Evangelicals in Peru Gain Ground Despite Pope Leo XIV’s Elevation to the Papacy
Peruvian American pope’s election fails to impact shrinking Catholic Church in Peru, Brazil, and Spain
Pope Leo XIV’s ascension to the papacy is struggling to elicit loyalty among Peruvians towards Catholicism, as new research from the Peruvian Studies Institute (IEP) shows a troubling decline in the percentage of Catholics in that nation.
Contrastingly, the IEP survey conducted after the May 8 papal election of Cardinal Robert Prevost — a U.S.-born Peruvian citizen — shows a significant rise in the proportion of Catholics who have converted to Evangelical Protestantism.
An IEP survey conducted in November 2024 reported that 63.5% of Peruvians identified themselves as Catholic. However, a second survey in May 2025 found that the Catholic population of Peru had dropped to 60.2%.
In the same period, the number of Peruvian Evangelicals showed significant growth, from 8.4% last November to 11.3% in May. This brings the overall population of Evangelicals in Peru to 20% and the total of Evangelicals and Christians from other churches to 23.9%.
Rapid Growth of Evangelicals in Peru
In the 1993 government census, just 6.7% of the population identified as Evangelicals. By 2008, the number of Evangelicals in Peru had nearly doubled, with 12.5% identifying as Evangelicals, representing a total of 2,606,648 people over the age of 12.
Even though it remains the majority religion of Peru, the Catholic Church declined by 7.7% over the same period.
According to Catalina Romero, a sociologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, the percentage of evangelical Christians there grew to 17% by 2014.
“While Peru was considered a Catholic country until the end of the twentieth century, recent censuses have shown a growing number of Christians from other churches and denominations, as well as from other religions,” Romero confirms.
In 2017, Peru’s national parliament passed a resolution declaring October 31 the “Day of Evangelical Churches in Peru.” The resolution passed with 60 “yes” votes, seven “no” votes, and five abstentions.
The president of Peru’s Commission of Culture, Maria Cristina Melgarejo Paucar, who introduced the resolution in parliament, defended the proposal as a national way of commemorating the Protestant Reformation.
Scandals Responsible for Catholicism’s Decline
Commentators have suggested that recent scandals in the Peruvian Catholic Church are partly responsible for its declining numbers.
In April, the Vatican ordered the dissolution of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a conservative Peruvian-based religious community of consecrated laymen and priests, after it ruled that several Sodalitium practices were coercive, manipulative, and abusive.
The archdiocese of Lima received complaints that the order’s founder, Luis Fernando Figari, had committed sexual, physical, and psychological abuse within the community, and had sexually abused minors and adults. The Vatican also found evidence of physical violence, misappropriation of funds, and other crimes.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis banned Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, once the most influential religious figure in Peru as the former archbishop of Lima, from participating in the recent conclave. Cipriani was accused in 2018 of sexually abusing a teenager four decades ago — allegations that he denies.
“The major problem, however, has to do with the Church’s insufficiency in dealing with the current challenges,” observed Cecilia Tovar, a philosopher and member of the Bartolomé de las Casas Institute. The priests formed over the past few decades tend to be “clericalist” and to lack “a close pastoral approach to churchgoers,” he said.
“We had a marvelous generation of foreign missionaries who came in the 1960s and 1970s. They’re now too old. The young generations, in general, aren’t able to provide proper pastoral attention,” Tovar noted, adding that it would take “several weeks” for Prevost’s election to make an impact on the Catholic Church in Peru, and the “Leo effect” would not show up in a poll yet.
Reasons for Evangelicalism’s Success
The increased participation of Evangelical leaders in Peruvian politics has been one factor in the growth of Evangelical churches, according to sociologist José Luis Pérez Guadalupe, who explores the link between Evangelicalism and politics in his book Between God and Caesar: The Political Impact of Evangelicals in Peru and Latin America.
The pro-life movement in Peru, often associated with Evangelical churches, has also been a major factor in drawing Peruvians to Evangelicalism through large-scale rallies and evangelical politicians influencing legislative decisions.
Celebrity evangelicals like Congressmen Milagros Jáuregui de Aguayo and Alejandro Muñante are seen as leading the fight for life and family, as well as generating policies to support abandoned children, indigenous peoples, orphanages, adoptions, and the reintegration of foster children.
Other key factors facilitating the growth of Evangelical churches have been community, Bible teaching, and evangelism. “Over the past decades, several megachurches have arrived in Peru, setting up strong infrastructure and being accompanied by numerous missionaries from abroad,” Tovar observed. “Enormous churches were built all over Lima. At the same time, that movement boosted the creation of hundreds and hundreds of small Evangelical churches in popular neighborhoods.”
At the same time, Evangelical pastors usually offer a much more personal spiritual experience.
“We’re transitioning from a social form of faith to a personal one. The [Catholic] Church is paying the price of that tendency,” she added.
Evangelicals Grow as Catholicism Plummets in Brazil
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Brazil, which is home to the world’s largest Catholic population, continues to experience a steep decline as Evangelical churches grow exponentially, according to new figures released by the country’s national statistics institute (IBGE).
According to the results of the national census held in 2022 and published on June 6, Catholic numbers dropped to just over half the population (56.7%) from an overwhelming 82.9% some 30 years ago.
The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, down from 65.1% (105.4 million) recorded in the 2010 census.
In the same period, Evangelicals grew from 9% of the population to 26.9%, resulting in one in four Brazilians identifying as Evangelical and adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure on record.
Spain has also seen a serious drop in Catholicism in the last 50 years, from 90% at the time of General Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 to only 55% today, according to statistics released by the Funcas Foundation at the beginning of June.
The drop in the Catholic Church is steeper among young adults. In 2002, 60% of 18- to 29-year-olds identified as Catholic, but in 2024, only 32% did so. Evangelicals have grown from 0.2% in 1998 to 2% in 2025, representing 1.5 million people.
Most Spaniards, the research found, are turning to agnosticism and atheism, although there is an indication of a small but significant rise in Evangelicalism in the country.
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.