Pew Research Obscures Latin America’s Apostasy Crisis Through Naturalistic Lens
The EWTN News portal (January 21, 2026) uncritically relays a Pew Research Center report claiming Catholics remain Latin America’s largest religious group despite declining numbers. The analysis frames the crisis through sociological metrics – prayer frequency, self-identification percentages, and “religious switching” – while ignoring the supernatural catastrophe of sacramental abandonment and doctrinal corruption. Cardinal errors include:
“Catholicism remains the largest religion in Latin America… roughly half of Brazilians (46%) and Chileans (46%) identified as Catholic.”
This deceitfully equates baptized populations with actual Catholics. As Pius XII taught: “Not all who are incorporated into the Church are saved… They are fully incorporated who… preserve unity with the Church’s visible structure” (Mystici Corporis Christi, 22). The conciliar sect’s counterfeit sacraments and modernist doctrines render such “Catholics” materially outside Christ’s True Church.
Naturalism Masquerading as Religious Analysis
The report commits three fundamental errors condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors:
- Equating religious identity with salvation: By treating Catholicism as a demographic category rather than the extra Ecclesiam nulla salus reality, Pew embraces the condemned proposition that “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Syllabus, Error 16).
- Reducing prayer to psychological phenomenon: Measuring “daily prayer” while ignoring whether such prayers adhere to Catholic forms (e.g., Rosary vs. charismatic “praise”) reflects the naturalism Pius X condemned in Lamentabili Sane: “Faith as assent of the mind is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities” (Proposition 25).
- Legitimizing Protestant sects: The report’s neutral treatment of Protestant growth violates Leo XIII’s teaching that “by divine institution [the Church] is distinguished from other Christian bodies” (Satis Cognitum, 13) and Pius XI’s condemnation of “false Christians who reject the Church’s teachings” (Mortalium Animos, 10).
Theological Amnesia Regarding Apostasy Causes
The article omits the sole cause of Latin America’s collapse: the conciliar sect’s systematic destruction of Catholic identity. Consider:
- Invalid Sacraments: The Novus Ordo Missae (1969) lacks propitiatory character, as Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci warned: “The destruction of the doctrine of the Mass as sacrifice constitutes a grave evil.”
- Heretical Catechesis: The conciliar sect’s 1992 Catechism teaches religious liberty (CCC 2108) – condemned by Gregory XVI as “insanity” (Mirari Vos, 15) and Pius IX as “erroneous opinion” (Syllabus, Error 77).
- Pastoral Neglect: When 67% of Peruvians claim Catholicism, where are the warnings about receiving “Communion” in invalid rites? Silence confirms the conciliar clergy’s apostasy – they “have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2).
Statistical Deception Concealing Ecclesial Suicide
The report’s methodology embodies the modernist heresy:
“About half or more of adults surveyed… said religion is very important in their lives.”
This measures sentimental attachment, not fides et ratio (faith and reason). As Pius X warned: “Modernists place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is usually called Agnosticism” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 6). The true catastrophe isn’t declining numbers, but rising sacrilege as millions receive invalid sacraments from invalidly ordained ministers.
Conclusion: Reign of Christ or Reign of Statistics?
Pew’s analysis exemplifies the naturalism Pius XI condemned: “When God and Jesus Christ… are removed from laws and states… the entire human society had to be shaken” (Quas Primas, 18). Until Latin America rejects the conciliar sect’s anti-Church and restores the Social Kingship of Christ, no demographic survey can mask its spiritual annihilation. Let the faithful recall: “The nations will worship before You, O Lord, and all the kings will glorify You” (Psalm 85:9).
Source:
Catholics remain the largest religious group across Latin America, Pew says (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 21.01.2026