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Mormons in America have become less Republican over time, according to recent analyses of the Cooperative Election Study (CES). In analyzing national CES data from 2008 to 2022, political scientist Ryan Burge found that Republican affiliation among Mormons peaked at 75 percent in 2012 (when Mitt Romney was a candidate), while reaching a low of 53 percent in both 2017 and 2021 (the Trump years). Writing in her blog Flunking Sainthood (for Religion News Service), Jana Riess notes that in early June, Latter-day Saints leaders issued an unprecedented statement about the dangers of voting a straight-party ticket. “Merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on ‘tradition’ without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards,” the First Presidency wrote to members in the United States. Riess notes that since Latter-day Saints in this country have “a decades-long history of voting Republican, the ‘tradition’ church leaders appear to be challenging is the all-too-common default setting of conservative church members voting for whichever candidate has an ‘R’ next to their name.”
  The U.S. and Utah state flags displayed in front of the
   iconic Salt Lake Temple of the LDS church (Wikimedia
   Commons |Pastelitodepapa).
Because the CES survey has a smaller sample size in odd-numbered years as compared to election years, Riess compiled the data into three five-year blocks, averaging the LDS respondents’ political affiliation from 2008 to 2012, 2013 to 2017, and 2018 to 2022. Comparing the first and last blocks of years, she found a modest Republican loss of about seven percent, although “this hasn’t been a slam-dunk for the Democratic Party. Democrats appear to have gained only 3 points, while independents gained 4.” The biggest losses for LDS Republicans have been among the younger generations. While Republican affiliation took a hit in 2016 among all generations, it bounced back for older Mormons but continued to decline among those born in the 1980s and later. These findings fit with Riess’s analysis, with Benjamin Knoll, of the second-wave data collected from their Next Mormons Survey in 2022. In the first wave, they also found the largest drop in Republican affiliation among the younger generations. But in the second wave, they found the Democratic Party losing support among younger LDS adherents, with about 3 in 10 Gen Xers and millennials identifying as Democrat, but only 1 in 5 members of Gen Z. “In fact, there are as many people in Gen Z who say they have no political preference as report being Democrats,” Riess writes.

(Flunking Sainthood, https://religionnews.com/2023/06/21/us-mormons-are-becoming-less-republican-but-not-by-much/?utm_source=ground.news&utm_medium=referral)

Ireland continues its decline in Catholic affiliation, with the 2022 census measuring Roman Catholic affiliation at 69 percent. The Catholic Newsletter, The Pillar (May 31), reports that this figure is down from 79 percent just in 2016. The number of people selecting the “No religion” box rose from 451,941 in 2016 to 736,210 in 2022, accounting for 14 percent of Ireland’s population. The 10-point decline in the percentage of people identifying as Catholics went along with a drop of less than 5 percent in the absolute number of Catholics in the country, and is partly explained by the increase in the overall Irish population between 2016 and 2022 due to immigration. While Catholic numbers are declining steadily, Catholics now form a smaller proportion of the overall population. “Ireland is secularizing fast, but at the same time, a lot of non-Catholic migrants have come into the country in recent years which is also changing the picture,” said David Quinn of The Iona Institute. But the Central Statistics Office noted that the structure of the question on religious affiliation had changed radically between the two census forms, making direct comparisons problematic. The 2016 census form asked, “What is your religion?” and listed “Roman Catholic” as the first option and “No religion” as the last. The 2022 form asked, “What is your religion, if any?” and put “No religion” as the first option, followed by “Roman Catholic.” The proportion of Catholics was found to vary considerably by region, with a high of 80 percent in County Mayo, in the west of Ireland, and a low of 53 percent in Dublin, which has received the most immigrants.

Source: https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-qmpdh.

(The Pillar, https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/ireland-is-diversifying-says-dublin?)

A striking increase in the share of religiously unaffiliated people in Switzerland does not preclude the existence of spiritual beliefs and practices among a significant percentage of these “nones,” government surveys suggest. In June, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office released its data on religious affiliation based on surveys conducted from 2019 to 2021 among large representative samples. In 1970, 98 percent of the population of Switzerland was Christian. Fifty years later, 32 percent are unaffiliated, making them the largest group after Roman Catholics (33 percent). There are significant regional variations, with the nones making up 57 percent of the population of the city of Basel. The data showed that 35 percent of men and 30 percent of women have no affiliation. The highest percentage of unaffiliated (41 percent) was found among people in the 25–34 age range. Two-thirds of those who do not belong to a religion in Switzerland were religiously affiliated during childhood. About half were Roman Catholic and 40 percent were Reformed. Twenty-nine percent say that they left because they disagreed with their religious group, 17 percent claim that they never believed, and 15 percent report having lost their faith. Moreover, the study identified a significant number of people who still belong to a religious denomination while feeling estranged from it, since 27 percent of the people who spontaneously claim to have no religion are actually still formally affiliated.
In 2019, among the nones in Switzerland, 67 percent reported themselves to be neither religious nor spiritual, but more than 26 percent considered themselves spiritual; in addition, there were 3.9 percent who claimed to be religious and spiritual, and 2.5 percent religious. Nearly 38 percent do not believe in God or in some superior power and 22 percent are agnostic, but 30 percent believe there is some superior power, while 9 percent of nones believe in one God. By contrast, more than 51 percent of religiously affiliated people in Switzerland believe in one God and more than 23 percent in a superior power. There is practically no difference in beliefs about reincarnation or the possibility of communicating with the dead among people with and without a religious affiliation. Thirty percent of the nones report using spiritual techniques such as yoga, Tai Chi or Qigong and nearly the same percentage are interested in personal development. In both cases, this is higher than the average interest of religiously affiliated people in such techniques.

(The Swiss Federal Statistical Office’s report is available for download in German: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/aktuell/neue-veroeffentlichungen.assetdetail.25225675.html; and in French: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/actualites/quoi-de-neuf.assetdetail.25225676.html)

There has been an increase in the number of children attending private, and often religious schools, according to data released by the lobby group Independent Schools Australia. World magazine (June 8) reports that enrollments at ¬private schools in Australia are up 35 percent in the past decade. From 2012 to 2022, enrollment at Islamic schools doubled and grew by 49 percent at nondenominational Christian schools, while rising by 38 percent at nonreligious schools. Religiously affiliated institutions make up 83 percent of all independent schools in Australia. During the pandemic, Australian parents gravitated toward private schools because they adopted remote learning more quickly than public ones. Heads of private schools said parents also want a more structured learning environment for their kids. A shortage of affordable housing within commuting distance of public schools exacerbates teacher shortages, and increasing class sizes also make public schools less desirable. Private schools receive funding from the Australian government in the range of over AU$12,260 (nearly US$8,000) per student, compared with a little under AU$21,000 per public school student. With only 65 ¬percent of Australian students in public school, the government saves billions of dollars in education costs, while parents contribute an average of AU$5,700 in fees per student at private schools. A recent Australian Bureau of Statistics report shows private school retention rates leading public school rates by 18 percentage points.

Source: The Association of Independent Schools of the ACT.

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