Survey Finds More Hispanic Americans Becoming Protestant (% of Hispanic Catholics has dropped)

Christian Post ^ | 7/6/2009 | Jennifer Riley

[SeekAndFind]

The percentage of Hispanic Catholics in America has dropped, while the proportion of born-again Hispanics has increased, a new survey by the Barna Group found.

Over the past 15 years, the proportion of Hispanics in America that is aligned with the Catholic Church has fallen by 25 percent. By comparison, the proportion of born-again Christians for this ethnic group has increased by 17 percent.

“You cannot help but notice the changing relationship between Hispanics and the Catholic Church,” commented George Barna, whose company conducted the research. “While many Hispanic immigrants come to the United States with ties to Catholicism, the research shows that many of them eventually connect with a Protestant church.”

Moreover, many second and third generation Hispanic Americans are leaving the Catholic tradition, he noted.

The latest Barna survey studies the growing Hispanic population in America in terms of their faith and how they compare to the general American population. It finds that in a surprising number of key aspects the Hispanic population mirrors that of the nation’s general population.

Some of the significant similarities between the Hispanic and the general American adult populations include nearly identical profiles on the perceived accuracy of the principles taught in the Bible; a personal sense of responsibility to share their faith with others; belief that the primary purpose of life is to love God fully; the likelihood of having read the Bible in the past week; and having made a personal commitment to Jesus that is important in their life.

“The study points out how significant faith is in the lives of Hispanics,” Barna commented. “Not only do most of them assert that importance, but the fact that so much is changing in their faith perspectives and practices underscores how much energy they devote to their spirituality.”

But the study also found significant differences that exist between Hispanic Americans and the general American adult population.

Hispanics are more likely to believe that a good person can earn his or her way into heaven than the overall American adult population. This growing group is also twice as likely to be aligned with the Catholic Church (44 percent vs. 22 percent).

The ethnic group was also found to be less likely than Americans overall to claim that they are "absolutely committed" to Christianity (46 percent vs. 58 percent).

But when it comes to the born-again segments, Hispanics and the general American adult population showed few differences.

According to the Barna report, a born-again Christian is not based on self-identification, but rather on certain qualifications as defined by the Barna Group.

Survey results are based on telephone interviews conducted by The Barna Group gathered from nine nationwide random samples of adults. In total, 9,232 interviews were conducted between January 2007 and November 2008. Respondents were asked during the interviews if they consider themselves to be Hispanics. Out of the more than 9,000 people interviewed, 1,195 adults fell into the Hispanic category.

[tiki]

Assuming also that the survey was done and reported in a legitimate manner and without an agenda.

[Salvation]

**(% of Hispanic Catholics has dropped)**

No it hasn’t. They are still Catholics. They may have been led astray for awhile, but they will be back.

[Salvation]

Evidently you are not familiar with the truth of the Catholic Church?

Do you read a bible? You got it from the Catholic Church.

Do you say a Creed at your Church — either the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed? You got it from the Catholic Church.

Do you honor the twelve apostles? You got them from the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church is the one, holy, apostlic and Catholic Church.

Everything else flows from the Catholic Church.

Read the thread — How Old Is Your Church.

[ConservativeMind]

Ahem, the very country you are in was never Catholic inclined. The “territory” might have been discovered by “Catholic” emissaries, but the United States was founded by Protestants, by 12/13 of all the original 13 colonies.

Columbus discovered an island, not the continental US. By the way, Columbus never set foot on the North American continent, only Central and South America. Interestingly, bastardized-Catholic traditions still abound throughout those areas.

[ConservativeMind]

Heh, Catholics of all stripes only make up 23.9% of the US population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_the_United_States#By_percentage_of_Catholics

Protestants make up 51% of the US population.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7rc3tC9fKhoJW6X9PV6ZmG2BIng

[BillyBoy]

I suppose that's counting Lutherans and Episcoplians as Protestant, though their religious traditions are 90% similar to Catholicism, minus having a Pope.

The remaining Protestant groups in the U.S. (Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) can't agree on anything (oftentimes within their own denomination!) except agreeing on the Catholic church is wrong. The largest of these Protestant groups (Baptists) dominate American culture only in the deep south.

