4. Profile of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S.

How we define Catholics in this chapter

This chapter exclusively explores views and experiences among U.S. Catholics (i.e., the 20% of U.S. adults who say they are Catholic when asked about their present religion).

Many Americans who are not Catholic are still connected to the faith in other ways. Read more about these “cultural Catholics,” former Catholics, and people with other Catholic connections (i.e., those who have a Catholic parent, spouse or partner, or say “yes” when asked if they ever attend Catholic Mass) in Chapter 7 and the Overview.

The share of U.S. Catholic adults who are Hispanic is growing.¹² Today, 36% of all Catholic adults in the United States are Hispanic, up from 29% in 2007.¹³

Hispanic Catholics are a distinctive part of American Catholic religious life in numerous ways. They are more likely than White Catholics to say they participate in a variety of Catholic devotional practices. For example, compared with White Catholics in the U.S., Hispanic Catholics are more likely to:

Regularly wear or carry religious items with them (56% vs. 39%)
Practice devotions to the Virgin Mary or a favorite saint (46% vs. 31%)
Pray the rosary (37% vs. 22%)
Regularly light candles or incense for spiritual or religious reasons (26% vs. 11%)

Also, not surprisingly, Hispanic Catholics are far more likely than White Catholics to say they usually go to a Mass conducted in Spanish.

The share of Catholics who say they attend Mass at least weekly is similar among Hispanic and White Catholics. But the share of Catholics who say they receive Communion at least most of the time they attend Mass is lower among Hispanic Catholics than among White Catholics.

Hispanic Catholics also have a distinctive social and demographic profile. For instance, eight-in-ten Hispanic Catholics were born outside the U.S. (58%) or are the children of immigrants (22%). Most Hispanic Catholics live in the West (41%) or the South (37%). And Hispanic Catholics are more likely to say they are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party than to say they are Republicans or Republican leaners.

By contrast, most White Catholics were born in the U.S. to U.S.-born parents, live in the Northeast or the Midwest, and are Republicans or lean Republican. (For additional information about how Hispanic Catholics compare with other U.S. Catholics with respect to age, immigration, region, party identification and education, refer to “10 facts about U.S. Catholics.”)

Read on for more about Hispanic Catholics’ beliefs and practices related to:

Mass attendance, Communion and confession
Religious devotions
Essentials of Catholic identity
Spanish Mass

Mass attendance, Communion and confession among Hispanic Catholics

About a quarter of Hispanic Catholics say they attend religious services at least once a week (26%), according to the 2023-24 U.S. Religious Landscape Study – on par with the share of White Catholics who say this. An additional 12% say they go to Mass once or twice a month, while 53% go a few times a year or “seldom.” One-in-ten Hispanic Catholics say they never go to church.

Bar chart showing mass attendance among Catholics, by race and ethnicity

Receiving Communion at Mass

Compared with other Catholics, fewer Hispanic Catholics in the Feb. 3-9, 2025, survey say they receive Communion most or all of the time when they attend Mass. About a third of Hispanic Catholics say they receive Communion every time (21%) or most of the time (13%).

Table showing 34% of Hispanic Catholics receive Communion most or all the time when at Mass

Going to confession

Hispanic Catholics are slightly more likely than White Catholics to say they go to confession at least once a year. Overall, 28% of Hispanic Catholics say they go to confession at least once a year, compared with 20% of White Catholics.

Table showing 28% of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. say they go to confession at least once a year

Religious devotions among Hispanic Catholics

Overall, 56% of Hispanic Catholics say they wear or carry religious items with them at least monthly. About half say they practice devotions to the Virgin Mary or a favorite saint at least monthly, and 37% say they pray the rosary monthly.

Table showing that compared with White Catholics, more Hispanic Catholics wear or carry religious items, practice devotions to Mary or favored saints

In addition, about a quarter of Hispanic Catholics say they light candles or incense for religious or spiritual reasons at least once a month. Hispanic Catholics report doing all these things at higher rates than White Catholics do.

When it comes to reading the Bible, 26% of Hispanic Catholics say they do this at least monthly, and 21% of White Catholics say the same.

Essentials of Catholic identity among Hispanics

To explore what “being Catholic” means to U.S. Catholics, the survey gave respondents a list of items and asked them to say whether each is an “essential,” an “important but not essential,” or “not an important” part of what being Catholic means to them. Respondents could say that more than one item is essential, and they also could indicate that none of the items is essential.

Table showing most Hispanic Catholics say relationship with Jesus Christ, devotion to Virgin Mary are ‘essential’ to their Catholic identity

Compared with White Catholics, Hispanic Catholics were more likely to cite many of the items as essential to their Catholic identity. For example, the share of Hispanics who say “having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” is essential to what being Catholic means to them is 11 percentage points higher than among White Catholics (76% vs. 65%). And the share of Hispanics who say “devotion to the Virgin Mary” is essential to their Catholic faith is 21 points higher than among White Catholics (63% vs. 42%).

Hispanic Catholics also are far more inclined than White Catholics to say that essential elements of their Catholic identity include caring for immigrants (47% vs. 20%), taking care of the environment (43% vs. 24%), celebrating feast days that are part of their national or ethnic heritage (36% vs. 20%), going on pilgrimages (18% vs. 2%), working to help the poor and needy (55% vs. 41%), and opposing the death penalty (30% vs. 16%).

For more on what U.S. Catholics (of all races and ethnicities) say being Catholic means to them, and for breaks by Mass attendance and political party, refer to Chapter 1 of this report.

Mass in Spanish

Roughly four-in-ten Hispanic Catholics say that when they go to Mass, they usually go to one said in Spanish. About a quarter say they typically go to English Masses, and 23% say they sometimes go to English Masses and sometimes go to Spanish Masses.

Table showing most Hispanic Catholics go to Spanish-language Masses at least some of the time

By comparison, just 1% of White Catholics say they typically go to Spanish Mass; another 1% say they sometimes go to Mass said in Spanish.

At the same time, the share of U.S. Hispanics who are Catholic is declining. Refer to “Among U.S. Latinos, Catholicism Continues to Decline but is Still the Largest Faith” for additional details. Still, in the current survey, 40% of Hispanic adults are Catholic – that is, they say they are Catholic when asked about their present religion. That figure is at least double the share of White, Black and Asian Americans who are Catholic. Additionally, among those who are not Catholics themselves, Hispanics are more likely than White Americans or Americans of other races (including respondents who didn’t answer survey questions about race) to have some Catholic connection (as “cultural Catholics,” former Catholics, or other Catholic-connected people). Refer to this report’s Overview for additional details.↩

The estimate that 36% of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic comes from Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS). In this chapter, we use data from the RLS where possible, because the RLS has a larger sample than the Feb. 3-9, 2025, survey of Catholics. We use data from the 2025 survey to analyze questions that were asked in that survey but not in the RLS.↩