NY TImes: These are heady days for Roman Catholics in Latin America. For the first time, one of their own is serving as pope, providing a visible reminder of the importance the region plays in the global church.
But after a century in which nearly all Latin Americans identified as Catholic, the church’s claim on the region is lessening.
A sweeping new survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center, finds that 69 percent of Latin American adults say they are Catholic, down from an estimated 90 percent for much of the 20th century. The decline appears to have accelerated recently: Eighty-four percent of those surveyed said they were raised Catholic, meaning there has been a 15-percentage-point drop-off in one generation.
The findings are not a total surprise — it has been evident for some time that evangelical, and particularly Pentecostal, churches are growing in Latin America, generally at the expense of Catholicism. But the Pew study, which was conducted by in-person interviews with 30,000 adults in 18 countries and Puerto Rico, provides significant evidence for the trend, and shows that it is both broad and rapid.
Latin America “in most people’s minds is synonymous with Catholicism, but the strong association has eroded,” said Neha Sahgal, a senior researcher at Pew. “And it’s a consistent trend across the region — it’s not just a Central American phenomenon.”
Categories: Americas, Belief, Bible, Catholic Church, Catholicism, CHRISTIANITY, Church