Although the Catholic Church opposes abortion and marriage that is same-sex Catholics in Latin America are generally less conservative than Protestants on most of these social problems. An average of, Catholics are less morally in opposition to abortion, homosexuality, synthetic way of birth prevention, intercourse away from wedding, drinking and divorce alcohol than are Protestants.

The distinctions between Catholics and Protestants of many among these presssing dilemmas hold real even though accounting for levels of spiritual observance. For instance, Protestants whom be involved in spiritual solutions at least one time 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 problems might help explain why numerous former Catholics who’ve become Protestants state these people were to locate a church that “places greater value on residing a ethical life” (a median of 60%).

Both catholics and Protestants generally say it is incumbent on Christians to help the poor in their societies, but they give somewhat different answers on how best to achieve this goal across the region. Whenever asked what’s the many important way Christians will help the bad and needy, Protestants are far more most most likely than Catholics to aim toward bringing the indegent to Christ, while Catholics tend to be more inclined to state that doing charity benefit poor people is most crucial.

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 of greater than 30,000 interviews that are face-to-face 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 countries and territories extending from Mexico through Central America into the tip that is southern of America. Due to fieldwork constraints and sensitivities related to polling about faith, Cuba could never be included; it will be the only country that is spanish-speaking Latin America which was perhaps not polled.

The survey 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 around the globe. The international Religious Futures project is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts while the John Templeton Foundation.

The remaining of the Overview describes the most important findings in increased detail and offers extra context, starting with some evaluations with Hispanics located in the United States.

Evaluations with U.S. Hispanics

A number of the major habits revealed by this study mirror trends discovered among U .S. Hispanics, relating to a 2013 Pew Research poll. The U.S. population that is hispanicnow about 54.1 million individuals) is bigger than the sum total populace in most but two Latin American nations – Brazil (195 million) and Mexico (113 million).

Nearly one fourth of Hispanic adults in the usa were raised Catholic but have actually since kept the faith (24%), while just 2% of U.S. Hispanics have actually converted to Catholicism after being raised an additional tradition that is religious without any affiliation – a web fall of 22 portion points. The scale of the exodus is approximately on par with a few Latin US nations which also have seen high decreases when you look at the share of grownups whom 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, numerous U.S. Hispanics have gone Catholicism for Protestant churches. Protestants now take into account about one-in-five Hispanics in america (22%), approximately exactly like in Latin America (19%). In addition, a number that is substantial of in america (18%) describe their faith as atheist, agnostic or nothing in specific. It is significantly more than double the percentage of Latin US grownups (8%) who will be consistently unaffiliated.

Spiritual Affiliations of Latin People In America 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 a lot of Latin America. Catholics constitute a majority that is overwhelming significantly more than two-thirds) for the adult populace in nine regarding the countries surveyed, ranging from 89per cent in Paraguay to 70per cent in Panama. Even yet in these greatly Catholic nations, nonetheless, Protestants now are really a minority that is significant constituting almost 10% or higher of this populace in each nation.

Catholics constitute between one-half and approximately two-thirds of this population 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 main American nations – El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – approximately half of this populace is Catholic, while roughly four-in-ten grownups describe by themselves as Protestant.

Uruguay may be the country that is only where in actuality the portion of grownups whom say they truly are consistently unaffiliated (37%) competitors the share who identify as Catholic (42%). In addition, 15% of Uruguayans identify as Protestant. (See Religion in Uruguay.)