By: Staff Writer
January 23, 2026
Pew Center research recently released said that Catholicism has dropped dramatically in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region, but faith in God remains high.
A decade ago, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru all had Catholic majorities, with roughly six-in-ten or more adults in each country identifying as Catholic.
Today, roughly half of Brazilians and Chileans identify as Catholic (46 percent each in 2024), while Argentina (58 percent), Colombia (60 percent), Mexico (67 percent) and Peru (67 percent) have much smaller Catholic majorities than they did in 2013-14.
Catholicism has been declining in all these countries at least since the 1970s, according to estimates from the World Religion Database.
The report also said they, “sked about a variety of religious and spiritual practices, such as whether respondents pray daily, attend worship services weekly or wear religious symbols.18
Half or fewer of adults in each country engage in the practices we asked about – with the exception of daily prayer, which is reported by majorities of adults in Brazil (76 percent), Colombia (71 percent) and Peru (58 percent).
In several countries, Protestants are more likely than Catholics to say they pray daily and attend worship services weekly. But Catholics are more likely than Protestants to wear or carry religious symbols and to light incense or candles for religious or spiritual purposes.”
Praying at least once a day is most common in Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Fewer than half of adults in Mexico, Chile and Argentina report doing so.
Majorities of Protestants in nearly all places surveyed say they pray at least once a day. (The sample of Protestants in Mexico is too small for reliable analysis.)
The research also said: “Meanwhile, the share of adults who are religiously unaffiliated has roughly doubled in Argentina (to 24 percent in 2024), Brazil (15 percent) and Chile (33 percent); tripled in Mexico (20 percent) and Peru (12 percent); and nearly quadrupled in Colombia (23 percent).
“There are now more religiously unaffiliated adults than Protestants in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. When asked about their current religion, for example, two-in-ten “Mexican adults identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – compared with about one-in-ten Mexicans who identify with any branch of Protestantism.
“Protestantism has remained relatively stable across the region. For instance, in Brazil – which has the largest percentage of Protestants of the six countries surveyed – 29 percent of adults now identify as any kind of Protestant, compared with 26 percent in 2013-14.
“And while Pentecostal Protestantism continues to be widespread across the region, the percentage of Protestants who are Pentecostal has declined over the past decade as other traditions have grown.”