Poll Finds Most Americans Plan to Attend Church on Easter Sunday

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Mar 27, 2013, 11:12 ET

Catholics even more likely to attend Easter services and observe Lent than Americans as a whole

NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 27, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With Easter just around the corner, most Americans say their plans for the day include attending church according to new Knights of Columbus-Marist Poll.

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans (58 percent) say they intend to be in church on Easter Sunday according to the survey. Among Catholics overall the number rises to 7 in 10 (70 percent) while among practicing Catholics the number grows to more than 9 in 10 (92 percent).

Catholics are also nearly twice as likely to observe the season of Lent – the forty days of preparation for Easter that begin on Ash Wednesday – than are Americans as a whole. Nearly two thirds of Catholics (62 percent) and nearly 8 in 10 practicing Catholic (79 percent) say that they intend to observe Lent by giving something up or doing something differently. By comparison, only a third (33 percent) of American adults as a whole said the same.

"The survey shows that Easter remains an important part of the lives of most Americans," said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. "And while the celebration of Easter is of great importance to American Catholics, so too are the spiritual preparation and concrete actions taken during Lent that help us to lead a better life, as this season calls us to do."

The telephone survey of 2000 Americans, conducted for March 2^nd through 5^th, 2013 included 515 Catholics. The margin of error for all Americans is +/- 2.2 percentage points, and for Catholics, +/- 4.3 percentage points.

SOURCE Knights of Columbus