Study: Young Latinos losing faith
"What are we to do?" said those around Saint Peter in response to his preaching. The church may well be asking the same question about young Latinos, who are leaving the Catholic Church in droves, according to a new study, with many drifting . . .
"What are we to do?" said those around Saint Peter in response to his preaching. The church may well be asking the same question about young Latinos, who are leaving the Catholic Church in droves, according to a new study, with many drifting into the country's fastest-growing "religious movement": the "nones." Nearly a third of Latino adults under 30 don't belong to a faith group, according to a major survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. That's a jump of 17 percentage points in only the last three years.
The trends highlighted by Pew's Latino survey also mirror large-scale shifts in the American population as whole. According to other studies conducted by Pew in recent years, nearly a third of all millennials—Americans between the ages of 18-33—are religiously unaffiliated, a dramatic and ongoing change from previous generations.
“One of the most striking recent trends in the American religious landscape has been the growing share of the unaffiliated, and this study allows us to see where Latinos fit into that story,” said Cary Funk, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center and one of the coauthors of the study.
The overall breakdown of the nation's estimated 35.4 million Latinos is: 55 percent Catholic, 22 percent Protestant, and 18 percent unaffiliated.
That's bad news for the Catholic Church, which has seen a 12 percentage-point drop in Hispanic members since 2010, with most of the losses coming from former Catholics under 50. As recently as a few years ago, two-thirds of Latinos were Catholic; now nearly one in four Hispanic adults is a former Catholic, according to Pew.
More than half (55 percent) say they simply "drifted away" from organized religion. A similar number (52 percent) say they no longer believed in the teachings of their childhood religion. A smaller number of Latinos (4 percentage points) have left Catholicism to become evangelical Protestants, according to Pew.
"Outreach to the Hispanic community is a top priority for the Catholic Church as the huge growth in the Hispanic community offers a challenge to keep up with the pastoral needs," said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
See the Pew report.
Homily hint: While the church should be concerned with the loss of significant numbers of specific groups, the best response is not merely to blame cultural and social trends but for each and every believer to show in their own lives that the Catholic Christian faith is a living and life-giving path which speaks to human hearts and minds in ways nothing else can.
The trends highlighted by Pew's Latino survey also mirror large-scale shifts in the American population as whole. According to other studies conducted by Pew in recent years, nearly a third of all millennials—Americans between the ages of 18-33—are religiously unaffiliated, a dramatic and ongoing change from previous generations.
“One of the most striking recent trends in the American religious landscape has been the growing share of the unaffiliated, and this study allows us to see where Latinos fit into that story,” said Cary Funk, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center and one of the coauthors of the study.
The overall breakdown of the nation's estimated 35.4 million Latinos is: 55 percent Catholic, 22 percent Protestant, and 18 percent unaffiliated.
That's bad news for the Catholic Church, which has seen a 12 percentage-point drop in Hispanic members since 2010, with most of the losses coming from former Catholics under 50. As recently as a few years ago, two-thirds of Latinos were Catholic; now nearly one in four Hispanic adults is a former Catholic, according to Pew.
More than half (55 percent) say they simply "drifted away" from organized religion. A similar number (52 percent) say they no longer believed in the teachings of their childhood religion. A smaller number of Latinos (4 percentage points) have left Catholicism to become evangelical Protestants, according to Pew.
"Outreach to the Hispanic community is a top priority for the Catholic Church as the huge growth in the Hispanic community offers a challenge to keep up with the pastoral needs," said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
See the Pew report.
Homily hint: While the church should be concerned with the loss of significant numbers of specific groups, the best response is not merely to blame cultural and social trends but for each and every believer to show in their own lives that the Catholic Christian faith is a living and life-giving path which speaks to human hearts and minds in ways nothing else can.
Source: An article by Daniel Burke for the CNN Belief Blog