As a result, during at least the last 100 years, Catholicism has dominated America's religious culture more than any other religious group. For example, Fr. Coughlin, Bishop Fulton, Mother Angelica, etc. had an enormous influence on the American psyche that simply wouldn't have been possible in a strongly protestant nation. (When protestant leaders have mass influence in the U.S., they tend to be types that reach across ALL denominations of Christians, like Billy Graham) To see how much Catholicism dominates, look no further than our current Supreme Court and Congress. Furthermore, when you look across the U.S. from coast to coast, you will discover the Catholic church is the largest Christian group in something like 40 out of 50 states now. Even looking back at the numbers in 1990, Catholicism was clearly dominant in most parts of the U.S.:

Add to the fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers were Episcopalian (who, as mentioned before, teaches a form of Christianity almost identical to Catholicism), and the culture of America's Christians leans much stronger towards Catholicism than say, Greece, where 98% of the population is Eastern Orthodox Christians, or most of Europe for that matter.

Bottom line is this: a Hispanic in say, Georgia, who switches from Catholic to say, Methodist, will probably find himself more in sync with the local religious traditions. Not so for a Hispanic who becomes a Protesant in New York, Illinois, California, New Jersey, Colorado, Florida, Wisconsin, Mass., Ohio, or anywhere else in the vast streches of middle America. For example here in the Chicago area, 60-70% of the population is Catholic. Catholicism is in the news and affects the culture far more prominently than protestantism here.

[ConservativeMind]

I suppose that's counting Lutherans and Episcoplians as Protestant, though their religious traditions are 90% similar to Catholicism, minus having a Pope.

Well, believing the Pope matters at all only matters to Catholics, so, yes, my numbers include them.

However, if you don't think the Pope means squat, then I will let you take them as your numbers, considering as all they tell the Pope to go screw himself, but they still maintain “90%” of the traditions of Catholics.

Catholics are a paltry minority in this country. However, they were incredibly instrumental in getting 0bama elected.

[BillyBoy]

Based on your posts, it sounds to me that A) You obviously don't like Catholics, and B) You happened live in one of the 10 or so states where Catholics REALLY are a "paltry minority" of a population, and are projecting your opinions on the other 40 states where Catholics have more churches than any other religion. Unfortunately for you, "American culture" means all of this country, not just your state. Over here in America's heartland, any Hispanic who becomes Protestant is going to have a lot harder time finding a church, since Catholic parishes are far more prominent.

Religious preference by state, 2001. Catholicism is also largest denomination in Alaska and Hawaii (not pictured), and the largest plurality religious in the gray states where No Religion dominates.

Yes, a majority of Catholics did vote for our protestant president (whose protestant church, as you can tell from the new reports, is about as far away as "mainstream" Christianity in America as you can get). Of course you neglect to mention that a majority of Catholics ALSO voted for George W. Bush. You also notice the key point in the Catholic vote that pertains to this article -- Obama ONLY won the "Catholic vote" because of Hispanic CINOs (you know, the ethnic group that this article mentions is becoming protestant far more often now). Take away "hispanic Catholics", and the remaining Catholics voted AGAINST Obama. So if those liberal "hispanic Catholics" want no more part of our church, so be it. If you protestants want our pro-abortion, pro-socialist, pro-Obama Hispanics, you're welcome to them.

[married21]

I think the growth in Hispanic Protestants is due to evangelical outreach to them. I remember learning awhile back about Cardinal Mahoney when he was a new priest. He learned in the Stockton, CA area that migrant workers did not attend the local Catholic church because they felt unwelcomed by the parishioners who were permanent residents. But the Jehoval Witnesses came right out to the fields to preach to them. So, the pastor that Mahoney was working for started heading out to the fields himself. The migrants said they considered themselves Catholic, but would settle for the JWs when that’s the only people who showed up. I think there are a lot of churches who want those people, and go out and get them. I am grateful that Catholics do not seem to do the heavy-handed recruiting that I have seen some Protestants do, but on the other hand I think Catholics are too reticent to spread the Good News. I think pastors are mainly concerned with serving the people they’ve already got, and lay people don’t want to stick their neck out in that way. Anyway, at this rate, maybe the priest shortage isn’t going to be a problem, because the congregations will be getting smaller. :(

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

There was a deep strain of hatred of the Catholic Church, among the Founding Fathers.

