Why are Protestants more prosperous than Catholics?

Answer 1

The answer to this complex question needed an entire book, and here it is for free!

Historical Protestantism largely influenced prosperity by promoting education, by secularising institutions, and by stabilising democracy. Protestantism has also proven highly influential in the successive historical law revolutions that gradually mitigated the power of pervasive feudal institutions and of papalist medieval canon law. In contrast, traditionally Roman Catholic countries have generally upheld a medieval model of extractivist institutions until anti-clerical (non-communist) movements were able to weaken this influence in some countries.

In contrast to common views in economics and sociology on how religion impacts prosperity via its cultural influence (i.e. à la Weber), this open access book demonstrates that, instead, the core variable to prosperity influence is the institutional influence of religion. This finding shifts how the relationship between religion and development should be viewed.

Type and download free book (open access by Springer):

"“Ye Shall Know Them by Their Fruits”: A Mixed Methods Study on Corruption, Competitiveness, and Christianity in Europe and the Americas"

The book explains why are Protestant nations richer than Catholic ones.

Answer 2

Before we can answer your question correctly, first we have to determine what your understanding of "Rich Nation."

1. The Gross National Product?

2. The National Debt?

3. The ratio between Gross National Product against National Debt.

4. Average Annual Income of its citizen?

5. Average Income against Financial debt (Credit Cards, car payments, house payment etc.)

6.Disposable income of Citizen. etc...

7. National Economic Growth?

8. The value of money. Ex; How much can your $1 here in USA get, if you have to spend the same $1 in other country?

Let's take for example the USA;

1.What is the ratio between its Gross National Product against its National Debt?

2. What is the average disposal income of its citizen. (Take home pay minus debt payment.

3. What is USA's Economic Growth Rate compared to other country, let's say Red China?

There really is no one answer to your question until we understand all of the above.

And we also have to determine who are the Protestant Nations and who are the Catholic Nations. USA is definitely neither one of this, because it's Constitution forbids a creation of a national Religion..

The question would rather be are protestant nations richer than catholic nations ?

There is no evidence of this statement even if this idea was popularized by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Just take a look at the richest regions of Europe and their religious tendencies (here the regions by income by inhabitants according to Eurostat)

- London and the home counties = Anglican

- Hamburg (Germany) = lutheran

- Brabant-Wallon (Belgium) = catholic

- Ile-de-France (France) = catholic

- Bavaria (Germany) = catholic (56,4%)

- Stuttgart (Germany) = protestant (33,7%) & catholic (27,4%)

- Zurich (Switzerland) = catholic (33,3%) & calvinist

- Genève (Switzerland) = catholic (39,5%) & calvinist (17,4)

- Lombardy (Italy) = catholic

- Oslo (Norway) = lutheran

- Vienne ( Austria) = catholic

There doesn't seem to be any correlation between religion and wealth in Europe...

On the contrary in Germany the catholic regions are wealthier than the lutheran regions and Bavaria, which is traditionaly the most catholic region of Germany, is also the richest.

Some protestant countries such as the Scandinavian countries were also relatively poor in Europe (at least Finland, Norway and Iceland) even if now they are amongst the richest.

However Estonia for instance is traditionaly very protestant (lutheran) and never has been a rich country and Ireland even if it was relatively poor during decades is now the richest country in Europe in terms of GDP per capita and is still at the same time one of the most catholic country in Europe.

There is both catholic and protestant states in the richest nations of Europe and the economic history of the continent proves that there is really no link between religion and wealth...

And in the Americas if the US is richer than Latin America oen can hardly say that it is because of religion but much more because of the cultural gap between the Western world and the Latin-American World.

In the US you can also observe the same phenomenon.

What are the richest parts of the US ?

The North-East and California. Both are predominantly catholics.

What are the "poorest" parts ?

The South, the "Bible Belt", strongly protestant...

Answer 3

The reason behind from this question can deffer depend on the definition of poor how it means to a particular person in general.Catholic 'is' and not 'are' items of constitution is very rich because of the wealth stolen from other re-souses but, other denominations are very rich in terms of their purity in Faith.

Answer 4

no. they are just different& broke free from the catholic free., they do not follow the catholic doctrines. Both individual people are stil lchrisitans if they truly follow Christ.

Answer 5

The different states in the United States do not have an official religion, thus there are no "protestant" nor "Catholic" states.

Answer 6

The devil does not fear most Protestants so he leaves them be and/or helps them if it will lead souls away from God. satan is always encouraging us to focus on anything other than God.

Answer 7

ya