Catholicism

There has been a modest drop in overall rates of belief in God and participation in religious practices. But religiously affiliated Americans are as observant as before.

62% of U.S. Catholics think the church should allow Catholics who have been divorced and remarried without an annulment to receive Communion.

Pope Francis has generated goodwill toward the Catholic Church among many Americans across the political spectrum. But Democrats and liberals are especially likely to say they have a more positive view of the Church because of Francis.

Nearly nine-in-ten Hispanic Catholics (88%) say that undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements should be able to stay in the U.S.

Almost nine-in-ten U.S. Catholics believe that some actions are offensive to God, but many American Catholics don't agree with church teachings on what constitutes sinful behavior.

Pope Francis will celebrate Mass on an enormous scale Sunday, with 2 million people expected to gather on a mile-long parkway in downtown Philadelphia. We gathered key facts about Communion and U.S. Catholics for the occasion.

A majority of all Hispanic adults identify as Catholic and a large majority of Hispanic Catholics speak Spanish fluently. Eight-in-ten Hispanic Catholics use mostly Spanish or are bilingual. In fact, they are more likely to be Spanish speakers than non-Catholic Hispanics (68%).

On a variety of issues – such as recognizing gay marriages and determining eligibility for Holy Communion – Latino Catholics tend to be more aligned with the church than are white Catholics.

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.

Some older American Catholics might remember a time when people thought of the Catholic Church like a family: hard to ignore and even harder to leave. But a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Catholics shows that at least some of these perceptions may no longer be entirely true.