By Katy Lester

Alfredo Feregrino had been fully immersed in American culture for almost 20 years before he had his religious awakening. Although the converted Episcopal priest was raised Catholic when he was living in Mexico City, a lot changed when he came to the United States that ultimately caused him to leave his beliefs behind.

For Latinos in Mexico, the Catholic religion is integrated into all things: family life, education, politics, and beyond. However, scholars speculate that as Latinos immigrate to the United States they find that Catholicism is not as central, and in many ways they must learn to develop a new sense of identity.

In May, Pew Research Center released a study showing that Latinos are often abandoning Catholicism upon immigrating to the United States. While many older adults who immigrate tend to remain Catholic, the younger generation of immigrants–also known as millennials– are dropping the religion, hence not passing it on to the next generation.

While Latinos still make up the vast majority of Catholics in the world–about 55 percent of Latinos in the United States and 69 percent of Catholics the entire world [cq]–its no doubt that the nature of the religion will change with so many participants leaving, according to some scholars of comparative religion.

And while some (like this report from CNN) believe this could be trouble for the Catholic Church, the change also gives a new sense of identity in what it means to be a Latino in America.

Feregino, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Episcopal Church on Queen Anne in Seattle, was ordained as an Episcopal Catholic priest in Seattle back in 2005 [cq].

Like many other Latinos, Feregrino was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, and says he was unaware of other interpretations of Catholicism until he immigrated to the United States 20 years ago, after earning a degree in philosophy in Mexico City at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In fact, he says that he was unaware there were any other religions outside of Christianity until he moved to the United States.

“In Mexico, we have only Catholicism,” Feregrino said. “It’s part of the national identity.”

The core difference between Roman Catholicism and Episcopal Catholicism comes down to how people govern themselves. Roman Catholics believe in a very literal interpretation of the Bible, and Episcopalians use the Bible as more of a moral compass. Feregrino noted that this alone can drive Latinos to leave Catholicism upon coming to the United States.

Another thing he noted was that Roman Catholicism, more so than other religion, is heavily based in a person’s conscience.

Although the Episcopal denomination also puts heavy emphasis on conscience, they believe a person should use his or her own conscience rather than the Bible to make good, moral decisions. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, use conscience to guilt people into making decisions based on what the Bible says, Feregrino said.

“There’s lots of bad imagery in the Bible–like rape and people burning in hell for eternity–that Roman Catholics like to use to get people to behave a certain way,” Feregrino said. “But we believe that your relationship should be between you and God, not how you behave based on the Bible.”

Feregrino notes that after immigrating to the United States, he had a religious awakening upon discovering Episcopalianism, because it allowed him to keep his faith but understand it in a whole new way.

Fundamentally, he believes that people should share the grace of God rather than putting up obstacles. He also noted that the first wedding he officiated was between a homosexual Latino couple, which is something he could have never done as a Roman Catholic priest in the majority of Mexican cities.

Another reason Latinos are leaving the Catholic Church could be due to cultural assimilation.

Daniel Castelo, associate professor in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, said many Latinos might want to abandon everything after immigrating.

“[Latino immigrants] have taken the step to emancipate themselves from their native contexts and step out into new territory, so to speak; in doing so, they may leave behind any number of other things, and one of those things could very well be the Roman Catholicism of their home countries,” he said.

In addition to this, the majority of Latinos who end up abandoning Catholicism are millennials (ages 18-30), and many of them become caught in a strange cultural bind.

Because many of these millennials immigrated to the United States with parents and elders, they end up speaking better English but worse Spanish than their parents. In turn, this causes them to dismiss not only their heritage religion, but parts of the heritage as a whole. Castelo believes that this creates a cultural barrier between Latino millennials and their parents that can be difficult to work through.

Estebán Guzmán, a 22-year old Latino raised in the Catholic church, said that after moving from the town Chalchihuites in Zacatecas to the United States with his parents at a very young age, he watched them struggle not only religiously, but financially and culturally as well. He believes that Catholicism helped his parents to assimilate better than they could have without religion, and while he keeps faith in God he may not always identify as Catholic.

“On one hand, it’s hard to get away from something that has influenced literally your entire life,” he said.

Guzmán, like Feregrino, also said that for much of his life he was unaware other religions existed. He also said that while he wonders what it would be like to be a part of another religion, his ties to Christianity as a whole mark the way he thinks about life in a way that cannot be changed.

Ultimately, the Latino relationship with Catholicism in the United States is marked by a wide range of factors. What does it mean, though, for Catholicism as a religion in America? While some argue that Catholicism in America could be on the down-swing, a wide variety of factors could invigorate it. The factor with the most current potential is the election of the first ever Latino Pope.

Up until this point, Latinos have not had a person in the church that truly understands much of the plight, as well as the hopes, of common Latino Catholic people. Scholars say that this alone helps keep the church moving forward in America as well as outside of its borders.

Scholars also argue that Catholicism historically has adapted significantly wherever it has landed. If this is true, it means that even despite declining numbers in the church, Catholicism will find a way to flourish, whether this means changing to be more liberal like Episcopalians or gaining strength in other areas of the world.