Massachusetts

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Massachusetts
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Its major city is Boston. It was initially founded by Puritans but today Protestants make up less than one-third of the state's population. Around half the population is Roman Catholic because of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, and Puerto Rico. In recent years there has been a strong advocacy of gay marriage in this state.

History

Geography

Peoples

Economy

Politics

Religion

Given that Massachusetts was founded and settled by Puritans in the 17th century there has historically been a large Protestant population, especially of the Congregational and United Church of Christ churches. Both of these denominations.

Today Protestants make up less than a quarter of the population and Roman Catholicism predominate because of immigration from Ireland, Italy and other countries with strong ties to Roman Catholicism. There are over 3 million Roman Catholics living in Massachusetts.

There is also a large Jewish population which came to the area in the early twentienth century, and now almost 300,000 Jews live in Massachusetts.

A number of religious off-shoots from Christianity have roots in Massachusetts. These include Christian Science, whose founder made Boston the world headquarters for the religion. The world headquarters of the Unitarian-Universalist Church is also located in Boston.

The religious affiliations of the people of Massachusetts, according to a 2001 survey, are shown in the table below[1]

  • Christian – 69%
    • Catholic – 44%
    • Protestant – 22%
      • Baptist – 4%
      • Congregational/United Church of Christ – 3%
      • Episcopal – 3%
      • Methodist – 2%
      • Pentecostal – 2%
      • Other Protestant or general Protestant – 8%
  • Jewish – 2%
  • Other Religions – 6%
  • Non-Religious – 16%
  • Refused to answer – 7%

References

  1. "American Religious Identification Survey". Exhibit 15. The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Website: www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm

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