Latinos drift from Catholic Church

A new report, “The Shifting Religious Identity of Latinos in the United States,” reads very much like a biography of Fernando Alcantar.

Like six in ten Hispanic Catholics in the United States, Alcantar was born in Mexico, where “you are Catholic as much as you are Mexican. You like jalapeños and worship the Virgin of Guadalupe,” he said.

But once he moved to California after high school, his faith journey diverged—and was derailed. Today Alcantar, 36, calls himself a humanist.