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RELIGION PLAYS A VITAL ROLE FOR 6 IN 10 AMERICANS,

SURVEY REVEALS

More Americans say religion plays an important role in their lives than the people in any other wealthy nation, according to a study published Friday by the Pew Research Center, but some in Europe said it depended on what is meant by religion.

“Just because people say they are religious, doesn’t make it so, no more than if they say they are intelligent or moral,” said the Reverend John Navone, a Jesuit theologician at the Gregorian University in Rome.

The Pew survey, conducted in 44 countries, found that six in 10 Americans described religion as being “very” important in their lives, while secularism is prevalent throughout Europe and Japan and the former Soviet bloc countries. Twice as many Americans avow themselves religious as Canadians.

“Even in heavily Catholic Italy, fewer than three in 10 people say religion is very important personally, a lack of intensity in belief that is consistent with opinion in other Western European nations,” the report said.

The survey on religion is part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a series of worldwide public opinion surveys that attempts to measure the impact of globalization, modernization, rapid technological and cultural change on the values and attitudes of more than 38,000 people in 44 countries.

The survey correlated views on religion with annual per capita income and found that wealthier nations tend to place less importance on religion, with the exception of the United States. “This is most clearly seen in Asia, where publics in the two wealthiest nations surveyed – Japan and South Korea – are far less likely to cite religion as personally important than those in poorer nations of the region.”

THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, Dec. 21-22, 2002