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What we know about the victims and survivors of the Key Bridge collapse

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Families impacted

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Maynor Suazo, one of the six construction workers who died while working on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed, had two children. (Courtesy of Hector Suazo)

At least six are presumed dead, authorities say

The six construction workers who fell to their death when Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed were all Latino immigrants ranging from ages 26 to 49.They were described as hardworking, humble men, dedicated to their spouses, children and families in their homelands. Foreign embassies have confirmed the men to be from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.

Divers found two of the men trapped inside of a red pickup truck in 25 feet of water Wednesday evening, Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Roland L. Butler Jr. said at a somber press conference. They were identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, and from Veracruz in Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, who is from San Luis in Guatemala.

Eight workers were atop the bridge repairing potholes when the container ship struck it, sending it plummeting into the water within seconds. Two of the construction workers survived, including one who was from Michoacán in Mexico and is currently recovering from injuries.

Officials have not release the names of other victims, but The Baltimore Banner and other news outlets have identified three of the other men.

The men, who worked for Brawner Builders, a Baltimore County-based construction company, were part of the growing immigrant communities based in Southeast Baltimore and Dundalk, according to an online fundraiser for their families started by the Latino Racial Justice Circle, a nonprofit organization in Baltimore that supports immigrants.

Two of the men had ties to CASA, an immigrant advocacy and service organization that works in Baltimore.

One was Miguel Luna, a Maryland resident for nearly 20 years, said Gustavo Torres, CASA's executive director. Originally from El Salvador, Luna was a husband and father of three children. The other was Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, the youngest of eight children from Honduras.

" The entire Baltimore region and CASA family is lamenting this tragedy," said Gustavo Torres said. "Our hearts ache for the families of the victims and all those impacted by this horrific accident."

Maynor was like a brother to Hector Suazo, his 34-year-old nephew. Hector, who talked to The Baltimore Banner from Honduras, described Maynor as a pillar of the family who was extroverted and always full of joy. He had an entrepreneurial mind and wanted to open a small business in Owings Mills, where he lived.

He was originally from the small municipality of Azacualpa. The town's people live mostly in poverty and there aren't a lot of jobs, Hector said. Many in the community saw migrating to the United States as one of the few ways to secure a better life. Maynor helped his family financially after coming to the U.S., sending $600 to $800 each month enabling the family to run a small hotel.

The family was able to rise from poverty because of him, Hector said.

He also helped care for his twelve nephews and nieces, Hector said. It's because of Maynor that they were able to go to school rather than work. Maynor made sure they had what they needed, that they had food at their table.

The rest of Maynor's salary supported him, his wife and two children. One of them was Alexa, his 5-year-old daughter.

Maynor Suazo had two children. One of them was his 5-year-old daughter Alexa. (Courtesy of Hector Suazo/Courtesy of Hector Suazo)

Maynor, who worked a series of jobs before landing at the construction company during the pandemic, never talked about being scared of the work, despite the dangers of his job.

"He always told us that you had to triple your effort to get ahead," his brother Martín Suazo Sandoval told The Associated Press from Honduras. "He said it didn't matter what time or where the job was, you had to be where the work was."

Maynor often worked at least two jobs, his cousin Hector said. After his night shift that lasted from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., he started working again at noon. He cleaned yards; he was a gardener; he painted houses.

Martín told The Associated Press he still hoped his brother had survived.

"These are difficult moments, and the only thing we can do is keep the faith," he said, noting that his younger brother knew how to swim and could have ended up anywhere. If the worst outcome is confirmed, he said the family would work to return his body to Honduras.

Family members of Jose Mynor Lopez, a 35-year-old from Guatemala, has confirmed to The Baltimore Banner that he was one of the men presumed to be dead. He was father of two children, a boy and a girl, and lived with his wife Isabel, who worked at Owls Corner Cafe, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Dundalk.

The bodies of the four remaining workers, who are presumed dead given the cold water temperatures and time passed, will be harder to find.

Officials said they could no longer safely search for additional victims without first removing the massive amounts of concrete and debris from the bridge from the waters. The recovery mission was now a salvage operation, Butler said.

Jesus Campos, an employee at the Cockeysville-based construction company, used to work the overnight shift of the bridge work before switching to other hours. He knew the "hardworking, humble men" who died, he said. All of them came to Baltimore for a better life - not necessarily for themselves, he said, but for the loved ones they left behind in their home countries.

