U.S. Roman Catholics count on Hispanics, even as more leave the church

St. Louis Post Dispatch ^ | May 8, 2014 | Lilly Fowler

[Second Amendment First]

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A new survey of more than 5,000 Latinos by the Pew Research Center finds that parishes like St. Cecilia are facing a paradox: Even as the population of Hispanic Catholics is rising in the U.S., a greater number are defecting to other faiths.

Nearly one-in-four Latino adults, or 24 percent, are now former Catholics, according to the survey.

Roman Catholics who have left the faith have tended to either drift toward a Protestant denomination or have ended their affiliation with religion altogether. According to the Pew Research Center survey, about 22 percent of Hispanics in the U.S. identify as Protestant, while 18 percent say they are religiously unaffiliated.

Yet more than half of the nation’s estimated 35.4 million Latinos, or 19.6 million, identify as Catholics.

And as of 2013, one-third, or 33 percent, of all U.S. Roman Catholics were Hispanic, according to the Pew Research Center.

So as the study puts it, even as Hispanics leave the church, because of the growing size of the Latino population, “a day could come when a majority of Catholics in the United States will be Hispanic, even though the majority of Hispanics might no longer be Catholic.”

Or as a different recent study — the National Study of Catholic Parishes with Hispanic Ministry — notes: “Hispanics account for 71 percent of the growth of the Catholic population in the United States since 1960.”

That study, released Monday, was written by Hosffman Ospino, professor of Hispanic ministry and religious education at Boston College, in collaboration with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

[BillyBoy]

Going by the data in recent decades, if "Catholics vote democrat and always have", then America as a whole must also be "safe and reliably Democrat"

In fact, given the trend of the polls in 2014, I'm betting Republicans win a majority of Catholic vote THIS November. Want to take me up on that one, since you're so sure that Catholics are "predictably always Democrat"? I'd be happy to bet you money.

[ansel12]

That is the rare exception, many think they voted republican for the first time for Eisenhower’s “reelection”, having voted against him first (there is dispute over that), then the same for Nixon, for “reelection”, not in 1968, then Reagan, Reagan, and Reagan’s veep, and then George W’s “reelection” after having voted for Gore the first time.

During those years, the Protestant vote had rare exceptions as well, having gone democrat in 1932, 1936, and 1964.

There is no mystery to how Catholics vote, it is what the left depends on for their future, and what JFK had in mind as he worked tirelessly to change the immigration laws.

[lulu16]

Proportionately, I see underused Catholic churches in the Tucson diocese by Mexicans in the neighborhoods where they are most concentrated. The white neighborhoods with Catholic churches are bursting at the seams with non-Mexicans and have them chock a block.

I suspect that many illegals here don’t go to any denomination church. Because of those I visited, they are under-represented.
But when you visit their homes, they are filled with saints and religious imagery. Maybe they prefer to worship at home.