Global Christian persecution is ranked as less urgent an issue than human trafficking, poverty, climate change and the global refugee crisis.

A new poll shows that although more than half of US Catholics are “very concerned” about the persecution of Christians around the world, that level of concern has sharply declined in the past two years.

The percentage of US Catholics who say that they are “very concerned” about global Christian persecution dropped from 69% in winter 2018 to 52% today – a decline of almost 25%. The percentage of US Catholics who think that Christian persecution is very severe  declined 11% compared to a year ago, falling from 46% to 41%.

As to actions US Catholics can take themselves, 68% of respondents ranked prayer as “very important,” followed by raising awareness of the plight of Christian persecution at the parish level (59%), donating to agencies that help persecuted Christians (53%) and contacting Members of Congress (52%).