In the U.S., are people that grow up in a very strict Catholic family less likely to be Catholics themselves?

Oh yes. Many catholic churches in the North East have closed in the past 10 years, and more will close.

Looking at their views, "Gee I wonder why?"

Please ignore the troll who claimed an "85%" retention rate. I am from Mass. born and raised and I can assure you there is no such thing.

I don't know how you would study or quantify this.

First off - a study would have to define "strict" -- one man's strict is another man's 'responsible parenting'

Secondly - You need a way to rule out other key factors for a person leaving the faith. How could you truly conclude that it was the strictness of the parenting or religiousity of the family that truly led them to leave?

At best you might get some correlationary study that concludes simply that it is more likely that you leave the faith if your parents are 'overly strict" (again, whatever that means to the researcher) but not a cause n effect relationship.

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As a Catholic - in my own personal experience I see WAY more non-Catholics coming out of luke warm Catholic families, one's which seem to be "Catholic in name only" or at least inconsistent about their faith, then I see non-Catholics come from devout (strict) families.

But I'm not an expert who has surveyed 10,000 or more families spread across different regions and socio-economic groups.

I've heard of priests coming from very formal Catholic homes, but I've also heard of priests coming from broken homes (divorced parents), children of alcoholics, etc. I don't think there is a cookie cutter explanation for who turns out religious and who doesn't.

For your consideration...

6

Train the young in the way they should go;

even when old, they will not swerve from it.*

http://www.usccb.org/bible/proverbs/22

"What then do we mean when we say that persons lose their faith? We mean that they have abandoned their faith. You do not lose anything deliberately. It is the Church’s infallible teaching that once a person was baptized in the Catholic Church and had even basic instruction in the true faith, he does not lose the Catholic faith. We have to say he abandons it.

What does this mean? It means that Catholics who abandon their faith do so culpably. They are responsible before God for giving up the treasure of their commitment to the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ.

There must be a reason for this sobering judgment. There are two reasons. The first is that there are no rational grounds for giving up one’s belief in the truths revealed by God and taught by the Catholic Church for two thousand years. The second reason is that God will never be wanting with His grace to sustain a professed believer in the Catholic religion. All of this was a prelude to our principal focus in this conference, namely that we must understand our Catholic faith or risk the prospect of losing it."

http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Faith/Fait...

I think that's fair of most nations, not just the US.

Many members of the Church of Satan, came from very strict Catholic families.

Some become JW's, or Baptists, or Evangelicals, and the Loony Clubs, like., Mormonism, Scientology, Banana worship

Not at all. Catholics have a 85% retention rate, the highest of all denominations. and most that do stray away always return to their first love, The Catholic Church.