Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Habla Espanol, Benedict?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Catholic Church in America is changing. Quickly. The NYT:

The influx of Hispanic immigrants to the United States is transforming the Roman Catholic Church as well as the nation’s religious landscape, according to a major study of Hispanics and faith released today.

The study, conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, found that many Hispanics practice a “distinctive form” of charismatic Catholicism that includes speaking in tongues, miraculous healings and prophesying — practices more often associated with Pentecostalism. Among non-Hispanic Catholics, these traditions are practiced by some but are not so widespread.

The study also found that most Hispanics are clustering in “ethnic congregations” with Hispanic clergy, Spanish-language services and where the majority of congregants are Hispanic. These ethnic congregations are cropping up throughout the country — not just in neighborhoods with a concentration of Hispanics, but even in areas where Hispanics are sparse.

According to the survey, 68 percent of Hispanics are Roman Catholic, 15 percent are born-again or evangelical Protestants, 5 percent are mainline Protestants, 3 percent are identified as “other Christian,” and 8 percent are secular (1 percent refused to answer). This is a very different picture than that of non-Hispanic Americans, where the largest groupings are 20 percent Catholic, 35 percent evangelical and 24 percent mainline Protestant.

About one-third of Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic.

To read the full report, click here.

Labels: Christianity

Posted by B Feiler at 3:31 PM
Permalink Digg this Post Email this Post

0 Comments: