Most U.S. Catholics hope for change in church rule on divorce, Communion
62% of U.S. Catholics think the church should allow Catholics who have been divorced and remarried without an annulment to receive Communion.
Michael Lipka
Associate Director, Research
Michael Lipka is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center, where he studies Americans’ experiences with news and information. Over more than a decade at the Center, he has been a part of several major projects related to the information environment, including our survey of U.S. journalists and our studies of podcasts, Black Americans’ experiences with news, and alternative social media. Michael also spent several years writing about trends in religion in the U.S. and globally, contributing to dozens of reports and short reads on various topics. He has a degree in journalism from Boston University and started his career as a sportswriter for The Boston Globe and the Associated Press.
Publications
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California legalizes assisted suicide amid growing support for such laws
Two-thirds of Americans say doctors should be allowed by law to assist patients who are terminally ill and living in severe pain to commit suicide.
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Catholics, especially Hispanics, echo pope’s call to embrace immigrants
Nearly nine-in-ten Hispanic Catholics (88%) say that undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements should be able to stay in the U.S.
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A closer look at Catholics in Washington, New York and Philadelphia
On his first papal trip to the U. S., Pope Francis will visit three Northeastern cities that are within a few hundred miles of each other. But while New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., may be geographically close, their Catholic populations look different from one another in several ways.
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A closer look at Catholic America
The face of Catholic America is changing. Today, immigrants make up a considerable share of Catholics, and many are Hispanic. At the same time, there has been a regional shift, from the Northeast (long home to a large percentage of the Catholic faithful) and Midwest to the Western and Southern parts of the U.S.
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Relatively few U.S. Catholics skipped annulment because of cost or complications
Pope Francis has announced major changes to the Roman Catholic Church’s procedures for marriage annulments. While the new changes are aimed at making annulments faster and less expensive, a recent Pew Research survey found that most divorced U.S. Catholics who did not seek annulments did not cite the complicated nature of the process as a reason.
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45% of Americans have a connection to Catholicism
The new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Catholics provides an opportunity to take stock of Americans’ Catholic identity – not just people who identify primarily as Catholics, but the entire spectrum of those whose lives have crossed paths with the Catholic Church in a meaningful way.
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Key findings about American Catholics
Pew Research Center asked American Catholics for their views about family structures, religious beliefs and practices and other topics. Here are 6 facts from the new survey.
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10 facts about religion in America
It’s a fascinating time for conversations about faith in the United States, with Pope Francis set to visit, a presidential election on the horizon and major trends reshaping the country’s religious landscape.
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Major U.S. metropolitan areas differ in their religious profiles
The religious face of America is largely a Christian one, with roughly seven-in-ten Americans belonging to that faith. But some of the nation’s biggest metropolitan areas have a very different look.
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