Young Hispanics Leaving Catholic Church for Protestant Faith

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/young-hispanics-leaving-catholic-church-protestant-faith/story?id=18598257

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Well gee, looks like contrary to some things I've been told, people everywhere leave the Catholic church and cease identifying as such, not just in Minnesota and North Dakota. And amongst youngs "CULTURE AND TRADITION OMG" is not a particularly compelling reason for anything.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oh my, this is awful!

While I understand you wouldn't approve of any church, I think you'd at least consider leaving the Catholic Church an ever so slight improvement. Especially since as noted Hispanic youngs are more likely to hold liberal views on social issues.

But good news for you: Hispanic youngs are far more likely per the same survey to be unaffiliated than the olds and are up to 20% "None".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I really, really want to know why BRTD obsesses over Catholics.

It's not really so much "Catholics" as an attitude a lot of them have, let's call it the "once a Catholic, always a Catholic" line of thinking and that certain people of certain backgrounds are basically always Catholic and would never leave even if they aren't practicing or believing. But plenty of evidence (this being one) proves that not to be the case. The thinking that anyone raised Catholic should always identify as Catholic for life because of "OMG CULTURE AND TRADITION" is kind of the same line of thinking of the BJP in India. And shunning or putting pressure on people who don't want to follow that tradition (which I'm more familiar with personally.)

Did you ever see the video of the Minnesota DFL State Representative speaking against the anti-gay marriage amendment telling about how a lot of members of his family refused to attend his wedding because he was marrying a Protestant in a Protestant church?

Also I belong to a scene/subculture that is pretty anti-Catholic because:

1-Just about everyone in it is anti-religion with the mindsets being:
2-Atheists and general non-believers tend to be pretty vocal about it and don't give a sh!t about "culture" or "tradition", if they don't believe in it, its trash that needs to be abandoned and discarded along with things like patriotism and nationalism and you're not supposed to be associating with any culture besides the "scene" where gender, race and class are all now irrelevant.
3-The Christians who are in it, in addition to putting the same value on culture and tradition are anti-hierarchical and disgusted at the idea that they need a priest or someone to stand between them and God (something touched on a bit in the article.)

I really, really want to know why BRTD obsesses over Catholics.

Bigotry, largely. As well, racism is a part of it. He's glad to see these immigrants assimilating into his white bread, suburban, hardcore vision for society.

Not only does that make no sense, is self-contradictory, and obviously doesn't apply to my vision for society, Catholicism is pretty white bread and suburban too.

It's probably just them naturally feeling like "wow, I actually have a choice?" And not being blindly devoted to the Catholic Church, which was pretty much the only choice in the countries their parents/grandparents came from.

I guess they're kind of mirroring the Eastern European immigrants and their descendents on this.

I don't think they're becoming more Protestant, just becoming more American.

And bingo. I think you touched on my point here. It's not even really about Catholics, it's about people not identifying with things for no reason than accident of birth.

Oh my, this is awful!

While I understand you wouldn't approve of any church, I think you'd at least consider leaving the Catholic Church an ever so slight improvement. Especially since as noted Hispanic youngs are more likely to hold liberal views on social issues.

But good news for you: Hispanic youngs are far more likely per the same survey to be unaffiliated than the olds and are up to 20% "None".

Well that's good.  But generally I think of the newfangled (non-Mainline) Protestants as much worse than Catholics.

Yes, the Hispanics are joining one of the worst "normal" sects, evangelism. I guess it could be worse if they were becoming Mormons or something.

But the article noted that younger Hispanics are more likely to be liberal.

And I fail to see why belonging to an evangelical church and supporting gay marriage is more hypocritical than supporting gay marriage and belonging to a Catholic church, even if it's assumed all evangelical churches are anti-gay.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You mean American suburbs aren't full of Catholic churches? (Also note where Cathcon lives). Or that American Catholics aren't generally "whitebread"? I mean skim through the video to check out the congregation here (which is just the first video I found that had a whole Mass when you type "Catholic Mass" into YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQR0_xoM2Go That's as "whitebread" as it gets (not to mention old).

And what type of people send their kids to Catholic schools? It's obviously not urban hipsters or inner city poors. The Catholic high school in my hometown was also known as a "rich school".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The article isn't really incorrect on that, because the growth, while small, still occurred with that surge to "None". If raised Catholic and raised Protestant Hispanics go to "None" at rates similar to their proportion of the whole population, then the 18-29 proportion would drop about 3 points to 24%. The fact that it increases, even if slightly, is evidence of a bunch of conversion that replaces those going to "None".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD needs to understand that Minneapolis =/= the world. Or how else would one come to the conclusion that Catholics are more right-wing than white evangelicals?

That was never my point or claim.

Though it might be true in the 18-29 demographic, which has plenty of progressive evangelicals and very few actual Catholics, and the few that exist are quite socially conservative (See people like TJ and Phil.) A young raised Catholic who converts to evangelical is quite more likely to be likely than a young raised Catholic who remains Catholic, especially considering the former is more likely to join something like an emergent church than Southern Baptist or whatever.

BRTD needs to understand that Minneapolis =/= the world. Or how else would one come to the conclusion that Catholics are more right-wing than white evangelicals?

Well, he's not doing a great job of the Twin Cities, either, as Catholic high schools aren't just for riches, but either for very Catholics or not-from-around-here riches who don't realize that Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Minnetonka, Edina High Schools, etc. all exist

Actually I said that was in the case in my hometown, not the Twin Cities.

Though your statement here doesn't exactly go against my point, since it implies still that Catholic schools are for riches, and that they are a pretty whitebread and suburban thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But it is notable that the Protestant numbers have NOT decreased, despite the large movement toward "None".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But it is notable that the Protestant numbers have NOT decreased, despite the large movement toward "None".

