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CURRENT
ISSUE: May 7, 2007
VOL.
45, NO. 9Oakland,
CA
U.S. Latino Catholics drawn to charismatic style of worship
 |
Worshippers sing during
a Spanish Mass at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Gaithersburg,
Md., last year. A new study from the Pew Hispanic Center shows that
Latinos are influencing U.S. religious practice, especially Catholicism.
Latinos account for about a third of all Catholics in the United
States. |
WASHINGTON
(CNS) -- The Church familiar to and preferred by Hispanic Catholics in
the United States is a livelier, more charismatic place than the one most
American Catholics are used to, finds a new survey on Latinos and religion.
A detailed survey by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion
and Public Life released April 25 says about a third of U.S. Catholics
are Latinos and that they are bringing a more evangelical style of faith
into the broader Church as their numbers grow.
Despite an overall drop in the percentage of U.S. Hispanics who are Catholic
-- due largely to those who joined evangelical and Pentecostal churches
-- Latinos will continue to represent an ever-larger share of the U.S.
Catholic population because of immigration and high birthrates, it said.
About 68 percent of U.S. Hispanics say they are Catholics.
While in many respects Latinos differ little from the general U.S. population
in their religious attitudes and activities, Roberto Suro, director of
the Pew Hispanic Center, said analysts were surprised to see the depth
of what he called “renewal Christianity” among people of Latino
origin or descent.
In a telephone press conference about the study, “Changing Faiths:
Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion,” Suro said
Latinos are much more likely than the general U.S. public to be involved
in churches where an enthusiastic, hand-clapping, arms-raised style of
worship and prayer is typical.
Fifty-four percent of Hispanic Catholics were identified as charismatics
on the basis of what religious practices people said they have in their
churches, the survey said. Among the characteristics the survey used to
classify people as charismatics was participation in prayer groups where
participants pray for miraculous healing or deliverance or where people
speak in tongues.
The survey found that 62 percent of Catholic Hispanics say the Masses
they attend at least occasionally have “displays of excitement and
enthusiasm, such as raising hands, clapping, shouting or jumping.”
Among non-Hispanic Catholics, only about 12 percent consider themselves
charismatics, Suro said.
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, said at the same teleconference
that becoming involved in the charismatic style of religious practice
strengthens people’s religious identity. Whether Catholic, Anglican
or mainline Protestant, Latinos who adopt a more charismatic style of
practicing their faith remain within their original church and become
stronger in their religious commitment, he said.
“There’s absolutely no evidence that it’s diminishing
or undercutting their Catholic orthodoxy or their connection to parish
life,” he said.
Hispanic Protestants were proportionally even more likely to belong to
“renewal” churches, with 57 percent in that category.
“The contrast to the non-Hispanic population is stark: Less than
one in five non-Hispanic Protestants are renewalists,” the survey
said.
About 18 percent of all Hispanics said they had changed churches or stopped
considering themselves members of a faith altogether. Former Catholics
(13 percent) were the majority.
Conversion was much more common among second- and third-generation Hispanics
than among recent immigrants, the survey found. And the majority left
Catholicism to join evangelical churches. Forty-three percent of evangelical
Hispanics said they formerly were Catholic. Just 2 percent of Hispanic
converts became Catholics.
Catholics who became evangelicals were asked to discuss their feelings
about the Catholic Church and why they left.
The greatest dissatisfaction was voiced about liturgy.
Sixty-one percent of former Catholics said they found the Mass “unexciting,”
although only 36 percent said that was a factor in why they left. Forty-six
percent said they disapprove of Church restrictions on divorce, but only
5 percent said that was why they left.
Among all Hispanics surveyed, 83 percent of those who converted said their
main reason for changing faiths or churches was a desire for a more direct,
personal experience of God. The second most common reason, given by 35
percent, was the inspiration of a particular pastor, followed by 26 percent
who said it was related to a personal crisis and 14 percent who converted
because of a marriage.
