c. 2003 Religion News Service

TORONTO _ Canada is still largely a Roman Catholic country, but the secularism that has been the hallmark of West European nations has gained a foothold here. And like the United States, Canada also is becoming increasingly evangelical.

Data culled from the 2001 Canadian census, released May 12, show that 12.8 million Canadians are Roman Catholic, a 4.8 percent increase since 1991. But the proportion of Canadians who are Catholic declined to 43 percent from 45 percent.

The next largest faith group is “Protestant,” at nearly 30 percent, or 8.6 million people. Overall, there was an 8.2 percent decline in the number of Protestants.

A sharp rise in the number of evangelicals seemed to come at the expense of mainline churches. The United, Anglican and especially the Presbyterian churches all experienced significant declines in their memberships.

Christians who identified themselves as apostolic, born-again or evangelical shot up an astonishing 121 percent, to 780,000. On the other hand, Pentecostals dropped by 15 percent.

While seven out of 10 Canadians identified themselves as Roman Catholic or Protestant in 2001, the increase in the proportion of Canadians with no religion as well as the substantial increases in those who are Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist illustrate Canada’s growing religious diversity.

Among the most significant findings of the census is the number of Canadians who indicated no religion: 4.8 million people, an increase of 44 percent. Sixteen percent of the population said they had no religion; a decade earlier, the figure was 12 percent. That puts Canada on par with Great Britain, where the last census found 16 percent of the population had no religion.

Yukon had the highest proportion of nonbelievers, at 37 percent, followed by British Columbia, with 35 percent. Newfoundland and Labrador had the lowest, 2.5 percent.

Nearly 40 percent of those with no religion were age 24 and under.

Experts like Professor Reg Bibby, Canada’s foremost demographer of all things religious, say the category of young people with no religion tends to be temporary, as they age and turn to religion for life-cycles rites.

Muslims are now the largest non-Christian group in Canada. Their numbers grew by a staggering 129 percent over the past 10 years, to nearly 580,000, resulting mainly from immigration from Pakistan, India and Iran. Muslims now account for 2 percent of Canada’s population, up from 1 percent in 1991. And for the first time, Muslims outnumber Jews in both Toronto and Montreal.

While pleased with the sharp rise in their ranks, Muslim leaders point out that more important is the median age of the community, which is 28. (By contrast, the average age of Jews in Canada is 45.) So Muslims, they say, have years to mature into Canadian leaders.

But Jewish community leaders have voiced concern about the increase in Muslims, saying most of the anti-Semitism in Canada emanates from the Islamic community.

Some Jewish leaders also worry that Jews’ eclipse as the country’s largest non-Christian group will affect Canada’s position on the Middle East.

Canadian Jewry grew by a modest 3.7 percent, according to the census. Those who listed themselves as Jewish numbered 330,000. The end of immigration from traditional sources, like the former Soviet republics and South Africa, is cited in explaining the wan increase.

More than half the Jewish population lives in Ontario.

Other large increases were seen among Buddhists (up 84 percent to 300,000); Hindus (up 89 percent to 297,000); and Sikhs (up 89 percent to 278,000.)

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Seven percent of the past decade’s new immigrants were Hindus and 5 percent of immigrants between 1991 and 2001 were Sikh. Nearly half of Canada’s Sikhs live in British Columbia.

Immigration also played a big role in the growth of Roman Catholic numbers. Roman Catholics accounted for 23 percent of all immigrants to Canada in the past decade, the highest proportion for any religion among newcomers.

Just under half of Canada’s Roman Catholics live in Quebec, where they accounted for 83 percent of the population. British Columbia, with 17 percent, had the lowest proportion of Catholics.

There was a healthy increase of 24 percent among Orthodox Christians. While the two largest churches _ Greek Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox _ experienced membership declines in the 1990s, adherents of the Serbian Orthodox and Russian Orthodox more than doubled.

Membership in the United Church declined 8.2 percent, and the number of Anglicans dropped by 7 percent. But the most dramatic decline was 35 percent among Presbyterians.

Spokesman Jim Czegledi said internal figures show a decrease of half that – about 18 percent. Church membership is declining at a rate of between 2 and 3 percentage points a year, and he conceded it’s “very difficult” for the grassroots-based Presbyterian church to adopt a national strategy to reverse the decline.

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