Paris • With its dwindling rates of attendance at religious services and rising numbers of churches shuttered or sold, Western Europe seems to be the region of the world where the outlook for faith is bleakest.
Roman Catholicism’s Pope Francis was the latest to lament this trend, saying only last week that Western society seemed like “a journey ending in a shipwreck, with the survivors trying to build a raft.”
A new survey by the Pew Research Center looks past the headlines that worry the established churches to ask what Western Europeans think about religion.