The construction company's executive vice president, Jeffrey Pritzker, said Wednesday morning during a brief phone interview that the company will "do everything it can" to help the families. A note posted on Brawner Builders' website said the bridge collapse was "completely unforeseen," and even though the company prioritizes workers' safety, Tuesday's "was not something that we could imagine would happen."

The community has banded together to help the families of the workers.

Standing together at a restaurant in Highlandtown Wednesday night, advocates for families said they raised $97,000 in six hours through a GoFundMe link put out by Latino Racial Justice Circle.

"It was an incredible amount of time, it was incredibly fast," said Susana Barrios, vice president of the organization.

Now, Barrios said, they are "passing the baton" to the mayor's office of immigrant affairs, which is better equipped to manage the money. The donations will be distributed amongst the six families.

"We are all united in this pain," community organizer Lucia Islas said, referencing a deep coalition of support that includes the city, Baltimore County, community organizations and religious groups. She stressed importance of protecting the family's dignity.

"What we want is people to see us as a community," Carlos Crespo, another community organizer, added - not a political football, not as a labor force.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Roland L. Butler Jr.'s first name.

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Clara Longo de Freitas,Hallie Miller,Daniel Zawodny

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What we know about the victims and survivors of the Key Bridge collapse

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The six missing workers were all part of Baltimore's flourishing Latino community, immigrant advocates say.

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Burna Boy - Real Life feat. Stormzy [Official Music Video]

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Burna Boy - Real Life feat. Stormzy [Official Music Video]

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What Students Are Saying About Prayer in Schools, Quelling Self-Doubt and a Field in Starlight

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Varying beliefs about prayer

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What Students Are Saying About Prayer in Schools, Quelling Self-Doubt and a Field in Starlight

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Teenage comments in response to our recent writing prompts, and an invitation to join the ongoing conversation.

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Police stopping drivers for Marijuana smell

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Antisemitic incidents nearly double in Maryland in 2022 over previous year, audit finds

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Antisemitic acts increase in Md.

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Michael Silver says he began to observe antisemitic behavior almost immediately after moving to Baltimore five years ago.

He said he hasn't encountered violence personally, but remembered hearing a conversation in a Station North bar where college students were trivializing the Holocaust.

"They were saying there was too much emphasis put on it," the 33-year-old Pigtown resident recalled. "Two weeks ago, I had a manager [at work] say, 'Jews are really cheap.' ... It is a big deal, and it is a racial thing. I've had a lot of people say things that are bombastic and incendiary."

Maryland saw 109 reported incidents of antisemitism in 2022, a 98% increase from 2021, according to the Anti-Defamation League's annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. There were 55 incidents in 2021, 47 in 2020 and 20 in 2019.

"I'm very hurt. I don't know the best way to solve this. When I hear these numbers, I feel reactionary. I feel angry and defensive. Those are all the exact opposite of what we need," said Silver, whose grandfather survived the concentration camps at Auschwitz during World War II.

The Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate organization,attributes the increase to antisemitic incidents tied to opposition to Israel or Zionismand the mainstreaming of these attitudes in popular culture by figures such as rapper Kanye West and professional basketball player Kyrie Irving.

"We are deeply troubled by this dramatic surge of antisemitic incidents reported, particularly in Maryland and Virginia in 2022," said Meredith R. Weisel, regional director for ADL Washington, D.C., in a written statement. "These numbers are completely unacceptable."

Wiesel attributed the spike to a surge in organized white supremacist propaganda activity, as well as an increase in incidents in K-12 schools and on college campuses.

Shortly before Hanukkah last year, for example, vandals painted "Jews Not Welcome" on an entrance sign at a Bethesda high school after a lesson on antisemitism, The Washington Post reported. Teachers reported getting antisemitic emails, and hateful graffiti was found at a mall bus stop and along a popular walking trail in Montgomery County.

Also last year, vandals painted antisemitic graffiti on mailboxes on Greenspring Avenue in Baltimore County and swastikas and messages of hate on headstones at the German Hill Road Cemetery in Baltimore, WMAR reported in August.

Maryland's numbers mean that the state registered the 10th highest number of antisemitic incidents in the country reported in 2022. The total includes 63 incidents of harassment; 43 incidents of vandalism; and three assaults - up from zero in 2021. Virginia, with 69 antisemitic incidents, saw a 50% increase during this period, while Washington, D.C., with 37 incidents, saw a 30% decrease, according to the audit.

