"makes greater requirements of its adherents" should be "makes greater demands ...".

As an ex-catholic living in Italy, I would like to bring to your attention the fact that the article gives out as reliable both the figure of 77 m people for the Anglican Communion and more than 1 billion for the Roman Catholics. While I think those 77 millions might be a reliable count of members, I assure you that this "more than 1 billion" is NOT. There is a well defined habit of counting Catholics "ethnically". For example, I am sure that I am in that 1 billion, as I was baptized. Anyway, I converted to a non Christian religion a while ago. Most Italians are just as uninterested to Christianism as English people are. Possibly more than English people, but I think Italy's 57 million people or so are counted as 57 million Catholics. If the same standards were applied to the UK, probably.. there would be many more Anglicans.

One more thing. I am not interested in Christianism any more. But if I had to pick a reasonable "branch" of Christianity, Anglicanism would be the one. I do actually believe the wide freedom and indipendence of different churches within Anglicanism and bishops withing Anglican Churches is far more in line with the early Christians (before the rise of the bishop of Rome) than the Roman Catholic Church is. AND the Anglicans do seem to be better able to adapt to modern culture than the Church of Rome is. They seem to be more in trouble only because the kind of people they would cater to tend to leave Christianity altogether as Christendom tends to be defined as a conservative trend (which is I believe a temporary thing).

jamison:

there is a point in what you say. But the most significative thing you write is that religious identity is a messy thing. I do trust (not completely) the "numbers" in countries where for tax reasons or other reasons one's faith must be stated. However, in some countries where the catholic religion used to represent the totality (such as Italy, with few local exceptions), sometimes, nationality and religious identity do get confused (and I suspect this must be a factor for a number - not all, but a number - of those 23% of Americans who say they are Catholic - especially the Irish and Italians and Polish and Latin Americans between them). In fact, many Italians who visit America comment that America is "too religious". In fact, it's difficult to explain why 82% of Italians are against removing the crucifix from schools when only 75% (eurobarometer) or so of us do believe in God and yet more than 85% say they are Catholic if asked - based on some statistics: and yet one statistic I am sure of is the one of tax returns, where people can choose to give 0.8% of their income tax to a religious organization (but most organizations are excluded): indeed, 85% of those who reply give to the Catholic Church, but only 49% do write down a choice (the money is given to organizations anyway on percentages based on the ones who give a choice, but polls show most Italians believe the money will go to the state if they don't write down a choice) . And how would you explain the fact that now (2008 Istat data) 35% of Italian get married in town halls as opposed to churches (but in the cities in the North percentages are closer to 50%)? And more than 50% of Italians would be in favour of gay marriage (2003 eurispes)?

The fact is in Italy this crucifix issue was presented as a "bowing down" to muslim pressures by most media (while in fact the sentence was caused by a request from an Italian atheist of Finnish origin): most Italians had a reaction based on the perception removing crucifixes would be a favour to Muslims.

I have lived abroad (America and Japan) and known people from many countries and ways. And I do know that the image of people from mediterranean countries brings about ideas of "deeply catholic" peoples in the minds of North Europeans and Americans (for example Japanese do get out as one of the least religious country in the world, based on what they reply in polls: yet the first thing you do in Japan if you visit a new city is visit its temples - and most people do say prayers every single time they enter a temple, and most Japanese I know do carry buddhist or shinto charms - but I digress in here). But the reality is more complex than any statistic may show. Saying "there are 1 billion catholics" does not give out a real number because many subtleties in the meaning, in different environments and cultures, of a simple reply to a question like "which religion are you?" get lost in the cold numbers.

Irony: in my North Italian ex industrial city, many catholic churches sit empty every Sunday. Some have even been leased to Orthodox organizations to serve the growing Romanian minority. Every Sunday, if I look at regional TV stations, I can see two channels which aggressively proselythize for protestant Churches, one is TBNE and the other is a Nigerian protestant organization (who recently started programs in Italian hosted by Italian converts). Wanna guess which communion do the nigerian evangelicals belong to?

"...nationality and religious identity do get confused(and I suspect this must be a factor for a number [of Americans who say they are Catholic]...."

Unlike Italy, the US is a pluralistic country, especially in religion. In the Pew Study of '08, nearly 24% of Americans (306 million) self-identified themselves as Catholic. 8% of that number said they were former Protestants and 10% of the Protestants in the Study said they were former Catholics. The study also noted in the category "no religion" went up to 15%, with as many as 30% of those being Catholic. People move around in religion; but if someone self-identifies himself/herself as Catholic, one takes it at face value.

"...with some recent immigrants ... or people from traditional families...."

Gian,

The States, Canada, and (almost to the same extent) Latin America, are a very poll-driven societies. This "poll consciousness" affects the churches and the way they oversee dioceses and religious organizations. Besides the numerous non-religious research organizations (like Pew, Gallup, etc.) that conduct polls on religious practice, often Catholic "think tanks" at the 220 US Catholic universities or colleges take their own polls, most notably at Georgetown and Notre Dame Universities. Also Catholic pastors, whose parishes have to pay assessments to the bishops based on the number of parishioners in each parish, need to tally registered members to get the donation right. Ironically, some pastors "under-register" members to pay less to the diocese or bishop. This discrepancy shows in national polls. In 2008, for example, Catholic bishops counted 68 million registered Catholics in the US while most polls counted between 72 to 75 million (of people who identified themselves as Catholic). And this does not include undocumented immigrant Catholics, who are/were not registered. So number and polls do count and are taken seriously, whether counting traditional families or non-traditional families.

Finally, parishes and relgious institutions in the US have never been the sole source the religious narratives that serve to stucture identities of individual adherents, especially in such a religious pluralistic society as the US. Catholic I know (who rarely go to church, yst are quite adamant about identitying themselves as Catholic) forge their religious identities through a complex series of negotiations on both personal and collective levels (apart from the official church). Polls pick up on this element of choice and voluntary self-identification, so tipical of pluralistic societies.

In regard to Japan: the Japanese are a very homogeneous society, culturally, socially, religiously, etc., and have no need to "belong" when nearly everyone belongs and is of the same or similar standing, uniform throughout (except in deference to the Emperor) in national composition. My Japanese students tell me that all the time. Religous "belonging" is more common in pluralistic societies than in homogeneous societies like Japan. In many respects I would think Italy -- 100 yrs ago -- would be similar to Japan, but not today.