ROME
Chiesa
by Sandro Magister
ROME, September 22, 2015 – Landing in Washington after visiting Cuba, Pope Francis is setting foot in a country that was born Protestant but in which almost half the population today has a connection with Catholicism.
In fact, to the 20 percent of citizens of the United States who profess themselves to be full-fledged Catholics must be added 9 percent who call themselves Catholic by cultural affinity, another 9 percent who were raised in a Catholic environment but then left it, and 8 percent who have close relatives who are Catholic and go to Mass with them.
The result is that Catholicism overall has a grip on 45 percent of the citizens of the United States, and on fully 84 percent of “Latinos,” who are the fastest-growing segment of the population and will see Pope Francis canonize one of “their” saints, Junipero Serra, in a ceremony celebrated almost entirely in Spanish.
The Washington-based Pew Research Center has come out with a brand-new analysis of Catholicism in the United States, published on the brink of the pope’s arrival, that allows an in-depth exploration of some features of the “people of God” in this country:
> U.S Catholics Open to Non-Traditional Families
As can already be guessed from the title of the survey, American Catholics are also highly influenced by the dominant political-cultural trends in the West on questions concerning the family and the sexual sphere. Which are precisely the questions that originated this journey of Francis to the United States, primarily motivated by his desire to participate in the world meeting of families in Philadelphia, in the run-up to a synod also dedicated to the family.
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