" It is particularly concerning that Maryland and Virginia saw such pronounced increases in reported incidents, as it shows there is a mainstreaming and normalization of antisemitic activity that is having a tremendous impact on our communities," Weisel said. "We must work together to combat the spread of bigotry and hate in our communities."

The Jewish community in the Baltimore region ranges from 100,000 to 120,000 people, according to Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council. The figure covers not only some 95,000 Jews, but non-Jewish household members, such as spouses and children.

"I think it comes from all sides. Antisemitism is not just grounded in the right, the left or in faith. Unfortunately, we are seeing it from all political points of view," Libit said. "There was a noticeable surge during the presidency of Donald Trump. But it's not all just tied to him. There is a surge in white supremacist groups. ... There are leaders in the entertainment industry, sports industry and elected officials who have made comments. That encourages it [antisemitism] more broadly."

Silver also attributed the increases to a variety of factors.

"I think that Trump's ascendancy toward power definitely unlocked this door of right-wing fanaticism. But I also think that happened with the left," Silver said, adding that he started seeing an uptick in antisemitism in 2008. "This academic environment is extremely hostile toward Jews. These millennials have this embedded in them and they don't even realize it. It has become so much more acceptable to be audible about your prejudices."

Silver also believes that isolation during the pandemic has been a contributing factor.

"It brought out all these crazy insecurities and crazy opinions," he added.

Libit said that the Baltimore region fortunately has not experienced the levels of violent crime and incidents that have occurred throughout the country. But he added that the uptick generally has caused concern within the Jewish community.

"We know there are many Jews who are changing their behavior because of antisemitism," he said. "It could be as simple as they are not wearing a Star of David necklace. ... At the same time, we have to keep things in perspective. We can't become so obsessed with antisemitism and security that we lose sight of the fact that America is a safe space for Jewish people."

This rings particularly true for Silver, who said that even though he is not a particularly religious person, he avoids adorning his home with religious symbols.

Silver does not have a mezuzah displayed on the outside of his home. The Jewish symbol is traditionally supposed to beaffixed to the doorpost at the entrance of a Jewish home. Instead, he places his inside the home and out of sight from the outside. He also does not display a special menorah in his window during Hanukkah.

"I do have a Star of David that I do make sure I have tucked in," he added.

Libit cautioned that the number of antisemitic incidents reported is likely much lower than what actually occurs because people do not report them.

"They just wash off the vandalism off their house or car and they move on," he lamented. "I think [the numbers] are far higher. The general consensus is that there are more. We are encouraging people to report it."

Libit enthusiastically supports the recently announced national campaign, #StandUpToJewishHate. The $25 million effort led by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft encourages all Americans - especially non-Jewish people - to combat antisemitism. Supporters are being encouraged to post blue squares in social media posts to show their solidarity with the campaign.

"I think you are going to see influencers joining in on this campaign," Libit said. "If we can help spread the word about the dangers of antisemitism, we can be successful."

In the meantime, Libit said, his organization will continue to promote education about antisemitism; encourage allyship and the support of other groups that experience hate; and advocate for tougher hate crimes and security.

Silver is glad there are efforts to increase awareness of antisemitism. But he worries that a blue square campaign might draw ire from people thinking that it might be too similar to Black Lives Matter social media efforts.

He believes that sincerity and tolerance are key.

"As I have gotten older, unfortunately my position has gone from, 'How do we repair these relationships?' to a much more hawkish position of 'How do we protect ourselves?' I recognize that is unfortunate, but it is honest," he said.

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Antisemitic incidents nearly double in Maryland in 2022 over previous year, audit finds

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Michael Silver says he began to observe antisemitic behavior almost immediately after moving to Baltimore five years ago. He said he hasn't encountered violence personally, but remembered hearing a conversation in a Station North bar where college students were trivializing the Holocaust. "They were saying there was too much emphasis put on it," the 33-year-old Pigtown resident recalled.

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Finally approved with bi-partisan support

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The law today is named for one lynching victim, 14-year-old Emmett Till. In 1955, until was accused of whistling at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi, where he was in town visiting family.

His brutal kidnapping, torture, and murder laid bare in an open casket funeral put on national display the violent racism of the Jim Crow South. Till's killers, like 99 percent of lynching perpetrators, were never convicted of the crime. His murder galvanized calls for change.

