A report out today by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., finds Latino religious identification increasingly diverse and more "Americanized."-- From "Catholic Church, and religion in general, losing Latinos in USA" by Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY 3/16/10
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.
• 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.
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