LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The United States as we have known it is no more; the religion of the Americans is continues to alter from year to year.For the first time ever, only 47 percent of the United States identifies as Protestant. And a startling one in five claim to be religiously unaffiliated.
For the first time ever, white Protestants are no longer America's religion majority. The Southeast holds the most Evangelical Protestants.
"The unprecedented drop in Protestantism is down to dwindling figures of young people in churches, and a surge in white Christians becoming unaffiliated with religion," according to the Public Religion Research Institute
The nation's Catholic population stands at 23 percent, just one percent up from the non-religious in the United States.
As the United States continues to evolve, all of the information can get lost.
Here are the top five things the AVA tells us about the current religious atmosphere from the Public Religion Research Institute:
1. America is not a majority Protestant nation. Mississippi houses the most Protestants with 81 percent; while, Massachusetts now has the least with only 26 percent of residents identifying as Protestant.
2. White Christians are the minority in 19 states. California only has a population of 25 percent white Christians.
3. More than 1 in 5 Americans are not affiliated with a religion. The religiously unaffiliated are surpassing those with religion. Today's youth are more likely to be nonreligious than seniors at 34 percent to 11 percent.
The number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated is rising. 22 percent of all Americans are unaffiliated; Oregon is the highest state with 39 percent of people unaffiliated.
Help stop the genocide of Christians --
4. The religiously unaffiliated is the largest religious group in 13 states. 35 percent of New Hampshire and 37 percent of Oregon are without religion.
5. Catholics take the Northeast. Rhode Island is the most Catholic state in the United States with 44 percent. Over one-third of the Northeast is Catholic.
Catholicism remains strong in the Northeast, as the number of Hispanic Catholics continue to grow in the South. 49 percent of young Catholics are Hispanic.
