The Population Drop of Hispanic Us Migrant Catholics
Reuters

According to multiple research reports from the past decade, approximately, 30.4 million Hispanic or Latino US migrants self-declare their religion as Catholic in the United States of America. Out of this population, 54 percent is native-born Hispanic or Latino US migrants and the rest are foreign-born. Three percent of the total Catholic priests in the US has Hispanic or Latino origins. The retention rate for their youth's population is roughly 71%.

This retention rate for the youth of Hispanic or Latin origin migrants is a higher percentage compared to the 61% retention rate of the non-Hispanic Catholic youth population in the United States of America.

From the previous week's Pew Research Forum on Religion and Public Life reports, the Catholic religion is not anymore the majority religion of the United States of America's Hispanic population. This is viewed by the Catholic Church in the United States as a challenge to evangelize more from the Hispanic or Latino community.

According to the Associate Director of the Secretariat on Evangelization and Catechesis of the United States of America Conference of Catholic Bishops Carlos Taja during a conference with CAN, the Catholic Hispanic Us migrant population is dropping and is becoming a challenging matter for the leaders of the church to create and showcase a culture in the religious group where the center of every celebration is the family. Hispanics strongly believe in the power of the bond of family members.

The Pew Research Forum on Religion and Public Life had released the outcomes of the surveys they conducted among American adults during 2018 and 2019 last week.

The outcome of the survey was swift drop over the previous ten years in the rate of the United States' population who identified themselves as Christians. The report also showed the increasing trend of the US population declaring themselves as unaffiliated with any religious group.

From the overall finding on the survey conducted by Pew, the total rate of the population of US Christians had dropped by 12% to 65 % in the last 10 years. Those who identify themselves as unaffiliated with any religious group had increased by 9% to 26%.

According to theology, education professor and director of the graduate programs of Hispanic Ministry at Boston College Hosffman Ospino, the decline in the population of Hispanic Catholics is not shocking news.

Ospino believes that a majority of the Catholics in the United States of America are not fully knowledgeable of the unique culture of the Hispanic US migrants. The drop of the Catholic Hispanic US migrant population primarily brings difficulty to the church in enticing the religiously unaffiliated Hispanics in the US to the Catholic religion.

Based on Ospino's statement, a latest trend among the modernized society is the urbanization of the Hispanic community in the United States. He said that it is either more and more Hispanic families leave their rural lives to live in cities or their childrens leaves their homes to move to the cities.

The drop in the Catholic Hispanic US migrant population is happening in an annual rate and the population of the Hispanic US migrants is growing yearly. The church should see that as an opportunity to get these people to be religiously involved with the Catholic Church together with their peers.