But the effort in Congress to declare lynching a crime actually preceded till's death. In 1900, George Henry White, who was at the time the only African American member of Congress, introduced the first anti-lynching bill.

Making his case on the House floor, White said - quote - "I tremble with horror for the future of our nation if mob violence is not stamped out of existence."

It never got a vote, the first of more than 200 times Congress stalled on the issue. The efforts from the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, met a staunch Southern bloc in the Senate that, for decades, filibustered civil rights legislation.

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Biden signs law making lynching a federal hate crime

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The law today is named for one lynching victim, 14-year-old Emmett Till. In 1955, until was accused of whistling at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi, where he was in town visiting family. His brutal kidnapping, torture, and murder laid bare in an open casket funeral put on national display the violent racism of the Jim Crow South.

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useful

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Background info

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Groups that threaten religious minority

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In 2009, a DHS report predicted that the recession coupled with the nation's first Black president could give rise to a surge in right-wing domestic terrorism. Political backlash ensued, and the intelligence unit disbanded. Now, over a decade later, the report's author is still ringing alarm bells. We share his story.

Daryl Johnson, former senior domestic terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Owner of DT Analytics, a consulting firm for law enforcement that analyzes domestic terrorist activity. Author of " Hateland: A Long, Hard Look at America's Extremist Heart" and " Right-Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat is Being Ignored." (@DTAnalytics)

Det. Sgt. Heather Taylor, president of the Ethical Society of Police, which represents many black officers in the St. Louis region. Night watch Homicide Sergeant with the St. Louis Metro Police Department. (@HthrTylr)

Rep. Norma Torres, Democratic Representative for California's 35th congressional district. Last month, she and 27 lawmakers requested that the Department of Justice release the full contents of a 2006 FBI report titled "White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement." (@NormaJTorres)
Excerpt from the 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on the resurgence of right-wing extremist activity in the U.S., authored by Daryl Johnson.
The Washington Post: " I warned of right-wing violence in 2009. Republicans objected. I was right." - "Eight years ago, I warned of a singular threat - the resurgence of right-wing extremist activity and associated violence in the United States as a result of the 2008 presidential election, the financial crisis and the stock market crash. My intelligence report, meant only for law enforcement, was leaked by conservative media."

The Las Vegas Sun: "Right-wing extremist violence is a scourge in Las Vegas and across the nation" - "Never forget this: Radical right-wing extremists tried to attack Las Vegas and kill our citizens this week. Consistently and indiscriminately, the violent right wing targets our city. Targets you. And your children. And your friends. All of us. The violent right wing is the enemy of Las Vegas."

The Intercept: " The FBI Has Quietly Investigated White Supremacist Infiltration Of Law Enforcement" - "White supremacists and other domestic extremists maintain an active presence in U.S. police departments and other law enforcement agencies. A striking reference to that conclusion, notable for its confidence and the policy prescriptions that accompany it, appears in a classified FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide from April 2015, obtained by The Intercept. The guide, which details the process by which the FBI enters individuals on a terrorism watchlist, the Known or Suspected Terrorist File, notes that "domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers," and explains in some detail how bureau policies have been crafted to take this infiltration into account."

Salon: " He sounded the alarm on 'Hateland': Daryl Johnson warned us about right-wing terror in 2009" - "Over the past two weeks, 25 people were killed in a series of attacks by apparent white supremacists in El Paso, Texas, and Gilroy, California. These events are part of a global "race war," in which white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other members of the New Right have killed hundreds of people around the world since 2011. On Sunday, in what appears to be another white supremacist terror attack, a 21-year-old white man opened fire on a mosque in Norway. A 75-year-old man who is a member of the mosque's congregation tackled the alleged terrorist to the ground and then subdued and disarmed him."

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Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism Is On The Rise. Did The Warning Signs Evade Us?

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In 2009, a DHS report predicted that the recession coupled with the nation's first Black president could give rise to a surge in right-wing domestic terrorism. Political backlash ensued, and the intelligence unit disbanded. Now, over a decade later, the report's author is still ringing alarm bells. We share his story.

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Making a difference through kind acts

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https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

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Intersection of religion and government in the United States

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US facts about religion and government

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The separation of church and state has come under scrutiny again this summer after the Supreme Court sided with religious conservatives in a series of rulings. One of the rulings allows states to fund religious schools indirectly, while another protects religious schools from federal employment discrimination lawsuits.

