{"id":17787,"date":"2026-05-06T09:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/17787\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:49:09","slug":"spain-france-and-italy-the-european-countries-where-most-people-leave-catholicism-evangelical-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/17787\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain, France and Italy, the European countries where most people leave Catholicism, Evangelical Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Europe, both Roman Catholicism<\/a> and Protestantism (with its various expressions) are undergoing secularisation.<\/p>\n

According to a new report by Pew Research<\/a>, in several Latin American countries (Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico) there are indeed more adult Protestant converts than Protestants born into families with those beliefs.<\/p>\n

However, in Europe, the two major branches of Christianity are losing far more followers than they are gaining, according to Pew\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

All Evangelical Focus news and opinion,\u00a0on your WhatsApp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report makes no distinction between committed Christians (who, for example, regularly attend Sunday services) and Nominal Christians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Poland is the country where Catholicism is holding up best. 96% were raised in this religion, and 92% said in 2024 that they still considered themselves Catholic. Hungary is a similar case: of the 59% born into a Catholic family, 57% remain so.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the spectrum is Spain, where 80% of the current population was raised as Catholic, but only 45% of all adults say they are Catholic at present. Conversions to Catholicism in this Mediterranean country stand at just 2%.<\/p>\n

In France, too, Catholicism is in sharp decline. Six out of ten were raised as Catholics, but almost half of them (26%) have left the Catholic faith, compared to 34% who still identify with this religion.<\/p>\n

In Italy, identification with Catholicism is currently higher. Of the 89% who were baptised in the Catholic Church at birth, 22% have left the faith, but 67% continue to identify with the faith led by the Vatican.<\/p>\n

Catholicism has also suffered significantly among this generation in Germany (21% remain, 15% have left) and in the Netherlands (19% vs 17%).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The data from the Pew report on Protestantism<\/a> are somewhat more difficult to interpret, as they include members of the Lutheran, Anglican and historic Calvinist churches as well as, to a lesser extent, evangelicals from free independent churches.<\/p>\n

However, the overall picture is of a Christian confession that is also in clear sociological decline.<\/p>\n

In Sweden, two out of three citizens were born into a Protestant church: 38% remain so, but 28% no longer do.<\/p>\n

Further west, in the United Kingdom, 51% of citizens were raised in a Protestant environment, but almost half of them (23%) say they have left that faith.<\/p>\n

In Germany, 41% were born into a Protestant family, but only 24% of Germans identified as such in 2024.<\/p>\n

In the Netherlands, exactly half of those from Protestant families say they are no longer Protestant (14 out of 28%).<\/p>\n

In Hungary, retention is higher; the difference between those born into Protestant households and those who remain so is minimal (18% vs 15% today).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Europe, the numbers of conversions to a Protestant or Evangelical faith are low, according to Pew.<\/p>\n

In Sweden, 4% have \u201cjoined Protestantism after not having been raised in it\u201d. The figure is 3% in the UK, Germany and Spain. Converts without a Protestant background fall to 2% in the Netherlands and France, and represent 1% of the population in Hungary and Italy.<\/p>\n

However, the picture is different when taking a global view of the 24 countries analysed across five continents. \u201cProtestantism has seen a net gain from switching in nearly as many places as it has seen a net loss\u201d, the report concludes.<\/p>\n

\n Published in: Evangelical Focus<\/a> – europe<\/a>
\n – Spain, France and Italy, the European countries where most people leave Catholicism\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Europe, both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism (with its various expressions) are undergoing secularisation. According to a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2705,2703,2704,556,1095,866,2938,9874,9872,2706,9875,17,2730,9873,1259],"class_list":{"0":"post-17787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-church-news","9":"tag-digital-evangelical-news","10":"tag-evangelical-news","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-hungary","13":"tag-italy","14":"tag-netherlands","15":"tag-pew-research","16":"tag-protestantism","17":"tag-religion-news","18":"tag-roman-catholicismchristian-news","19":"tag-spain","20":"tag-statistics","21":"tag-sweden","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}