Washington D.C., May 17, 2008 / 06:43 am
The Catholic results of the Pew survey entitled "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey" have been closely examined by CARA, a Georgetown University research center who points out that commentators may have initially jumped to conclusions after reading the results in the Pew study.
Mark Gray, Director of CARA Catholic Polls; and Joseph Claude Harris, an independent Church research analyst, note in a Letter to the Editor in the April 6, 2008 edition of Our Sunday Visitor that when the Pew survey results were released, “Commentators were swift to assign blame, noting a range of factors from the sex abuse crisis to shortages of priests, or even the long-term effects of the Second Vatican Council.”
The Catholic Church has lost the most members out of all the denominations but, as Gray explained to CNA, “it's also the biggest religion and when you translate the discussion in to proportions you can see the Catholic Church is doing quite well comparatively. It keeps more of its young faithful than any Protestant denomination.”
A CARA essay titled, “The Impact of Religious Switching and Secularization on the Estimated Size of the U.S. Adult Catholic Population,” details the proportions: the “Pew study indicates that the Catholic Church has retained 68 percent of those who grew up Catholic. By comparison, 60 percent of those raised Baptist are still Baptists as adults.” Retention rates are much lower for “Lutherans (59 percent), Methodists and Pentecostals (both 47 percent), Episcopalians (45 percent), and Presbyterians (40 percent).”