Are practicing Catholics more tolerant of other religions than the rest of the world? Comparative analyses based on World Values Survey data

Our article developed a new Indicator of Global Tolerance, and analyzed the performance of the practicing Roman Catholics in comparison to the national performances. Based on the latest survey wave of the World Values Survey (2015) we first show how much religious tolerance or intolerance shapes public opinion in the individual countries of the world. We then ask ourselves whether or not active, practicing Roman Catholics, who attend Church Services each Sunday (in Catholic jargon the Dominicantes) are more or less tolerant than overall society concerning our chosen five tolerance indicators. For the 59 states of the world there are complete data. While e.g. in Sweden and the United States 30% or less of the population have no confidence in people with a religious denomination other than their own, these percentages in Algeria; Armenia; Yemen; Kyrgyzstan; Libya; Morocco; Mexico; Palestine (occupied territories); Peru; Romania; Tunisia; and Uzbekistan are over 70% each. Among the ten states with the lowest general religious tolerance, based on our five indicators, there are nine predominantly Muslim states. The disappointing results for Germany both at the national level and at the level of the practicing Roman Catholics and the German Muslim community bode ill for the future capability of Germany to integrate the millions of refugees, which came to Germany since the beginnings of the European Refugee Crisis in the fall of 2015.