Aljazeera
Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 26 Mar 2012
As Pope Benedict XVI makes his way through Mexico and Cuba, rallying the faithful, his advisers are likely having backroom discussions about an impending threat to the Catholic Church’s historic dominance in the region: The rise of evangelical Christianity.
Home to about eight per cent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics – more of the faithful than any country outside Brazil – Mexico has seen a slow but steady decline in people who self-identify with the faith. Currently about 82.7 per cent of Mexicans consider themselves Catholic, down from 88 per cent in 2000 and 96 per cent in 1970. Evangelical protestant denominations are believed responsible for much of the drop.
“The Vatican is extremely concerned about competition with evangelicals,” Daniel Levine, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies religious movements in Latin America, told Al Jazeera. “They are worried about losing their position as ‘the’ spokesperson for religion and morality in the region. It is a big change from a generation ago.”
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