{"id":96875,"date":"2016-03-29T16:19:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T20:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleteia.org\/?post_type=post&p=96875"},"modified":"2016-03-29T16:19:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T20:19:01","slug":"poll-only-half-of-italians-consider-themselves-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2016\/03\/poll-only-half-of-italians-consider-themselves-catholic\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Only Half of Italians Consider Themselves Catholic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I probably shouldn\u2019t be shocked. But I am.<\/p>\n

From RNS:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Italy may be the spiritual home of 1.2 billion members of the Catholic Church around the world, but a new poll shows only 50 percent of Italians consider themselves Catholic.<\/p>\n

The poll, published in the liberal daily\u00a0L\u2019Unita<\/a> on Tuesday (March 29), challenges long-held perceptions that Italy is a \u201dCatholic\u201d country, despite the popularity of Pope Francis and the historic role of the Vatican City State in the heart of Rome.<\/p>\n

In addition to the 50 percent who consider themselves Catholic, the poll, conducted in Italy by research firm SWG<\/a>, found that 13 percent defined themselves as \u201cChristian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 1,500 respondents, 4 percent said they were Orthodox or Protestant, 2 percent were Buddhist<\/a>, 1 percent were Jewish and 1 percent were Muslim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I probably shouldn\u2019t be shocked. But I am. From RNS:\u00a0 Italy may be the spiritual home of 1.2 billion members of the Catholic Church around the world, but a new poll shows only 50 percent of Italians consider themselves Catholic. The poll, published in the liberal daily\u00a0L\u2019Unita on Tuesday (March 29), challenges long-held perceptions that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":68929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPoll: Only Half of Italians Consider Themselves Catholic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I probably shouldn't be shocked. But I am. 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