Latino population growth over the past two decades has boosted numbers in the Catholic Church, but a new, in-depth analysis shows Latinos’ allegiance to Catholicism is waning as some move toward other Christian denominations or claim no religion at all.
A report out today by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., finds Latino religious identification increasingly diverse and more “Americanized.”
The analysis, based on data from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, compares responses to phone surveys in 1990 and 2008 conducted in English and Spanish. The 2008 sample included 3,169 people who identified themselves as Latinos.
“What you see is growing diversity ”” away from Catholicism and splitting between those who join evangelical or Protestant groups or no religion,” says report co-author Barry Kosmin, a sociologist and director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College.
Hardly surprising – the Latinos come here and take a plunge into the unholy acid bath of our noxious pop culture, and many emerge shorn of faith. Just like what’s happened to us who grew up here.