The Catholic religion and its church do not have a definitive date of when it came to exist but scholars and historians alike have endlessly debated whether Catholicism began when Jesus Christ appointed Saint Peter, one of his most trusted followers and disciples, to become the first pope of his new religion on 32 CE (1). Or whether it started after Emperor Theodosius of Rome published one of his edicts in which he established Catholicism as the official religion throughout the Roman state on February 27, AD 380 (1). Regardless of when the religion was truly created, Catholicism has spread on a global scale with the number of its committed members rising over a whopping 1.2 billion people worldwide. 

My immediate family is part of the 1.2 billion people that actively practice the Catholic religion and aspire to live by the sacred creeds and cultuses that the priests and the Bible aim at teaching its followers. Latinos are the last ethnic group to migrate to the United States. Their recent migration to the U.S created an enormous surge in the amount of Catholics living in the U.S. Although most of the Latino people that I know are Catholics, a stereotype among the general public that the “Latino population is overwhelmingly and immutably Catholic is inaccurate and misleading” according to research done by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2). Their set of data also indicates that Latinos who were born and raised within the United States were more inclined to “leave their traditional Catholic roots and embrace other religious traditions” (2). This may be connected with the numerous non-Catholic religions that Latinos are being exposed to in the U.S. These statistics give good insight into the situation that my family and I are currently in. My parents, who immigrated to the United States in the late 80s, still maintain their Catholic views and haven’t considered alternating their religious beliefs. My siblings and I are a slightly different story; our beliefs have indeed modernized as we grew older in part due to the exposure to other religions and the natural occurrence of people seeking their own faith without necessarily committing to any religion. The study done by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville reflects my family’s current condition on our religious values and holds true its analysis of Latinos religious demographics in the U.S, which states Latinos born and raised in the United States are more likely to shift away from the Catholic church than those who were bred and nurtured in another country. 

One of the many reasons to the religious shift among the younger generations of Latinos might be due to the Catholic church’s inability to “improve the status of Latino immigrants” and of their families (3). The loyalty of the Catholic Church’s Hispanic flock can prove to be vital to the religious influence that Catholicism holds in America. Without the full commitment of younger generations of Latinos in the United States, the Catholic Church will start losing a considerable amount of followers and eventually will end with the “failure of the Catholic Church” to help improve the lives of its members in the U.S (3). My mother’s exemplary persistence in keeping the Catholic lifestyle within my family will prove to be crucial for the continuity of the religions impact on many newer generations to come. The future success of the Catholic Church lies in the hands of its many dedicated followers who try to draw members on the micro level in which the heads of a household attempt to convince their offspring that their values are indispensable to their faith. 

Works Cited

1-    Kodesh, Ben Ruach Ha. "The Origins of the Catholic Church." The Origins of the Catholic Church. John of AllFaith, Feb. 2007. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.

2-    Kelly, Nathan J., and Jana Morgan. "Religion and Latino Partisanship in the United States." Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange (2005): n. pag. Political Science Publications and Other Works. Web. 22 Aug. 2013. <2- http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=utk_polipubs&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fq%3Dcatholic%2Blatinos%26btnG%3D%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%252C5#search=%22catholic%20latinos%22>.

3-    Alba, Richard D., Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh DeWind. Immigration and Religion in America: Comparative and Historical Perspectives. New York: New York UP, 2009. Print.