Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Bad News for the U.S. Catholic Church

Hispanics are leaving in droves:

What's behind these huge changes in the Church? Researchers pointed to a few factors. Part of it may have to do with the growing influence of evangelicals in Latin America over the last century—in 1910, 90 percent of people living there were Catholic, but by 2010, that had declined to 72 percent. Some of it can also be attributed to broader trends in the U.S.; for example, about a third of all American Millennials say they don't identify with any particular religion, and roughly the same proportion of Hispanic-Americans aged 18-29 feel this way.
But the bigger story is that Hispanics are leaving the Church, period. Some of those who left were born here, and others were born abroad; some were from Mexico, but many were from other countries. Today, almost a quarter of Hispanics in America used to be Catholic—they were raised in the Church, but since then, they have joined a different denomination or stopped practicing a religion all together. Most people who have left the Church are now unaffiliated, but Protestants—particularly evangelicals—have captured a significant proportion of converts. Almost half of Hispanic-American who are currently Protestant were raised as Catholics.
Among all Hispanic-Americans who have left Catholicism, most people said they just drifted away from the Church or stopped believing in Church teachings. But people who converted to Protestant denominations were almost as likely to say they left because "they found a congregation that reaches out and helps its members more" than the Church—roughly half said this was true.
When the one growth demographic is quickly falling away, that doesn't bode well.  I guess the difference between the Church and the Republican Party is that at least Hispanics were once Catholic.  Right now, the GOP and the Church are in slow-motion demographic death spirals.

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