Young Latinos abandoning churches to be "nones"
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Young Latinos are abandoning organized religion at a faster rate than any other demographic in the United States, a new Axios analysis finds.
Why it matters: The declining religious affiliation of Latinos ages 18 to 29 — particularly among Catholics — is challenging long-held assumptions that their explosive growth would boost traditional religious values in American culture.
- Instead, a rising number of Latinos are identifying as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular."
By the numbers: Hispanics make up about 15% of the U.S. population. The percentage of Hispanic Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated rose steadily from 18% in 2013 to 23% in 2025, according to an Axios review of the latest data from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
- That mirrored a broader national trend PRRI identified in 2026, when it reported that the overall percentage of Americans without religious affiliation was up to 28%.
- Among Catholic Latinos, the declines were historic. An Axios review of Pew Research Center data found that the share of Latino adults identifying as Catholic plummeted from 67% in 2010 to 43% in 2022.
- Meanwhile, the percentage of Latinos in U.S. Protestant churches has remained relatively stable — roughly 21% since 2010.
State of play: The exodus among Catholics has meant that legacy parishes, schools and congregations are struggling to survive in Sun Belt areas — namely Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — where they once expected a booming Latino population to sustain them for the next century.
- Now the U.S. is seeing what analysts say is one of the fastest religious shifts in modern history — marked not only by the rapid increase in religiously unaffiliated people, but also by waves of church closures.
Zoom in: The swell in secularization is being driven largely by young people and assimilation, analysts say. The younger the demographic, the faster the break from institutional religion.
- The "none" revolution also is heavily driven by gender, with young women of color leading the departure from religion, particularly conservative denominations, the Axios data review found.
What they're saying: "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," PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman told Axios.
- "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," Deckman added.
Zoom out: The secularization pipeline isn't just an American assimilation effect; it's a hemispheric shift.
- A 2026 Pew Research study in Latin America found that the region is seeing massive net losses in Catholic adherents, meaning many immigrants arriving in the U.S. from there already are detached from the Catholic Church.
