Frightening News

 

Our Lady of Gudalupe, Empress of the Americas, intercede for Your sons & daughters!

 

Catholic Church,

 

and religion in general,

 

losing Latinos in USA

 

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

Latino population growth over the past two decades has boosted numbers in the Catholic Church, but a new, in-depth analysis shows Latinos' allegiance to Catholicism is waning as some move toward other Christian denominations or claim no religion at all.

A report out today by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., finds Latino religious identification increasingly diverse and more "Americanized."

The analysis, based on data from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, compares responses to phone surveys in 1990 and 2008 conducted in English and Spanish. The 2008 sample included 3,169 people who identified themselves as Latinos.

 

"What you see is growing diversity — away from Catholicism and splitting between those who join evangelical or Protestant groups or no religion," says report co-author Barry Kosmin, a sociologist and director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at TrinityCollege. Among findings:

•From 1990 to 2008, the Catholic Church in the USA added an estimated 11 million adults, including 9 million Latinos. In 1990, Latinos made up 20% of the total Catholic population, but by 2008, it rose to 32%.

•Those who claimed "no religion" rose from fewer than 1 million (6% of U.S. Latinos) in 1990 to nearly 4 million (12% of Latinos) in 2008.

"As Latinos or any other ethnic group assimilates to American culture, they pick up the values of the broader American culture and are somewhat less likely to identify with the religious identification, or any other identification, that marked their parents or grandparents," says Mary Gautier, a senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

 

The new data send a clear message, says Allan Figueroa Deck, a Catholic priest and executive director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, a program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

 

"The biggest challenge the Catholic Church faces is the movement of Latino people not to other religions but rather to a secular way of life in which religion is no longer very important," he says. "We really need to ask ourselves why that is and what response the church can develop for this challenge."

See the full story at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-03-16-latinoreligion16_ST_N.htm

 

 

Here’s the money quote:

The biggest challenge the Catholic Church faces is the movement of Latino people not to other religions but rather to a secular way of life in which religion is no longer very important." – Fr. Allan Figueroa Deck, SJ (pic above).

Comments

[James]

I'm not so sure this is a true "move". Latinos have been "CINO" for generations. I have heard from many that their family didn't go to Mass growing up (nor do they), they haven't been baptized, yet they and their family still say they are "Catholic". How exactly does that work? I don't think we're seeing a move, we're seeing reality assert itself. Now, that doesn't mean that's not an issue of concern and prayer, but it does put things in context.

[LMV]

This article presents a frightening yet sad truth. I'm a fourth generation US born Mexican American and have witnessed first hand how many fellow Catholics are lured away by Protestant denominations due to the lack of catechesis from parish CCD classes and at home. Even if sold teaching is given at home, as was in my hosehold by my extremely devout grandmother, we still have to deal with our customs and traditions belittled or suppressed by modernist clergy. It's poignant especially here in the southwest to enter into churches devoid of any Santos or anywhere for people to pray and light candles or even to attend to private devotions. What the priests fail to see as they force us to listen to badly written guitar music or mariachi masses or try and impersonate charismatic style preachers is that what we truly hunger for and desire is the Faith as it sustained us in generations past, the Faith of the Friairs who worked tirelessly to found the missions, the Faith of the martyrs during the anti clerical movement when our churches were desacrated...bring back the Catholicsm that we need and not some misguided 'spirit of vatican II'. In my diocese in El Paso, Texas there are only two churches where the ancient Mass is still said one by an SSPX priest, the other staffed by a priest who truly teaches the Faith...and is maligned by our bishop who fails to truly "feed his flock" Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe ruega por nosotros.

[Jean]

We attend only the Traditional Latin Mass said by a priest ordained in the Old Rite by a bishop who was consecrated in the Old Rite. No cheap guitar music for us! And everyone at Mass, even though they might not be of Hispanic origin, believe everything that the Catholic Church always taught and we all pray the same prayers and love it! We are so grateful to God for showing us that the True Faith is still alive, albeit hard to find...

[dymphna]

So all that talk about Latinos saving the US church was hooey.