[bobjam]

“The “American tradition” has been Catholicism since the 1840s. It hasn’t been protestantism for 160 years, even since there were massive wave of immigration from Ireland”

From the mid-19th Century up until the mid-20th Century, the Roman Catholic Church was seen as an ethnic church- Its services were not conducted in the language of this country, and its membership was dominated by people who tended to isolate themselves in urban immigrant neighborhoods such as “Little Italy”. World War 2 and the subsequent mass exodus to the suburbs are what changed all of that. Vatican II also helped by making it easier for people who were not born and raised Catholic to join up.

[armydoc]

No it hasn’t. They are still Catholics. They may have been led astray for awhile, but they will be back.

Catholic membership seems to be a maleable concept. When self-identified Catholics act contrary to the the faith, "they aren't real Catholics". When they cross over to another faith, "they are still Catholics and will be back".

[ConservativeMind]

Buddy, Protestants make up 51% of the US population.

Catholics are 24% of the US population.

So, the “universal church” is the minority of those professing faith in Christ.

[kinsman redeemer]

marker

[ConservativeMind]

So basically, the more liberal the state, the more Catholics there are.

That speaks volumes.

[BillyBoy]

I assume either you are color blind, or live in some alternate universe where Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, etc. (all blue on that map showing Catholicism is the largest religion in the state) are considered "the more liberal states" in America

You might also notice that in Europe, the heavily protestantized western european countries, where Protestianism began (scandavia, U.K., Switzerland, etc.) are all socialist, whereas eastern europe countries that are overwhemingly Catholic (Poland, Czech Republic, etc.), are free-market, conservative nations. So oops, looks like your little theory goes down the drain again.

You are right that Hispanic "Catholics" tend to be extremely left-wing socialists though.

So enjoy your new members!

[BillyBoy]

A lot of these hispanic "Catholics" may have been baptized Catholic, but they never practiced or know much about "their" religion. So naturally, if some aggressive Protestant recruiter comes along and introduces them to Christ through his protestant church, it's the first thing they'll sign up for when they decide to get religion in their lives.

If they ever got in tune with beliefs of the religion they were born into (and the religion Christ started), they'd find it closer to their concept of Christ than what the Protestants sold them.

Have you noticed that regularly, WEEKLY church attending Catholics voted AGAINST Obama by a rather solid margin? Hmmm. I wonder why. Attending Obama's protestant church on a weekly basis just indoctrinates his congregation into the socialist, anti-American mindset further. Unlike Catholicism, there's no great likelihood that attending a Protestant church on a weekly basis will increase a person's likelihood of opposing evils in society. It all depends on what kind of Protestant church you go to. (there are plenty of them where the most active members preach that abortion is a-okay and so is gay marriage) Whereas with Catholics, it depends on whether you are faithful to what your church teaches.

Also, you will note the vast majority of people who switch from Catholic to Protestant do so in order to get a more liberal church because the Catholics are "cramping their style", whereas the vast majority of people who switch from Protestant to Catholic do so because their church got too liberal (like the mass exodus on parishes from the Episcopal church after they ordained that openly gay bishop).

If Hispanics are switching to "Christian" churches like Jehovah's Witnesses (who don't even accept the basic Christian doctrine of the trinity), my guess is they're cafeteria Catholics looking for a more liberal denomination that lets them do as they please. If they seriously examine themselves and decide to live in a way that Christ taught, they'd rejoin the Catholic fold.

[RFEngineer]

“I think the roots of the US are Roman Catholic. “

And many of those roots were as a result of old-world religious persecution of Protestant faithful, would you not agree? (I don’t think you will....)

The poverty and social attitudes of the underclass in Latin America also can in part be traced to the Catholicism and has partly lead to their mass migration to the US.

[ConservativeMind]

I will agree with you on the weekly attending Catholics voting for conservatives over liberals.

Unfortunately, all the rest of the Catholics overwhelm that minority.

[ConservativeMind]

No, in my lifetime, all the Protestants that I’ve known who have gone “Catholic” are liberals or “moderates” in their political thinking.