SANTA MARIA (By Stan Oklobdzija, Santa Maria Times) February 20, 2006 — In immigrant communities across the United States, a battle is being waged for the souls of Hispanics - and a distinctly American style of worship is beginning to take hold.

According to a landmark study, as many as 600,000 Hispanics in this country leave the Catholic Church every year in favor of Protestant evangelical churches.

Furthermore, of the approximately 30 percent of Hispanics nationwide who identify themselves as non-Catholic, the vast majority are affiliated with an evangelical or “born-again” church.

Catholicism remains by far the largest religious denomination for U.S. Hispanics, but because Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, any shift in the way they worship promises to make a huge impact on America's religious landscape. Examples of this trend can be seen in the Santa Maria Valley as small storefront churches pop up in shopping centers and some Catholic priests report the loss of some members of their flocks.

Gaston Espinosa directed one of the most comprehensive studies of evangelical Latino churches published to date.

“Hispanic Churches in American Public Life,” published in 2003, surveyed about 2,000 Hispanics living in the United States and Puerto Rico about their religious preferences, activities and beliefs. The three-year study, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, focused on the impact of religion on the civic and political activity of Hispanics living in the United States.

Researchers arrived at their findings by conducting telephone surveys with randomly selected, Latino-surnamed people in nine places across the United States. In addition, approximately 400 surveys were mailed to Latino political, civic and religious leaders across the country.

Espinosa, an assistant professor of religion at Claremont-McKenna College, suggested a variety of possible reasons for Hispanics finding new expressions of faith as they settle in the United States.

The lack of health and medical services for recent immigrants, coupled with a tradition of folk-healing in the Latino community, draws many Catholic Hispanics in the United States to Pentecostalism, which places a strong emphasis on divine healing, Espinosa said in an e-mail interview.

“(Healing) is one of the primary reasons why people attend Pentecostal churches and revival services and end up eventually converting and joining the movement,” Espinosa said.

Latino pastors also place a strong emphasis on evangelism and church growth, often using energetic methods such as food ministries to attract new converts, he said. Parishioners are also typically encouraged to witness to friends and family members to bring more people into the church.

Additionally, Latino churches are strong proponents of a lay ministry, where members of the congregation are encouraged to lead prayer services and take more active roles than they would in a more traditional Catholic service, Espinosa said.

Church leaders are often other Hispanics who come from similar circumstances and backgrounds as parishioners, which creates a more appealing environment than in many American Catholic churches, he added.

Even so, the study estimated that out of the 37 million Hispanics in the United States, about 26 million, or 70 percent, remain Catholic.

However, the study postulates that the number of Catholics may be bolstered by the influx of immigrants arriving from Mexico over the last 10 years. Mexico is one of the most heavily Catholic countries in Latin America. Were it not for this massive recent migration, the study said, about half of American Hispanics would probably identify themselves as non-Catholics.

But evangelical churches have also had a long presence in the Latino community.

They have been growing and converting new members since 1906, when pioneering evangelists began winning converts in Mexican migrant camps around Los Angeles, Espinosa said. This was part of what would later be known as the Azusa Street revival, named after the downtown Los Angeles street where influential preacher William J. Seymour's ministry was located.

And now their impact seems to be accelerating.

According to the study, of the approximately 30 percent of Hispanics in the United States today who are non-Catholic, 88 percent claim to be evangelical or “born again.”

That translates to about 10 million, or about 28 percent, of the entire U.S. Latino population identifying themselves with Protestant denominations, such as Pentecostal or charismatic churches, that emphasize being “born again.”

“To put these findings in national perspective,” the study said, “there are now more Latino Pentecostals in the United States than Jews or Muslims or Episcopalians or Presbyterians (of any race) combined.”

With each generation, that number increases.

The percentage of Latino Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians doubles from 15 percent in the first immigrant generation to nearly 30 percent among second- and third-generation Hispanics.

Espinosa said the implications of these conversions are huge.

At the time of Espinosa's study, 93 percent of U.S. Hispanics identified themselves as Christian, he said, compared with 77 to 82 percent of the general U.S. population.

“They (Hispanics) may contribute to a kind of re-Christianization of American religions,” he said, because Hispanics arrive in the United States overwhelmingly Christian, regardless of denomination, and have higher birthrates than the rest of the population.

Father Vaughn Winters has been a priest at St. John Neumann Catholic Church for the last three and half years. There he serves a congregation of about 5,000 families.

The huge size of his parish, he said, prevents him from offering the kind of hands-on ministering that he'd like to provide.