Americans have been debating where to draw the line between religion and government since the country's founding. And even as the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans rises, church and state remain intertwined in many ways - often with the public's support.

Here are eight facts about the connections between religion and government in the United States, based on previously published Pew Research Center analyses.

While the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, every state constitution references either God or the divine. God also appears in the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and on U.S. currency.

Congress has always been overwhelmingly Christian, and roughly nine-in-ten representatives (88%) in the current Congress identify as Christian, according to a 2019 analysis. While the number of self-identified Christians in Congress ticked down in the last election, Christians as a whole - and especially Protestants and Catholics - are still overrepresented on Capitol Hill relative to their share of the U.S. population.

Almost all U.S. presidents, including Donald Trump, have been Christian, and many have identified as either Episcopalian or Presbyterian. But two of the most famous presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, had no formal religious affiliation. Most U.S. presidents have been sworn in with a Bible, and they traditionally seal their oath of office with "so help me God."

Roughly half of Americans feel it is either very (20%) or somewhat (32%) important for a president to have strong religious beliefs, according to a survey this past February. But only around four-in-ten (39%) say it is important for a president to share their religious beliefs. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say it is at least somewhat important for a president to have strong religious beliefs (65% vs 41%).

Americans are divided on the extent to which the country's laws should reflect Bible teachings. Roughly half of U.S. adults say the Bible should influence U.S. laws either a great deal (23%) or some (26%), and more than a quarter (28%) say the Bible should prevail over the will of the people if the two are at odds, according to the February survey. Half of Americans, meanwhile, say the Bible shouldn't influence U.S. laws much (19%) or at all (31%).

More than six-in-ten Americans (63%) say churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. An even higher share (76%) say these houses of worship should not endorse political candidates during elections, according to a 2019 survey. Still, more than a third of Americans (36%) say churches and other houses of worship should express their views on social and political matters. (The Johnson Amendment, enacted in 1954, prohibits tax-exempt institutions like churches from involvement in political campaigns on behalf of any candidate.)

Only about a third of Americans (32%) say government policies should support religious values. Two-thirds (65%) say religion should be kept out of government policies, a 2017 Pew Research Center survey found.

Even though the Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that it is unconstitutional for a teacher to lead a class in prayer at a public school, 8% of public school students ages 13 to 17 say they have ever experienced this, according to a 2019 survey. (It is, however, possible that some teens who said they've experienced this could have previously attended religious private schools where teacher-led prayer is constitutional.) This experience is more common in the South (12%) than in the Northeast (2%). Four-in-ten U.S. teens in public schools (41%) feel it's appropriate for a teacher to lead a class in prayer, including 29% of teens who know that this practice is banned but say that it is acceptable nevertheless.

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8 facts about religion and government in the United States

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The separation of church and state has come under scrutiny again this summer after the Supreme Court sided with religious conservatives in a series of rulings. One of the rulings allows states to fund religious schools indirectly, while another protects religious schools from federal employment discrimination lawsuits.

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Changing landscape- Intro video

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Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

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Highlights from the Pew Research report "U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious." There has been a modest drop in overall rates of belief in God and participation in religious practices. But religiously affiliated Americans are as observant as before.

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Video: How the U.S. Public Became Less Religious | Pew Research Center

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Highlights from the Pew Research report "U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious." There has been a modest drop in overall rates of belief in God and participation in religious practices. But religiously affiliated Americans are as observant as before.

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Teaching gender diversity v. nature

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Pope Francis said on Sunday that homosexuals and transsexuals should be treated with respect but that teaching gender theory is unacceptable "indoctrination" of young people.

"When a person (who is gay) arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say, 'Go away because you are homosexual,'" Francis said.

The pope made his comments in the latest wide-ranging and freewheeling conversation with reporters aboard the plane returning from a foreign trip.

The pope, who made headlines on his first trip in 2013 when he uttered his now-famous phrase "Who am I to judge?" about homosexuals, spoke in answer to a question about a comment he made in Georgia about various threats to marriage.

He said that as a priest, bishop and even now pope, he had ministered to people with homosexual tendencies as well as some who were not able to remain chaste, as the Church asks them to be.

"I accompanied them, I brought them closer to the Lord," he said. "Some were not able (to obey Church teachings), but I accompanied them and I never abandoned one of them. That is a fact. People must be accompanied just like Jesus accompanies them."

During his trip to Georgia and Azerbaijan, he told priests and nuns that teaching gender theory in schools was part of a "global war" against marriage.

