Although the Catholic Church opposes abortion and marriage that is same-sex Catholics in Latin America are less conservative than Protestants on most of these social dilemmas. An average of, Catholics are less morally opposed to abortion, homosexuality, synthetic way of birth prevention, intercourse away from wedding, divorce proceedings and consuming alcohol than are Protestants.
The distinctions between Catholics and Protestants of many among these presssing problems hold real even though accounting for quantities of religious observance. For instance, Protestants whom take part 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 dilemmas might help explain why numerous former Catholics who possess become Protestants state they certainly were to locate a church that “places greater value on living a life that is moral (a median of 60%).
Over the area, both Catholics and Protestants generally speaking state it really is incumbent on Christians to aid poor people within their communities, however they give notably various responses on the best way to accomplish this objective. Whenever asked what’s the many way that is important will help the bad and needy, Protestants tend to be more most most likely than Catholics to aim toward bringing the indegent to Christ, while Catholics are far more likely to state that doing charity work with poor people is most crucial.
Yet over the nations surveyed, a dramatically greater share of Protestants than Catholics state that they by themselves or the church they attend practice charity work – assisting people find jobs, supplying meals and clothes for those of you in need of assistance or arranging other community initiatives to greatly help the indegent. (To get more details, see Chapter 6.)
They are on the list of key findings of greater than 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 countries and regions stretching from Mexico through Central America towards the tip that is southern of America. Due to fieldwork constraints and sensitivities associated with polling about faith, Cuba could never be included; it will be the only Spanish-speaking country in Latin America which was perhaps not polled.
The study of Latin America is part of a more substantial work, the Pew-Templeton worldwide Religious Futures task, which analyzes change that is religious its effect on societies across the world. The international Religious Futures project is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts additionally the John Templeton Foundation.
The rest for this Overview describes the most important findings in more detail and offers context that is additional you start with some evaluations with Hispanics residing in the usa.
Evaluations with U.S. Hispanics
Most patterns that are major by this study mirror trends discovered among U.S. Hispanics, based on a 2013 Pew Research poll. The U.S. population that is hispanicnow around 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).
Almost one fourth of Hispanic grownups in america were raised Catholic but have actually since kept the faith (24%), while simply 2% of U.S. Hispanics have actually changed into Catholicism after being raised an additional spiritual tradition or without any affiliation – a net fall of 22 portion points. The scale for this exodus is approximately on par with several Latin US nations which also have seen high decreases within 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 the usa (22%), https://hookupdate.net/tr/talkwithstranger-inceleme/ approximately exactly like in Latin America (19%). In addition, a number that is substantial of in the us (18%) describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or absolutely nothing in specific. This really is a lot more than double the portion of Latin US grownups (8%) that are consistently unaffiliated.
Spiritual Affiliations of Latin Us Americans and U.S. Hispanics
Although Catholicism’s position that is historically dominant weakened in current decades (see History of spiritual Change), it continues to be the majority faith across most of Latin America. Catholics constitute a majority that is overwhelming a lot more than two-thirds) of the adult populace in nine of this countries surveyed, ranging from 89per cent in Paraguay to 70per cent in Panama. these heavily Catholic nations, but, Protestants now are a definite significant minority, constituting almost 10% or maybe more of this population in each nation.
Catholics constitute between one-half and roughly two-thirds associated with the populace in five for the places surveyed: Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Similarly, 55% of U.S. Hispanics are Catholic.
In three central countries that are american El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – about 50 % associated with the population is Catholic, while roughly four-in-ten grownups describe on their own as Protestant.
Uruguay is the only nation surveyed where in fact the portion of grownups who state they are consistently unaffiliated (37%) competitors the share who identify as Catholic (42%). In addition, 15% of Uruguayans identify as Protestant. (See Religion in Uruguay.)