Catholics who see themselves as ‘evangelical’ asked to take part in new research

Rise in number of evangelical Catholics of interest given “historical association of evangelicalism” with people like Ian Paisley

Stock image of people at Mass, here at St Mary's Church in Belfast city centre

October 22, 2025 at 6:00am BST

Practising Catholics who see themselves as ‘evangelical’ are being asked to take part in a new research project following an apparent surge in numbers.

The research is being carried out by Queen’s University Belfast after a recent survey indicated a dramatic rise in Catholics who term themselves evangelical.

According to a 2023 survey conducted by the polling organisation Savanta ComRes on behalf of the Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland, 38% of practising Catholics would now describe themselves as evangelical.

This represents a dramatic increase from the figure of 6% which was recorded in 2004, the only time this question was asked in the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, run by the ARK social policy hub at Queen’s and Ulster universities.

Evangelicalism has traditionally been more associated with the Protestant tradition, and now social scientists want to talk to those Catholics who would call themselves evangelical to explore the extent of the rising trend.

Professor Gladys Ganiel, from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s, said the 2023 survey results were highly unexpected.

Mike Pence stokes backlash for calling Pope Francis 'Holy Father,' posting anti-Trump op-ed

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter
Monday, March 03, 2025

Pope Francis speaks with former Vice President Mike Pence during a private audience at the Vatican, Jan. 24, 2020. | ALESSANDRO DI MEO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Former Vice President Mike Pence drew criticism over the weekend for a Friday X post in which he referred to Pope Francis as "the Holy Father," prompting some to accuse him of affirming Roman Catholicism despite being an outspoken Evangelical Protestant.

"One of my greatest honors as Vice President was the hour I spent with Pope Francis at the Vatican in January 2020," Pence tweeted. "[Karen Pence] and I join Catholics around the world Praying for this humble and godly man. God Bless the Holy Father."

Pope Francis remains at Rome's Gemelli Hospital recovering from double pneumonia. According to the Vatican, he remained in stable condition and did not require any mechanical ventilation Sunday, though he suffered two episodes of "acute respiratory failure" on Monday.

Pence was raised Roman Catholic but later left the Catholic Church to become an Evangelical when he was in college, according to a profile in The New York Times.

Read more

Is the Protestant Church Dying?

Where Is Mike Pence’s Faith?

He was an outspoken evangelical. Now Trump’s VP pick hides his beliefs under a bushel.

By Craig Fehrman

July 16 2016 1:51 PM



Way back in 1994, when Mike Pence was a twice-defeated candidate for Congress, an unemployed dad trying to launch a syndicated radio show, and an entry on nobody’s VP shortlist, he told a reporter about casting his first vote in a presidential election. It was 1980, Carter vs. Reagan, and Pence could only chuckle that he’d gone with the wrong man. He’d voted for Carter, Pence explained, because he “was a good Christian. Beyond that, there was a sense of, ‘Why would you elect a movie star?’ ”

These days, Pence talks about Reagan a bit differently. During his recent (and successful) audition to be the running mate of a television star, Pence paid Donald Trump the highest sort of Republican praise. “I think he is someone who has connected with everyday Americans like no one since Ronald Reagan,” Pence told reporters.

That Gipper pivot says a lot about how Pence has shifted over the years, as he’s moved from the media to Congress to the Indiana statehouse—how he’s become less candid, less human, and more shamelessly fixated on stoking his career. Pence’s religious beliefs still shape his politics as surely as they did when he voted for Carter. But as part of this transformation, he has alloyed his faith with political expediency, keeping his evangelicalism at the center of his worldview, even as he’s become ever less willing to discuss it.

Pence has a strange conversion narrative. He grew up in a big Irish Catholic family of Democrats in central Indiana, serving as an altar boy, attending parochial schools, and idolizing another liberal president: JFK.

But in 1978, while a freshman at Indiana’s Hanover College, he converted to evangelical Christianity through the influence of a nondenominational fellowship group. “I simply made a personal decision for Christ,” Pence told me in 2012, when I was working on a profile of him after he’d won the gubernatorial race.

Though he was now born-again, Pence’s faith didn’t transform quickly or simply. (Whose ever does?) Post-college, he kept attending Mass and worked as a youth minister at a Catholic church; he even applied to Washington, D.C.’s Catholic University with plans to become a priest. As late as 1994, Pence still described himself as “a born-again, evangelical Catholic.”