Although the Catholic Church opposes abortion and marriage that is same-sex Catholics in Latin America are usually less conservative than Protestants on most of these social problems. An average of, Catholics are less morally in opposition to abortion, homosexuality, synthetic method of contraception, intercourse away from wedding, drinking and divorce alcohol than are Protestants.
The distinctions between Catholics and Protestants of all among these dilemmas hold true even though accounting for quantities of spiritual observance. As an example, Protestants whom be involved 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 problems can help explain why numerous former Catholics who possess become Protestants state these were hunting for a church that “places greater value on residing a ethical life” (a median of 60%).
Over the region, both Catholics and Protestants generally speaking state it really is incumbent on Christians to aid the indegent within their communities, nevertheless they give significantly various responses on the best way to accomplish that objective. Whenever asked what’s the many important way Christians will help the poor and needy, Protestants tend to be 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 significantly 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. (To get more details, see Chapter 6.)
They are one of the key findings in excess of 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 nations and territories extending from Mexico through Central America to your tip that is southern of America. Due to fieldwork constraints and sensitivities linked to polling about religion, Cuba could never be included; this is the only country that is spanish-speaking Latin America which was perhaps perhaps not polled.
The study of Latin America is component of a bigger work, the Pew-Templeton worldwide Religious Futures task, which analyzes religious modification and its effect on communities throughout the world. The international Religious Futures project is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts therefore the John Templeton Foundation.
The rest of the Overview describes the main findings in increased detail and offers extra context, starting with some evaluations with Hispanics residing in the usa.
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 full total populace in every but two Latin American nations – Brazil (195 million) and Mexico (113 million).
Nearly 25 % of Hispanic grownups in the 
usa 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 web fall of 22 portion points. The scale of this exodus is approximately on par with a few Latin US nations which also have observed 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 remaining 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 the us (18%) describe their faith as atheist, agnostic or absolutely nothing in specific. That is significantly more than double the portion of Latin US grownups (8%) that are consistently unaffiliated.
Religious Affiliations of Latin Us Citizens and U.S. Hispanics
Although Catholicism’s historically principal place has weakened in current decades (see reputation for spiritual Change), it continues to be the bulk faith across most of Latin America. Catholics constitute an overwhelming majority ( a lot 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 greatly Catholic nations, but, Protestants now certainly are a minority that is significant constituting nearly 10% or higher associated with populace in each nation.
Catholics constitute between one-half and roughly two-thirds regarding the populace in five for the accepted 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 – about 50 % associated with populace is Catholic, while roughly four-in-ten grownups describe by themselves as Protestant.
Uruguay may be the only nation surveyed where in fact the portion of grownups whom state they’ve been consistently unaffiliated (37%) rivals the share who identify as Catholic (42%). In addition, 15% of Uruguayans identify as Protestant. (See Religion in Uruguay.)