“It's part of the challenge,” Winters said. “When you're big it isn't as personal. The fact that the smaller churches can be smaller can be more appealing.”

Especially among immigrants, a sense of belonging and community is a strong draw, Winters said.

“Many immigrants come (to America) disconnected,” he said. “It's very hard to come here from such a different society.”

Evangelical churches also aggressively seek new converts, something the Catholic Church has ceased to do, Winters said.

“We don't believe in going to people in other churches,” Winters said. “Not all churches give us the same courtesy ... (With) so many Christian churches, there's a sense of competition. They need members to fill their pews.”

Still, many in the Catholic Church have recognized the need to provide worship on a more human scale, he added.

“We have a movement of small community-based parishes,” he said. “People are broken up into units of five to 10 families that meet together to have that intimate connection within the structure of the church so you're not just lost in the big crowd.”

Ultimately, these moves are designed to reach out to Catholics who may have let their faith go dormant, Winters said.

“Some people are content just to go to church for an hour on Sunday,” he said. “We want Catholics to have more involvement.”

Miguel Hidalgo has been a pastor for the last eight years at Santa Maria's Iglesia de Dios - Cuerpo de Cristo (Church of God - Body of Christ), a Pentecostal church . In addition, for three and a half years he's been the director of the Spanish-language Christian radio station Radio Vision, which broadcasts out of Santa Maria at 90.7 FM.

“What happens is, we're born in Catholic places,” said Hidalgo, who is originally from Mexico City. That faith is more something people inherit than arrive at on their own, he said.

Hidalgo, too, was a Catholic until 12 years ago. Addicted to drugs and alcohol, he said, he was steered toward the gospel by some friends.

“There was a moment in my life that I couldn't go on anymore,” he said. “Jesus Christ forgave me and God set me free of drugs and alcohol.”

Drawing from his own experience, Hidalgo uses his ministry to provide more than just a sermon to his 100-person congregation, almost all of whom are recent immigrants from Latin America.

People in his congregation come to him for advice with financial problems, dead-end jobs and disputes within the family, said Hidalgo. On the radio the problems are more serious, like drug addictions, adultery and domestic abuse.

“We'll bring in many groups” to the church and on the air, said Hidalgo, to speak about topics as diverse as getting a driver's license and getting help with immigration.

At his church, Hidalgo said, three families help him supervise smaller groups of five to 10 people. They're available at all times to help, “teach and attend to their needs.”

It's a system Hidalgo likens to Christ and his disciples.

Father Marco Solis is the resident priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Guadalupe's only Catholic house of worship. Though he hasn't seen many people abandoning Catholicism in Guadalupe, he has experienced it in other parishes he's led.

“In my experience as an immigrant,” Solis said, “when you come (to this country) there's a question of who you are.”

A native of Costa Rica, he remembered many missionaries coming to his hometown trying to win converts.

He recalled the missionaries bringing music and dances.

“As a teenager, I was excited,” he said. “But it was all about feelings” rather than strong faith.

Solis said many of his aunts and uncles left to join evangelical churches.

“They'd move from church to church,” he said. “Some of these people were driven by the promise of a quick miracle, but they also got lots of bad information against the Catholic Church.”

Solis even attended a few evangelical services himself and described people there as “screaming and crying.”

What kept Solis true to his faith, and eventually led him to the priesthood, was Catholicism's emphasis on reason and tradition, he said.

“Religion is like a boat you row,” he said, “one paddle is the faith, the other is the scripture.”

Solis refuses to compromise Catholic traditions to win people over, even if it means losing some parishioners to the sometimes raucous services offered at other churches.

“For me the priority is the liturgy and deepening our tradition,” he said. “It doesn't matter if people like it or not. If you're offering the body and blood of Christ, you can't dance.”

Solis describes the rise of evangelical faiths in the Latino community as a symptom of American society's obsession with instant gratification.

“We're in a society where everything has to be quick and everything has to do with the senses,” he said.

A Catholic conversion, on the other hand, is a drawn-out process that typically takes as long as three years. It involves fully understanding the church's dogma, morals and worship, he said.

“If people are being moved by feelings, they'll be disappointed because feelings change,” said Solis. “But if they move for truth, truth doesn't change.”

Still, Solis does not begrudge anyone who'd leave the church to seek faith elsewhere.

“In the eight years I've been a priest, only one person said she didn't want to continue as a Catholic,” he said.

Solis said he wished the woman well and offered her three simple words of advice.

“I told her ‘Vaya con Dios,'” he said - Go with God.