According to a new poll, 46% of US Catholics say the global persecution of Christians is “very severe”—an increase of more than 16% compared to a year ago; and 58% of US Catholics say they are “very concerned” about the plight of their fellow faith ful—a figure up by more than 17% from February 2018. Yet, other global issues are cause of greater concern for US Catholics than the persecution of Christi-ans: they rank human trafficking, poverty and the refugee crisis as more urgent problems than the persecution of Christians.

The annual nationwide poll examining the views of US Catholics on the global persecution of Christians was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of Aid to the Church in Need-USA. The survey aimed to measure:

The extent to which American Catholics are aware of the persecution of Christians around the world;

The countries and regions where they consider Christians to be most severely persecuted;

Specific measures and policies they want the US and other Western governments to pursue to help and protect persecuted Christians;

The extent to which they feel that the Pope, their bishops and their parishes are making the issue of the persecution of Christians a priority;