[Alex Murphy]

Every other Catholic nation [except Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria] is more corrupt than its Protestant neighbour. How can we explain this difference between two streams of Christianity? ....[The sociologist Max Weber] concluded that the difference came from something he called the Protestant ethic. Protestants carried Christ’s message of doing good work to doing work well. Applied to capitalism, this message became doing honest, hard work.

....Corruption is of two types. The first is transactional, where a bending or breaking of the rule is agreed upon and paid for....[In the second form of corruption] the transaction is forced, and the payer is unwilling and often on the right side of the law. Yet he must bribe because he is vulnerable.

The color-coded map and all scores can be viewed here. Here are the specific countries (from least to most corrupt) mentioned in the article, where religious affiliations were mentioned:

• 1 (tie), Denmark (Protestant)
• 1 (tie), New Zealand (Protestant)
• 4, Finland (Protestant)
• 5, Sweden (Protestant)
• 6, Canada (majority Protestant, 40% Catholic)
• 7, Netherlands (Protestant)
• 8, Australia (Protestant)
• 9, Switzerland (majority Protestant, 40% Catholic)
• 10, Norway (Protestant)
• 12, Luxembourg (Catholic)
• 14, Ireland (Catholic)
• 15 (tie), Austria (Catholic)
• 15 (tie), Germany (Protestant)
• 17 (tie), Barbados (Protestant)
• 20, Britain (Protestant)
• 21, Chile (Catholic)
• 22 (tie), United States (Protestant)
• 25, France (Catholic)
• 30 (tie), Spain (Catholic)
• 32, Portugal (Catholic)
• 41 (tie), Poland (Catholic)
• 50 (tie), Hungary (Catholic)
• 59 (tie), Slovakia (Catholic)
• 62 (tie), Croatia (Orthodox)
• 62 (tie), Macedonia (Orthodox)
• 67, Italy (Catholic)
• 69 (tie), Brazil (Catholic)
• 69 (tie), Romania (Orthodox)
• 73 (tie), Panama (Catholic)
• 73 (tie), Bulgaria (Orthodox)
• 78 (tie), Serbia (Orthodox)
• 78 (tie), Colombia (Catholic)
• 78,(tie), Greece (Orthodox)
• 87 (tie), Albania (Orthodox)
• 91 (tie), Bosnia (Orthodox)
• 98, Mexico (Catholic)
• 105 (tie), Argentina (Catholic)
• 105 (tie), Moldova (Orthodox)
• 110 (tie), Bolivia (Catholic)
• 127 (tie), Ecuador (Catholic)
• 127 (tie), Belarus (Orthodox)
• 134 (tie), Ukraine (Orthodox)
• 154 (tie), Russia (Orthodox)
• 164 (tie), Venezuela (Catholic)

[notaliberal]

Maybe you and marshmallow should challenge each other to see who can post the most negative articles about the Catholic Church in 24 hours...OH nevermind! .......you’re both are

[wmfights]

Thanks for taking the time to set up the link to the map and the list. I wonder if the distinction is as much a result of the organizational structure as it is what's taught by the different churches. The RCC is a hierarchy with a papal monarch. Protestant churches are either congregational in structure, or semi autonomous.

[bronx2]

Your characterization of these nations, especially the European ones, as Catholic/protestant/Orthodox is a joke. They are agnostic or atheistic with small remnants of religious belief. Similar for South and Latin America.

The measure of your objectivity was taken and found wanting.

[Domalais]

Calling Scandinavian countries Protestant is a bit of a stretch don’t you think?

[Katya]

I believe in Germany at least....the Catholic State of Bavaria is the most prosperous.

[verdugo]

None of those countries are either Protestant nor Catholic. NONE.

I said it a million times, I doubt that of all the people who identify themselves as Catholics, that 1% really live Catholic lives. I DOUBT THAT 1% are real Catholics.

Birth control, fornication, divorce, adultery, immoral dress, never go to confession. No, there’s few Catholics left, one here one there.

When was the last time anyone saw a large Catholic family?

[FormerLib]

If we rank them on things such as legalized prostitution and devaluing traditional marriage, the list would pretty much be the same, eh?

[Cronos]

What is funny is 7, Netherlands (Protestant), whereas According to the CIA World Factbook,[3] as of 2002 the religious makeup of the Netherlands was 31% Roman Catholic, 13% Dutch Reformed, 7% Calvinist, 5.5% Muslim, 2.5% other and 41% none.

hence the Netherlands is technically more Catholic rather than Protestant

And in Canada according to the CIA fact book Roman Catholic 42.6%, Protestant 23.3% (including United Church 9.5%, Anglican 6.8%, Baptist 2.4%, Lutheran 2%), other Christian 4.4%, so Canada and the Netherlands are both more Catholic than Protestant

Next, Switzerland and from the CIA fact book again Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Muslim 4.3%, Orthodox 1.8%, other Christian -- Catholic, 42%, and Protestant 36%....

Finally, as Katya pointed out, in Germany the most prosperous states are Bavaria and Swabia, both either majority Catholic or largely Catholic, while the poorest part is Eastern Germany which is mostly Protestant.

As you can see in E.Germany's case and others, the branch of Christianity is more coincidental than otherwise.

If one pushes back the envelope to just before the industrial revolution, say 1770, we see that the Catholic countries from Spain, Portugal, France, Austria-Hungary, Bavaria, Poland-lithuania etc are the wealthier.

But then something happens that not only affects the Catholic south and Central Europe but also parts of north Europe like the Netherlands (they never re-captured their glory days of the 1600s) and bypasses the UK which enters it's golden era.

What is it? In my opinion it was revolutionary France and those ideas combined with raising the nation ABOVE God that hit continental Europe.

I see a direct line between the french Revolution and the October 1917 revolution right down to the EU

[Salvation]

That link isn’t working for me.

[Natural Law]

I find it very interesting that the most corrupt nations on the planet; the predominantly Protest countries of sub Saharan Africa and the Islamic nations are not mentioned in the summarized list.

Even more interesting was the deletion of my initial post #2 pointing this out.

[littlemermaid]

Australia is actually a majority Catholic country, given vast Irish and Italian immigration.