Having now read this report in three different publications today, I am curious as to why you failed to mention that the survey found a general decline in almost all religious affiliation.
His source is the Boston Globe, which focused on the trend in New England. It is also the most drastic trend in the data that I can find, although it is certainly the case that Catholicism declined everywhere except the Mexican border states and most other forms of Christianity declined everywhere.
Yes, this is the only reason. I read the article in the Globe and posted it here, more or less with the headline it had there. I didn't talk about other trends because I hadn't read about them and was unaware there were other newsworthy results from the same study.
Boston is particularly susceptible to the "Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off" school of journalism.
