Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Fifty-five countries had high or very high levels of social hostilities involving religion in 2023, up from 45 the previous year. Among the countries with very high scores on the Social Hostilities Index in 2023 were Nigeria, India, Israel, Syria, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
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Pew Research Center’s survey in 18 Latin American countries and Puerto Rico found that many Latin Americans are leaving Catholicism and joining evangelical Protestant churches. We sat down with senior researcher Neha Sahgal to see how these conclusions were reached.
Pope Francis, leader of the world’s nearly 1.1 billion Catholics, enjoys broad support across much of the world: a median of 60% across 43 nations have a favorable view of him. Only 11% see the pope unfavorably, and 28% give no rating.
Majorities of both groups self-identify as Catholic, but the percentage of Catholics is 20 percentage points higher among Mexicans (81%) than among Mexican Americans (61%).
The share of U.S. Hispanics and Latin Americans who are Catholic is declining, but the two groups are making different religious choices after leaving the church.
Latin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population – and the Roman Catholic Church now has a Latin American pope for the first time in its history. Yet identification with Catholicism has declined throughout the region, according to a major new Pew Research Center […]
Tens of millions of Latin Americans have left the Roman Catholic Church in recent decades and embraced Pentecostal Christianity.
A new Pew Research Center survey of 18 Latin American countries and Puerto Rico asked people about their religious affiliation, beliefs and practices.
Nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America, but many people in the region have converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, while some have left organized religion altogether.
As young Catholics gather in Brazil, awaiting Pope Francis’ visit in celebration of World Youth Day, an analysis of census data finds that the share of Brazil’s population that identifies as Catholic has been dropping steadily in recent decades. Over the same period, the percentage of Brazilians who belong to Protestant churches has been rising.
Across 25 countries, Americans are the most likely to see the morality and ethics of people in their country as somewhat or very bad.
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse country overall as of 2020, while Yemen is the least diverse. But the U.S. ranks first among nations with very large populations, followed by Nigeria and Russia.
The Christian share of the population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily.
The Global Religious Futures (GRF) project is jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The John Templeton Foundation. Here are some big-picture findings from the GRF, together with context from other Pew Research Center studies.
