it was probably some combination of the general secularization of American society with alienation among some Catholics over the sexual abuse crisis and other issues.

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Silk said the study found that Irish-Americans, along with people of Jewish ancestry and Asian-Americans, are disproportionately represented among those who report no religious affiliation. "The other thing is that New England Catholics have become sort of like New England Protestants - not particularly attached" to religion, he said.