Cubans love the pope and the Catholic Church, but they’re just not that into religion

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/10/cubans-love-the-pope-and-the-catholic-church-but-theyre-just-not-that-into-religion/

By Scott Clement April 10 at 8:46 AM


Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba in 2012. (AP)

Religion in Cuba is complicated, and a new survey on the island offers a rare snapshot of religious identity in a Communist nation with deep Catholic roots.

Eight in 10 Cubans gave positive ratings to Pope Francis in the survey of 1,200 Cuban residents sponsored by Univision Noticias and Fusion networks, including 92 percent of Catholics. Francis's strong ratings may not be too surprising given his generally strong ratings around the world and role advocating for normalized relations with the United States, a shift Cubans overwhelmingly support. Cuba's Catholic Church is also well-liked, with 7 in 10 rating it positively, including majorities of non-Catholics.

Cubans gave a far more surprising responses when asked "What is your religion?" Fully 44 percent responded that they were "not religious," while 27 percent identified as Catholic, 13 percent as Santeria or Order of Osha, 2 percent each for Protestant or something else and 9 percent gave no answer.

The total share of Christian identifiers in the survey, 34 percent, is far lower than the share estimated by the respected World Christian Database (59 percent). In particular, the poll finds about half as many Catholics (at 27 percent) as the WCD (44 percent). Alternately, the percentage in the poll saying they are not religious (44 percent) is far higher than the WCD's net estimate of atheists and agnostics (23 percent).

more at link

[juxtaposed]

1. What's that tell you, Pls. explane? Who are you anyway?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. "The exact source of WCD estimates is not clear" - pulled out of ... thin air, I think

That table is dated December 2012, and gives, for the United Kingdom, an estimate for 2010 of 71.1% Christian. But the 2011 census gives 59.3% for England and Wales (Scotland is similar; Northern Ireland is more Christian, but at about 2.8% of the UK population, they can't pull the total UK figure up much). And the census figure has always tended to be higher than ones from polls; major social surveys put the proportion of Christians between 44.8% and 46.3% from 2008 to 2012 (difference may well come from the exact wording used - see, for instance, http://ir2.flife.de/data/natcen-social-research/igb_html/pdf/chapters/BSA28_12Religion.pdf ).

[cbayer]

3. This is really confusing. The link in the article goes to the PEW data, which covers much more than

just christian affiliation.

I can't find anything like it on the WCD site, which seems much more biased than PEW.

http://www.worldchristiandatabase.org/wcd/

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The Pew figures do seem to be effectively the same as the WCD figures

http://www.thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_63_2.asp
59.2% Christian (same in both), 5.1% Atheist, 18.0% Agnostic (cf 23.0% 'unaffiliated' in the pew table), 17.2% Spiritist (cf 17.4% 'folk religion' in Pew).

WCD doesn't present its figures for the general public, I think - you have to register.

[cbayer]

5. Got it. I can't find methods and am not interested in putting a whole lot of effort into it.

I suspect things are similar as to what we are seeing in Mexico.

There are a lot of "cultural catholics". They embrace the traditions, love the pope and have a very high regard for the catholic church, but they don't consider themselves religious catholics.

It's an interesting phenomenon.