Leaders in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas once expected a booming Latino population to sustain Catholic institutions for the next century. That expectation is now collapsing. Young Latinos are abandoning organized religion at a faster rate than any other demographic in the United States, according to a new Axios analysis. This decline is hitting Catholic churches particularly hard, straining legacy parishes, schools, and congregations across the Sun Belt.
The religious affiliation of Latinos aged 18 to 29 is falling, with a rising number now identifying as atheist, agnostic, or "nothing in particular." Hispanic Americans, who make up about 15% of the U.S. population, have seen their religiously unaffiliated percentage rise from 18% in 2013 to 23% in 2025, an Axios review of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) data shows. This trend outpaces the general population, where the overall percentage of Americans without religious affiliation reached 28% this year, PRRI reported.
The Unraveling of Institutions
The cultural dispossession is stark within Catholic communities. Pew Research Center data reviewed by Axios reveals the share of Latino adults identifying as Catholic plummeted from 67% in 2010 to just 43% in 2022. This represents a significant and rapid shift in the cultural landscape of Western nations. Meanwhile, the percentage of Latinos in U.S. Protestant churches has remained relatively stable at roughly 21% since 2010.
Analysts describe this exodus among Catholics as part of one of the fastest religious shifts in modern history. It is marked by a rapid increase in religiously unaffiliated people and a wave of church closures across the nation. The secularization trend is largely driven by young people and assimilation, with younger demographics showing a faster break from institutional religion. This demographic and cultural transformation impacts the very foundations of community life.
Elite Miscalculation and Cultural Drift
The "none" revolution is also heavily driven by gender, with young women of color leading the departure from religion, especially conservative denominations. PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman noted that "A lot of young women, including young Latinas, are not buying into the trad wife sort of theme that's often pushed by people on the right to sort of counteract the fact that younger women are more progressive and less religious." Deckman added that "A lot of conservative denominations are doubling down on very patriarchal themes ... and young women, especially, tend to be more vocally supportive of LGBT rights." This highlights a clash of values, where traditional structures are being rejected in favor of progressive ideologies.
The notion that new populations would simply fill the pews and sustain existing cultural institutions has proven to be a profound miscalculation by institutional leaders. Instead, the influx appears to be accelerating a broader secularization. The cultural continuity once assumed with demographic shifts is simply not materializing.
A Transnational Secular Tide
This secularization pipeline isn't merely an American assimilation effect. A 2026 Pew Research study this year in Latin America found the region experiencing massive net losses in Catholic adherents. This means many immigrants arriving in the U.S. from Latin America are already detached from the Catholic Church before they even set foot on American soil. The globalist trend of secularization is not only transforming Western societies from within but is also imported through migration, further eroding the cultural and religious bedrock of nations. The expectation that demographic change would bolster traditional institutions has instead revealed a deeper, transnational current of cultural fragmentation.