Gender theory is broadly the concept that while people may be biologically male or female, they have the right to identify themselves as male, female, both or neither.

"What I was talking about was the nastiness that is present today in indoctrinating people in gender theory," he said when asked to elaborate on his earlier comments in Georgia.
"IDEOLOGICAL COLONIZATION"
He said gender theory being taught in schools "is against natural things."

"It is one thing for a person to have this tendency, this option, and even change sex," he said. "But it is another thing to teach it, gender theory, in schools along these lines in order to change mentality. I call this ideological colonization."

The pope has used the phrase "ideological colonization" in

the past to denounce what he says are attempts by rich countries to link development aid to the acceptance of social policies such as allowing gay marriage and contraception.

Francis told the story of a Spanish person he met who told him of how much he had suffered because he felt like a boy in a girl's body. The person later had a sex change operation and married a woman.

The person told Francis in a letter how much the couple suffered when a local priest shouted to them: "You will go to hell." Francis invited them to the Vatican to talk, and the couple were pleased that they were treated with dignity.

"Life is life, and things should be taken as they come," the pope said. "Sin is sin, but tendencies or hormonal imbalances ... can cause many problems and we have to be careful.

"But each case must be welcomed, accompanied, studied, discerned and integrated. This is what Jesus would do today."

He then joked: "Please don't write that the pope will sanctify transsexuals. I can see the front pages of papers now. But no, it is a moral question. It is a human question, and it must be resolved as best as possible, always with the mercy of God, the truth ... always with an open heart."

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Pope Calls Teaching Children About Gender Diversity 'Against Nature'

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Pope Francis said on Sunday that homosexuals and transsexuals should be treated with respect but that teaching gender theory is unacceptable "indoctrination" of young people. "When a person (who is gay) arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say, 'Go away because you are homosexual,'" Francis said.

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About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated

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Affiliations continue to decline

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Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

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Self-identified Christians make up 63% of U.S. population in 2021, down from 75% a decade ago

The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing. The latest Pew Research Center survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago.

Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011. In addition, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray on a daily basis has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is "very important" in their lives.

Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious "nones" - people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or "nothing in particular" when asked about their religious identity. Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians) make up 63% of the adult population. Christians now outnumber religious "nones" by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, when the Center began asking its current question about religious identity, Christians outnumbered "nones" by almost five-to-one (78% vs. 16%).

The recent declines within Christianity are concentrated among Protestants. Today, 40% of U.S. adults are Protestants, a group that is broadly defined to include nondenominational Christians and people who describe themselves as "just Christian" along with Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and members of many other denominational families. The Protestant share of the population is down 4 percentage points over the last five years and has dropped 10 points in 10 years.

By comparison, the Catholic share of the population, which had ticked downward between 2007 and 2014, has held relatively steady in recent years. As of 2021, 21% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Catholic, identical to the Catholic share of the population in 2014.

Within Protestantism, evangelicals continue to outnumber those who are not evangelical. Currently, 60% of Protestants say "yes" when asked whether they think of themselves as a "born-again or evangelical Christian," while 40% say "no" or decline to answer the question.

This pattern exists among both White and Black Protestants. Among White Protestants, 58% now say "yes" when asked whether they think of themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, compared with 42% who say "no" (or decline to answer the question). Among Black Protestants, evangelicals outnumber non-evangelicals by two-to-one (66% vs. 33%).

Overall, both evangelical and non-evangelical Protestants have seen their shares of the population decline as the percentage of U.S. adults who identity with Protestantism has dropped. Today, 24% of U.S. adults describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants, down 6 percentage points since 2007. During the same period, there also has been a 6-point decline in the share of adults who are Protestant but not born-again or evangelical (from 22% to 16%).

These are among the key findings of the latest National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS), conducted by Pew Research Center from May 29 to Aug. 25, 2021. NPORS is an annual survey (first done in 2020) conducted online and on paper (by mail) among a nationally representative group of respondents selected using address-based sampling from the U.S. Postal Service's delivery sequence file. The Center uses NPORS to produce benchmark estimates for several characteristics of the U.S. population, including Americans' political and religious affiliations. Readers interested in additional details about NPORS can find them in the May 2021 report " How Pew Research Center Uses Its National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)."

