Only 1 in 3 Catholic parents think it’s very important their children share their faith, survey finds

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 9, 2023 / 15:00 pm

A little more than a third of Catholic parents say it is extremely or very important for their children to grow up to have religious beliefs similar to their own, according to a recent Pew Research Center report.

In the study released last month and expounded further in a Feb. 6 article, 35% of Catholic parents with children under 18 said it is extremely or very important for their children to grow up to share their religious beliefs.

In total, 65% of Catholics said it was either extremely, very, or somewhat important for their children to hold their Catholic beliefs as adults. Thirty-four percent of Catholics said it was not too important or not important at all.

Hispanic Catholics answered with slightly more enthusiasm with 39% saying it was extremely or very important that their children grow up to share their religious beliefs, while white and non-Hispanic Catholics registered at 29%.

Catholics recorded among the lowest enthusiasm for passing their religion to their children of any Christian denomination in the survey.

An even lower 29% of white non-evangelical Protestants said it is extremely or very important for their children to share their religious beliefs.

White evangelicals were among the highest, with 70% responding that it is extremely or very important for their adult children to share their religious beliefs. In other words, white evangelical parents are twice as likely as their Catholic counterparts to strongly believe their children should share their views on religion.

The only group that registered significantly lower enthusiasm overall was the religiously unaffiliated category, those self-identifying as atheist, agnostic, or nothing. Only 8% of this group said having their children share their beliefs was either extremely or very important.

A crucial note to the study is that parents who attend services weekly or more were more than three times as likely to say having their children share their beliefs is important, 76% vs. 21%, Pew said.

Pew’s report follows a downward trend in Catholic Mass attendance in the United States. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reported in January that just 17% of American Catholics attend Mass weekly or more, down from 24% in 2019.

Meanwhile, the Pew report found that 81% of Catholic parents believe it is extremely or very important for their children to grow up to become people who help those in need.

Seventy-nine percent said it was extremely or very important for their children to become adults who are accepting of those different from them.

The Pew report was based on a fall 2022 survey of 3,757 U.S. parents with children under 18.