As a Democrat, I'm not sure you should be celebrating this. Bush did quite good among Hispanic Protestants, iirc. And yes, a quick google search shows 54% in 2004. 

The article mentioned that youngs tend to be quite more liberal on social issues (unsurprisingly.)

I'd be surprised if anyone (of any race) switches party when converting from Catholic to Protestant, or vice-versa. If someone converts to a rather socially conservative church, they were conservative pre-conversion too.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If someone's going to ignore the Catholic hierarchy on social issues, there's no reason they can't ignore an evangelical church's positions on those too once converting. Kind of the point I made here:

And I fail to see why belonging to an evangelical church and supporting gay marriage is more hypocritical than supporting gay marriage and belonging to a Catholic church, even if it's assumed all evangelical churches are anti-gay.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If someone's going to ignore the Catholic hierarchy on social issues, there's no reason they can't ignore an evangelical church's positions on those too once converting. Kind of the point I made here:

And I fail to see why belonging to an evangelical church and supporting gay marriage is more hypocritical than supporting gay marriage and belonging to a Catholic church, even if it's assumed all evangelical churches are anti-gay.

In America at least, Protestants tend to take their faith more seriously and are more active and activist about it. They go to church more, are more conservative and vote more GOP. Dealing with such large and varied groups it is only useful to speak in the broad sense because you will have exceptions everywhere.  The numbers remain that Hispanic protestants are more GOP than Catholics. This has a generational effect too as the next generations are brought up in this more conservative milieu. 

But as admitted, this is very generalized. The article notes some may have converted with disgust with the Catholic church's positions on these issues. There are plenty of Protestant, and even evangelical churches that are nowhere near as blatantly socially reactionary about this type of stuff. I imagine that youngs with liberal views converting to evangelicalism are far more likely to convert to something like an emergent church or a ignoring social issues type of charismatic church than some fire and brimstone one. Now I know you and afleitch like to argue that places like this are really viciously fundamentalist and are merely hiding their true nature but even if we assume this is true, it's not going to affect someone going to them who already holds liberal views on these things and cause them to change them. Come to think I don't think I've EVER met a person who shifted to being AGAINST gay marriage.

Now if you wonder what's colored my views on this stuff (more as a general statement, not really toward patrick), consider the context: The Catholic church waged a VICIOUS anti-gay campaign here for the past two years up until November and even prior to that did as much backing for Tom Emmer as possible without violating IRS regulations (on that issue alone.) It utterly disgusted me to no end, and the Star Tribune and some local indie publications on more than one occasion ran stories citing ex-Catholics who said they left the church because of this alone. Yes lots of Protestants did the same thing. But lots didn't, even evangelicals. One megachurch pastor attracted some controversy for refusing to support the amendment, while he stopped short of speaking against it too, he did give some statement along the lines of "I know there are plenty of people at my church on both sides of this issue and I'm not going to get involved in something this divisive."

Now I know the point is always made that many individual Catholics didn't agree with this at all and were just as disgusted. I don't dispute that. But I ask then why remain in the church. The "OMG CULTURE" stuff reminds me of Oldiesfreak's arguments about how the Republicans should be supported today because of the Civil War and segregation era. It sounds just as absurd and nonsensical to me.

Maybe there's deeper things here I don't really value and thus I can't comprehend it well. I don't dispute that. But that still explains WHY I can't understand it and find it so bizarre and inane.

I am not sure the point on the second post. Out of context, I don't see the hypocrisy.

You don't maybe. But there are plenty of people (see afleitch and Progressive Realist) who hold this type of double standard.

From my personal view, I would be better for the Church to have marriage be a sacrament and as defined by it as man and wife etc...  Let govt's decide the laws of the land and stay out of it.

You might think that, but that doesn't do much against $1.5 million spent on an anti-gay marriage campaign.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I actually sat next to a Hispanic couple this morning.

If someone's going to ignore the Catholic hierarchy on social issues, there's no reason they can't ignore an evangelical church's positions on those too once converting. Kind of the point I made here:

And I fail to see why belonging to an evangelical church and supporting gay marriage is more hypocritical than supporting gay marriage and belonging to a Catholic church, even if it's assumed all evangelical churches are anti-gay.

In America at least, Protestants tend to take their faith more seriously and are more active and activist about it. They go to church more, are more conservative and vote more GOP. Dealing with such large and varied groups it is only useful to speak in the broad sense because you will have exceptions everywhere.  The numbers remain that Hispanic protestants are more GOP than Catholics. This has a generational effect too as the next generations are brought up in this more conservative milieu. 

I am not sure the point on the second post. Out of context, I don't see the hypocrisy.

From my personal view, I would be better for the Church to have marriage be a sacrament and as defined by it as man and wife etc...  Let govt's decide the laws of the land and stay out of it.

At least part of this is due to the broader nature of the church. When doing polling average, one has to include both half-assed Catholics and the hardcore conservatives, but you don't have to do the same for evangelicals.

Yes, because of course, it's impossible to be a "serious" Catholic without being a "hardcore conservative."

Thing is this, if you aren't agreeing with the heirarchy on all the important issues that they make a fuss about, which would at least make you conservative even if not "hardcore conservative", then what the hell makes you Catholic or a "serious" Catholic besides "OMG CULTURE!" ? The dichotomy here is split kind of absurdly, but the point is fairly clear.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That might be true, but I have a feeling PR was also meaning it's possible to be a "serious" Catholic and not socially conservative, which I see as pretty tough.

For the record, my big issue with the whole idea of "ethnic religions" is the implication that anyone who does leave it therefore is this. This isn't explicitly stated too often today, but is often kind of implied and the underlying attitudes still run through. Even oakvale admitted there is a bit of an issue where non-Catholics are viewed as not "real" Irish.