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December 31, 2007

A Roman Britain Again?

Thanks in part to immigration from countries like Poland, the number attending a Roman Catholic service each week in Britain (861,800) now outnumbers those attending a Church of England service (852,500). Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's conversion is certainly a high profile example of the trend.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at December 31, 2007 03:08 PM

Comments

Given that that's out of a population of something like 60 million, I'm sorry to say that the post's title may overstate the situation somewhat.

Also, apparently there are close to 400,000 folks who list their religion as "Jedi Knights", so perhaps once could just as well say "A Corruscant Britain again, like it was a long, long time ago"?

Posted by: philosopher at December 31, 2007 06:59 PM | permalink

Of course, the Church of England is not the only Protestant denomination in Britain, so I'm pretty sure Roman Catholics are still in the minority.

Posted by: Eric Seymour at January 2, 2008 09:44 AM | permalink

I think it's important to recognize that those numbers are for observant Romans and Anglicans. Are those who self-identify with a denomination yet attend less regularly that much less significant? (And how might one be an observant Jedi?)

Besides Poles, I wonder whether the liberalization of the Anglican Communion might affect these numbers. IIRC, there was a mass exodus from the CoE to the Roman Church after the former approved the ordination of women. I would expect a steady trickle has continued.

Posted by: Zach Wendling at January 2, 2008 01:34 PM | permalink

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