Catholicism Fading in Latin America

[DC Al Fine]

Per the Pew Report there's a significant commitment gap between Protestant and Catholics. This suggests that large swathes of nominal Catholics are basically unevangelized.



The Protestant churches also put more emphasis in seeking converts, which would help growth. I'm sure there are other reasons but my knowledge of Latin America is basically nil.

One other thing that surprised me was that about a 1/3 of the growth came from non-charismatic Protestants. I was under the impression that the growth was almost entirely Pentecostal in nature, but it appears the Baptists, Presbyterians et al. are growing as well.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm encouraged by this!

Why?

Presumably because he's a Protestant.

[DC Al Fine]

So are anybody surprised that converts to a new faith are much more active in their religious community than people who has been born into a faith?

There's also:

Evangelical leaves church = No Religion
Catholic leaves church = Catholic

Given the prevalence of this phenomenon in the Americas, nominal Evangelicals would be more active than nominal Catholics almost by definition.

[DC Al Fine]

Everywhere it goes, it chips away at local culture and decides that the issues that concern the Reverend Asshole of Bum, Ohio must be the concerns of Uganda or China or Chile. Throwing in a little latin heat doesn't take away the taste.

But remember kids, afleitch is the mature, dispassionate one here.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm reading through the report in full and found this interesting tidbit.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm reading through the report in full and found this interesting tidbit.

Uruguay is not surprising, as it's the most progressive of Latin American countries. 

It's not that. It's that Protestants were so much more against contraception than Catholics.

[DC Al Fine]

Isn't a lot of this due to indigenous groups converting?

Yes and no.

A member of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil recently started attending my church. He describes the situation as follows.

There are two similar sized groups joining the Protestant churches.
a) Indigenous people. This has a lot to do with historical grievances. They convert almost exclusively to Pentecostalism

b) Working class/poor Hispanics who were mostly unchurched or underchurched Catholics. Their conversions are largely due to strong Protestant evangelizing efforts, and charitable work in the slums. They are mostly Pentecostal with mainline* minority.

Both a & b have issues with prosperity theology in varying degrees.

There is also a smaller group of who are converting for the same reason that many American mainliners left for evangelicalism; lack of rigour in their home church. These folks are mostly middle class and join the mainline churches.

*"Mainline" here refers to liturgy not theology. My acquaintance tells me that liberal Protestantism is almost non-existent in Brazil and I assume this is true for the rest of Latin America.