Catholics remain the largest religious group among Latinos in the United States, but the number of Latinos who identify as religiously unaffiliated continues to grow.  In 2022, 30 percent of Latinos considered themselves religiously unaffiliated, up from a quarter of Latinos the previous year, and on par with the overall U.S. adult population.

These are among the key findings of a comprehensive report released Thursday (13) by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 7,647 American adults between August 1 and 14 last year.

“The demographic forces shaping the nation’s Latino population also have impacted religious affiliation trends. Young people born in the U.S. — not immigrants — have driven Latino population growth since the 2000s”, Pew Research senior writer Jens Manuel Krogstad wrote in the report.

As The Washington Post notes, “The report, which uses the terms Latino and Hispanic interchangeably, found that Catholicism remains the largest faith among Latinos in the U.S., even as the number of Latino adults who identify as Catholic steadily declined over the past decade. The number went from 67% in 2010 to 43% last year”.

Among Latin Americans aged 18 to 29, about half (49 percent) now identify as religiously unaffiliated. On the other hand, only about 1 in 5 Latinos 50 and older are unaffiliated.

While 43 percent of Latinos still identify as Catholic, that’s down 3 percentage points from 2021. The share of Latinos who are evangelical Protestants is 15 percent, a small increase from 2021 — lagged those who are unaffiliated or Catholic.

Latinos who identify as unaffiliated with a religion have steadily increased since 2016. The share of evangelical Protestants remained generally stable, according to the study.

“Latino immigrants are slightly more likely than U.S.-born Latinos to be evangelical (19% vs. 12%). “Evangelicalism is especially prevalent among Latinos with Central American origins, mirroring a pattern seen in those countries. Roughly three-in-ten Central Americans (31%) say they are evangelical Protestants”, the report says, according to The Post.

Among Latino evangelical Protestants, half identify with the Republican Party or are independents who lean toward the Republican Party; and 44 percent are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents.

Among Latino Catholics, by contrast, 72 percent identify as Democrats. Latinos with no religious affiliation are also mostly Democrats (66 percent).

The majority of Latin Americans (65%) also claim to have been raised Catholic. Far fewer say they were raised Protestant (18%) or without religious affiliation (13%).