The 2021 NPORS also asked respondents how often they pray and how important religion is in their lives. Today, fewer than half of U.S. adults (45%) say they pray on a daily basis. By contrast, nearly six-in-ten (58%) reported praying daily in the 2007 Religious Landscape Study, as did 55% in the 2014 Landscape Study. Roughly one-third of U.S. adults (32%) now say they seldom or never pray, up from 18% who said this in 2007.

The long-term trend in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their lives is a bit more difficult to measure precisely. Whereas indicators of religious identity and frequency of prayer produced by self-administered surveys (like the NPORS) can be directly compared with estimates produced by interviewer-administered surveys (like the Center's earlier telephone surveys), self-administered surveys may produce slightly lower estimates of religion's importance compared with interviewer-administered surveys. (For additional discussion of whether and how religious measures from telephone surveys can be compared with those from self-administered surveys, see " Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel.")

Still, the available data indicates that Americans are growing less religious by this measure, too. Random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone surveys conducted in 2017 and 2019 found fewer U.S. adults saying religion is "very important" in their lives compared with previous telephone polls. And the 2021 NPORS finds that 41% of U.S. adults now say religion is "very important" in their lives, 4 points lower than the 2020 NPORS and substantially lower than all of the Center's earlier RDD readings on this question.

Other key findings from the 2021 NPORS include:

Roughly three-in-ten adults in the new survey (31%) say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, including 25% who say they attend at least once a week and 7% who attend once or twice a month. These figures are similar to 2020, when 33% reported attending religious services at least once or twice a month. (Unlike the data about religious identity, frequency of prayer and importance of religion, estimates of religious attendance from the NPORS - which is conducted online and on paper - are not comparable with estimates from the Center's earlier telephone polling. For a detailed analysis of how NPORS results can be compared with data from telephone surveys, see the Center's January 2021 report "Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel.")

More than six-in-ten Black Protestants (63%) say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, with monthly attendance peaking at 70% among Black evangelical Protestants. Fully 56% of White evangelical Protestants also say they attend religious services at least once a month. Regular religious attendance is much less common among U.S. Catholics (35% of whom say they attend monthly or more often) and White Protestants who are not born-again/evangelical (28%). And frequent religious attendance is almost unheard of among religious "nones," 97% of whom say they attend a few times a year or less. (Although the NPORS includes respondents from many religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others, the sample did not have enough interviews with members of these religious groups to report separately on their religious practices. However, Pew Research Center has conducted several surveys designed specifically to describe the attributes of these and other relatively small religious communities in the United States; see, for example, "Jewish Americans in 2020" and "U.S. Muslims Concerned About their Place in Society, But Continue to Believe in the American Dream.")

Eight-in-ten self-described born-again/evangelical Protestants (79%) say they pray every day, including 76% of White evangelicals and 81% of Black evangelicals. Similarly large shares of born-again/evangelical Protestants say religion is "very important" in their lives. By comparison, far fewer Protestants who are not born-again/evangelical and Catholics say they pray daily and that religion is very important in their lives. Most religious "nones" say they seldom or never pray (71%) and that religion is not too or not at all important in their lives (78%).

In addition to the 63% of U.S. adults who identify as Christians, the 2021 NPORS finds that 6% of adults identify with non-Christian faiths. This includes 1% who describe themselves as Jewish, 1% who are Muslim, 1% who are Buddhist, 1% who are Hindu and 2% who identify with a wide variety of other faiths. (While 1% of NPORS respondents identify with Judaism as a religion, a larger and more comprehensive Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews conducted in 2020 estimates that 1.7% of U.S. adults identify as Jewish by religion.)

All the subgroups that together make up the religious "nones" have grown over time. In the 2021 NPORS, 4% of respondents describe themselves as atheists (up from 2% in 2011), and 5% describe themselves as agnostics (up from 3% a decade ago). One-in-five U.S. adults (20%) now describe their religion as "nothing in particular," up from 14% who said this 10 years ago.

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About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated

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Self-identified Christians make up 63% of U.S. population in 2021, down from 75% a decade ago The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing.

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Pew map: A look at a map around the world

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Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

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Visualizing gender differences in religious commitment around the world | Pew Research Center

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Freedom of School Prayer Debate

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Useful Video includes discussion about conflict & intentions

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Recgonition Dinner College of Science and Mathematics

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Recognition Dinner : College of Education

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Uploaded by Towson University on 2016-06-21.

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Programs and Resources

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Due on Thursday, 3/28

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Dr. Paul Jones on Quakers