Source: Huffington Post

By Antonia Blumberg; Associate Religion Editor, The Huffington Post

And the majority of them say they are unlikely to return to the church.

Roughly half of Americans raised in Catholic households have left the church at some point — and most of them have stayed away for good, according to a recent report by Pew Research Center.

These “former Catholics” make up 15 percent of the U.S. population, according to another recent survey by Public Religion Research Institute. These Americans are largely abandoning religion altogether after leaving the Catholic Church, while others find new homes in Protestant denominations and non-Christians faiths.

Former Catholics, as a group, are much more likely than Catholics to be under the age of 30 (33 percent vs. 16 percent, respectively) and identify as politically liberal (37 percent vs. 27 percent, respectively).

Those who have left the church are much less likely than Catholics to express positive views of Pope Francis (64 percent vs. 90 percent.) And less that half of former Catholics (43 percent) hold favorable views of the Catholic Church.

PRRI found that former Catholics are roughly twice as likely as practicing Catholics to speak negatively about the Church (39 percent vs. 22 percent, respectively). They are also five times more likely to mention the clergy sex abuse scandal (11 percent vs. 2 percent, respectively) as an issue of concern.

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