[daniel1212]

One reason we can have some confidence that the Pew survey presents a relatively accurate picture of Catholic Latin America is that the results track very closely with another less-noticed survey of religion in America, released in April this year by the Latinobarómetro Corporation,

That has been my observation on a larger scope. While certain RCs assert media bias as the reason for dismissing stats that are negative about their church, i have found overall consistency among a wide number of researchers over many years.

[metmom]

One thing I heard from a friend who had been overseas on a short term missions trip within the last couple months, is that the local Evangelicals told him that the reason the Catholic church is collapsing and Evangelicalism is on the rise, is that the abusive priest issue is way worse there than it is in the US and the people are flat out sick of it, and sick of the RCC doing nothing about it, and voting with their feet.