Although the Catholic Church opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, 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 way of birth prevention, intercourse away from wedding, breakup and ingesting alcohol than are Protestants.
The distinctions between Catholics and Protestants of many of the problems hold real even though accounting for quantities of religious observance. For instance, Protestants who take part in religious solutions one or more times a week are notably more prone to oppose abortion and divorce or separation – and significantly very likely to oppose homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and alcohol consumption – than are catholics who attend mass at the very least regular. 2 These differing views on social problems can help explain why numerous former Catholics who possess become Protestants state they certainly were to locate a church that “places greater value on residing a life that is moral (a median of 60%).
Throughout the area, both Catholics and Protestants generally speaking state it’s incumbent on Christians to aid poor people within their communities, nonetheless they give notably various responses on exactly how far better accomplish this objective. Whenever asked what’s the many way that is important might help the bad and needy, Protestants tend to be more most most likely than Catholics to aim toward bringing the indegent to Christ, while Catholics tend to be more inclined to state that doing charity work with the indegent is most significant.
Yet over the nations surveyed, a dramatically greater share of Protestants than Catholics say that they themselves or perhaps the church they attend 
take part in charity work – assisting people find jobs, supplying meals and clothes for everyone in need of assistance or arranging other community initiatives to greatly help the indegent. (For lots more details, see Chapter 6.)
They are one of the key findings in excess of 30,000 interviews that are face-to-face 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 into the southern tip of Southern America. Due to fieldwork constraints and sensitivities linked to polling about faith, Cuba could never be included; this is the only Spanish-speaking nation in Latin America which was maybe not polled.
The study of Latin America is a component of a bigger work, the Pew-Templeton worldwide Religious Futures task, which analyzes change that is religious its effect on communities around the globe. The international Religious Futures project is funded because of The Pew Charitable Trusts plus the John Templeton Foundation.
The rest for this Overview describes the most important findings in increased detail and offers context that is additional you start with some evaluations with Hispanics residing in the usa.
Evaluations with U.S. Hispanics
Lots of the major habits revealed by this study mirror trends discovered among U.S. Hispanics, based on a 2013 Pew Research poll. The U.S. Hispanic populace (now around 54.1 million individuals) is bigger than the full total populace in most but two Latin American countries – 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 just 2% of U.S. Hispanics have actually changed into Catholicism after being raised an additional religious tradition or without any affiliation – a web fall of 22 portion points. The scale for this exodus is approximately on par with a few Latin US nations which also have observed high decreases when you look at 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%), roughly exactly like in Latin America (19%). In addition, a number that is substantial of in america (18%) describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or absolutely nothing in specific. This might be a lot more than double the portion of Latin US grownups (8%) that are consistently unaffiliated.
Spiritual Affiliations of Latin People In America and U.S. Hispanics
Although Catholicism’s position that is historically dominant weakened in present decades (see reputation for spiritual Change), it continues to be the bulk faith across a lot of Latin America. Catholics constitute a majority that is overwhelming a lot more than two-thirds) for the adult populace in nine for the countries surveyed, ranging from 89per cent in Paraguay to 70per cent in Panama. Even yet in these greatly Catholic nations, but, Protestants now are really a minority that is significant constituting nearly 10% or even more associated with the populace in each nation.
Catholics constitute between one-half and approximately two-thirds of this populace in five associated with places surveyed: Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Similarly, 55% of U.S. Hispanics are Catholic.
In three main American nations – El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – approximately half associated with population is Catholic, while roughly four-in-ten grownups describe on their own as Protestant.
Uruguay could be the country that is only where in fact the portion of grownups whom state these are typically consistently unaffiliated (37%) rivals the share who identify as Catholic (42%). In addition, 15% of Uruguayans identify as Protestant. (See Religion in Uruguay.)