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 dilemmas. An average of, Catholics are less morally in opposition to abortion, homosexuality, synthetic method of birth prevention, intercourse outside of wedding, drinking and divorce alcohol than are Protestants.
The differences between Catholics and Protestants of all of these presssing problems hold real even though accounting for quantities of spiritual observance. For instance, 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 many former Catholics who possess become Protestants state these were shopping for a church that “places greater value on living a life that is moral (a median of 60%).
Throughout the area, both Catholics and Protestants generally speaking state its incumbent on Christians to aid the indegent within their communities, however they give notably various responses on the best way to accomplish that 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 poor people to Christ, while Catholics are far more likely to state that doing charity work with poor people is essential.
Yet throughout the countries 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 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 nations and regions extending from Mexico through Central America to your southern tip of Southern America. Due to fieldwork constraints and sensitivities associated with polling about faith, Cuba could not be included; it’s the only country that is spanish-speaking Latin America which was maybe perhaps not polled.
The study of Latin America is component of a bigger work, the Pew-Templeton worldwide Religious Futures task, which analyzes spiritual modification and its effect on communities all over the world. The international Religious Futures project is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts additionally the John Templeton Foundation.
The rest of the Overview describes the main findings in more detail and offers context that is additional starting with some evaluations with Hispanics residing in the usa.
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. Hispanic populace (now about 54.1 million people) is bigger than the full total populace in most but two Latin American nations – Brazil (195 million) and Mexico (113 million).
Almost 25 % 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 web fall of 22 percentage points. The scale for this exodus is approximately on par with a few Latin US nations which also have seen steep 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 account fully for about one-in-five Hispanics in the us (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 absolutely 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 reputation for Religious 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) of this adult populace in nine of this countries surveyed, ranging from 89per cent in Paraguay to 70% in Panama. Even yet in these greatly Catholic countries, nevertheless, Protestants now really are a significant minority, constituting nearly 10% or maybe more regarding the populace in each nation.
Catholics constitute between one-half and approximately two-thirds associated with populace in five associated with 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 – approximately half for the 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 adults whom state these are generally consistently unaffiliated (37%) competitors the share who identify as Catholic (42%). In addition, 15% of Uruguayans identify as Protestant. (See Religion in https://hookupdate.net/tr/spdate-inceleme/ Uruguay.)