Emmanuel Perez was about 15 years old when he decided the Catholic faith was not for him.
Perez’s cousin had just died in a car crash and his mother drove from her Santa Ana home in Orange County to Tulare near Fresno to help prepare the body for the viewing. She wanted to “be there for her in her last moments,” said Perez, 23.
His mother, however, was forbidden from getting close to the body.
Because his mom had divorced his father and lived with her new partner without getting married, Perez’s aunt didn’t consider her “holy enough” to be near her niece’s body. Perez said it was heartbreaking, especially because his mother devoted herself to the Catholic faith to create a bond with her family while his dad was not around.
That’s when he realized: “This is not for me. This is not what I believe in.”
According to a new Pew Research Center survey released Oct. 17, in 2018-19, 47% of Latinos identified as Catholic, down from 57% a decade ago.
The study found the share of Latinos who say they are religiously unaffiliated is now 23%, up from 15% in 2009.
The report, a collection of yearly political surveys asking about religion, highlighted a continuing decline of Christianity in the U.S. It found that 65% of Americans describe themselves as Christians, down from 77% in 2009.
Jennifer Hughes, a University of California Riverside associate professor who focuses on the history of Latin American and Latino religions, said that although this is a major shift, it’s important to consider the nuances of Latino Catholic identity.
“Because to say you’re Catholic … if you claim that, it may mean you go to church every Sunday and you go to confession and you’re in good standing,” Hughes said. “Those people who say they’re not Catholic, they could still be culturally Catholic.
The above comes from a Nov. 8 story reported by Religion News Service.
I wrote and spoke about this very problem of Hispanic (mostly Mexican) “reverse evangelism” about twenty years ago and predicted this very thing would happen. We now have well-funded and well-oiled Mormon, Evangelical, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness and Fundamentalist congregations that rival any Catholic institutions in the US-Mexican Catholic world. These Latinos are now trained evangelizers, not just evangelized. Literally millions of Mexican and Central American Catholics have abandoned the Roman Catholic faith for good, and they did this on American soil under our watch, all in one generation. How curious that many US Bishops and many orders – who have always been so vehemently opposed to securing the borders because it was felt to harm the unity of the Mexican family – have now perhaps unwittingly contributed to causing irreparable spiritual damage and family breakup of the former Catholic faithful Mexicans by calling for continued unfettered immigration, where many recent arrivals are sitting ducks for proselytization by non-Catholic religious groups. This problem has furthermore caused “bounce-back” into the host nation, and like gang warfare, these non-Catholic groups are making massive inroads into the wholescale formerly entirely Roman Catholic towns and pueblos in the heart of Mexico and C.A. I would argue with the rather ill-informed and innocuous comment of Jennifer Hughes about just remaining “culturally Catholic” (whatever that might imply), and argue it is a disaster for Latin American Catholicism, and it is only likely to get worse in the coming years.
Fr.John, have you read Mary Rose’s ongoing interviews with community college students? Most are Hispanic and most have only vague ideas about Catholicism and exhibit a little of Jennifer Hughes’ “culturally Catholicism.” You can see what that phrase means by seeing their wholesale rejection of Catholic teaching and their only vague ideas about spiritual matters. As a community college instructor myself for 30 years, I can vouch for the huge number of “cultural Catholics” in my classroom. I might add, there are powerful secular forces on campus not conducive to the fostering of spiritual life. The larger number of unaffiliated Hispanics can be attributed in part to our having lost the culture wars to new progressive ideas, esp on the family, fostered by Hollywood, the press, and the democratic party.
Fr. John , I agree the saddest thing I saw recently is on my drive to mass passing by one of these Church’s that was once a entertainment venue and seeing all these people arriving and with the list of mass times realizing that , less then a generation ago they were probably good Catholics . I think we have not just driven people out , we have made enemies of former friends . How many have we lost and will continue to lose , the hierarchy does not care , we the laity have to step in and try our best to staunch this exodus.
Fr. John, when the contraceptive pill was first sold, I saw many families, Hispanic and others torn apart from all the basic wife swapping. Men think they can cheat on wives and vice versa and it means nothing, but it tears apart families, deadens consciences and destroys societies. Then many go to other churches to remarry. Non Catholic churches are used as “meat markets” to find new partners. It has caused a lot of divorces even in those churches.
St.. Paul VI was right with Humanae Vitae. He saw it all coming and come it did. Amoris Latitia, Chapter 8, will only perpetuate it..
Sounds very similar to the ‘anglo’ phenomenon of ‘Former Catholics’ being one of the fastest growing religious groups in the US.
“Because to say you’re Catholic … if you claim that, it may mean you go to church every Sunday and you go to confession and you’re in good standing,” Hughes said. “Those people who say they’re not Catholic, they could still be culturally Catholic.
Cultural Catholic = not Catholic
Sadly also a result of the poor formation or lack of. Few if they understood the Beauty of the Sacraments and the graces in them would ever leave Mother Church. Unfortunately this is more a result of watered down faith being taught. We for too long have been embarrassed to be Catholic, since most do not understand their faith and cannot defend their faith.
Poor and bad formation, in all the Americas. Christ is available in the flesh and most don’t get what that means, and how powerful that is. He’s waiting for us 7 days a week to come to Him. He is not there for Himself, but for us.
We need to give out food boxes and speak the truth of our Catholic faith.