Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
When Pope Francis arrives in the U.S., he will find a Catholic public that is remarkably accepting of a variety of non-traditional families, according to a new survey on family life, sexuality and Catholic identity.
Highly religious people are distinctive in their day-to-day behaviors in several key ways: They are more engaged with their families, more involved in their communities and more likely to report being happy with the way things are going in their lives. In other ways, however, there is little discernible difference in the way highly religious […]
Religious expression by political leaders Currently, 27% of Americans say there has been too much discussion of religious faith and prayer by political leaders, while 40% say there has been too little religious discussion. At a similar point in the 2012 presidential campaign, the balance of opinion on this question leaned in the opposite direction […]
Media Contact: Katherine Ritchey, Communications Manager 202-419-4372, kritchey@pewresearch.org Washington, June 16, 2015 — On the eve of a forthcoming encyclical by Pope Francis on the environment and climate change, a new Pew Research Center survey finds U.S. Catholics’ views on global warming are broadly reflective of American public opinion writ large; a solid majority believe that […]
Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
Half of Americans say the next president should be careful not to criticize Islam as a whole when speaking about Islamic extremists, while four-in-ten want the next president to speak bluntly about Islamic extremists even if the statements are critical of Islam as a whole.