Although the Catholic Church opposes abortion and same-sex wedding, Catholics in Latin America are usually less conservative than Protestants on most of these social dilemmas. An average of, Catholics are less morally in opposition to abortion, homosexuality, synthetic method of birth prevention, intercourse outside of wedding, drinking and divorce alcohol than are Protestants.
The distinctions between Catholics and Protestants of all of those presssing dilemmas hold real even though accounting for quantities of spiritual observance. For instance, Protestants whom take part in spiritual solutions one or more times an are somewhat more likely to oppose abortion and divorce – and considerably more likely to oppose homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and drinking alcohol – than are catholics who attend mass at least weekly week. 2 These differing views on social dilemmas might help explain why numerous former Catholics who possess become Protestants state they certainly were searching for a church that “places greater value on residing a ethical life” (a median of 60%).
Over the area, both Catholics and Protestants generally speaking state it really is incumbent on Christians to assist the indegent in their communities, nevertheless they give notably various responses on how to accomplish that objective. Whenever asked what’s the many way that is important might help the poor and needy, Protestants are far more most most likely than Catholics to aim toward bringing poor people to Christ, while Catholics tend to be more likely to state that doing charity work with poor people is most significant.
Yet over the nations surveyed, a quite a bit greater share of Protestants than Catholics state they attend engage in charity work – helping people find jobs, providing food and clothing for those in need or organizing other community initiatives to help the poor that they themselves or the church. (For lots more details, see Chapter 6.)
They are one of the key findings in excess of 30,000 face-to-face interviews carried out across 18 nations and Puerto Rico by the Pew Research Center between October 2013 and February 2014. The study encompasses the majority of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations and regions extending from Mexico through Central America to your southern tip of Southern America. Due to fieldwork constraints and sensitivities associated with polling about faith, Cuba could never be included; it’s the only Spanish-speaking country in Latin America that has been perhaps not polled.
The study of Latin America is a component of a bigger work, the Pew-Templeton worldwide Religious Futures task, which analyzes change that is religious its effect on communities across the world. The Global Religious Futures project is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts plus the John Templeton Foundation.
The remaining with this Overview describes the most important findings in increased detail and offers extra context, you start with some evaluations with Hispanics located in america.
Evaluations with U.S. Hispanics
Most of the major habits revealed by this study mirror trends discovered among U.S. Hispanics, in accordance with a 2013 Pew Research poll. The U.S. Hispanic populace (now roughly 54.1 million individuals) is bigger than the sum total population in most but two Latin American nations – Brazil (195 million) and Mexico (113 million).
Almost one fourth of Hispanic grownups in america were raised Catholic but have since kept the faith (24%), while simply 2% of U.S. Hispanics have actually changed into Catholicism after being raised in another tradition that is religious without any affiliation – a web fall of 22 portion points. The scale for this exodus is approximately on par with a few Latin American nations which also have observed high decreases within the share of grownups who identify as Catholic, including Nicaragua (minus 25 portion points), Uruguay (minus 22 points), Brazil (minus 20) and El Salvador (minus 19).
Like their counterparts in Latin America, many U.S. Hispanics have gone rubmaps nedir Catholicism for Protestant churches. Protestants now take into account about one-in-five Hispanics in the us (22%), approximately just like in Latin America (19%). In addition, a substantial quantity of hispanics in america (18%) describe their faith as atheist, agnostic or absolutely absolutely nothing in particular. This can be a lot more than double the portion of Latin US adults (8%) who will be consistently unaffiliated.
Spiritual Affiliations of Latin People In The Us and U.S. Hispanics
Although Catholicism’s position that is historically dominant weakened in present decades (see reputation for spiritual Change), it continues to be the bulk faith across most of Latin America. Catholics constitute an overwhelming majority ( significantly more than two-thirds) of this adult populace in nine associated with the countries surveyed, ranging from 89per cent in Paraguay to 70per cent in Panama. Even yet in these heavily Catholic nations, nonetheless, Protestants now really are a significant minority, constituting almost 10% or higher regarding the populace in each nation.
Catholics constitute between one-half and approximately two-thirds regarding the populace in five of this places surveyed: Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Likewise, 55% of U.S. Hispanics are Catholic.
In three central countries that are american El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – approximately half of this populace is Catholic, while roughly four-in-ten grownups describe on their own as Protestant.
Uruguay is the country that is only in which the portion of grownups whom state these are generally consistently unaffiliated (37%) competitors the share who identify as Catholic (42%). In addition, 15% of Uruguayans identify as Protestant. (See Religion in Uruguay.)
