SÃO PAULO, Brazil – After Pope Leo XIV’s election on May 8, a new survey shows the percentage of Catholics continues to decrease in Peru. It was conducted by the Peruvian Studies Institute (known as IEP in Spanish), an independent social science think tank.

In its previous research, carried out in November of 2024, IEP had shown that 63.5 percent of the Peruvian people declared to be Catholic. Six months later – and after Cardinal Robert Prevost, a U.S.-born Peruvian national, was elected as the new pontiff – the percentage of Catholics fell to 60.2 percent.

In the same period, the proportion of Evangelicals grew from 8.4 percent in 2024 to 11.3 percent in 2025. The percentage of Peruvians who declared they don’t have any religion increased from 11.1 percent in 2024 to 11.9 percent in 2025.

Peruvians were also questioned about the feeling generated by the election of the first pontiff from Peru. Most of them – 59 percent – mentioned positive emotions regarding Prevost’s election, including joy (34.5 percent), hope (9.6 percent) and tranquility (6.3 percent). Among Catholics, 74 percent described their feelings as positive.

According to experts in the religious dynamics in Peru, the survey’s results were predictable, given that there’s a religious transition going on in the South American country and a single fact like Prevost’s election can’t impact the scenario to the point of interrupting the current trend – especially in such a short time.

While in Central American nations and in Brazil the proportion of Evangelicals has been growing fast since the 1980, in Andean countries like Peru, Catholicism had been keeping a strong and most immutable base until recently.

In 1996, the percentage of Evangelicals in Peru corresponded to only 4.4 percent. Now, research has been showing that they make up about 20 percent of the total Peruvian population. In IEP’s survey, the sum of Evangelicals and Christians from other churches corresponds to 23.9 percent.

“Prevost’s election would not be reflected in a survey at this point. It may take several weeks to be assimilated. So, the past trends prevailed,” philosopher Cecilia Tovar, a member of the Bartolomé de las Casas Institute in Lima, told Crux.

Over the past decades, several mega churches have arrived in Peru, setting up strong infrastructure and being accompanied by numerous missionaries from abroad, Tovar explained.

“Enormous temples 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,” she said.

Besides the steady growth of Evangelicals, there has been an increase in the number of agnostics as well, emphasized theologian Veronique Lecaros, who is the chief of the Pontifical Catholic University’s Theology career.

“The youth, especially the university youth, have been distancing themselves from religion. Many of them are not atheist, but have been disappointed by religion,” Lecaros told Crux.

A few scandals involving Catholic groups may have impacted the perception of Peruvians concerning the Church. In April 14, for instance, the once powerful and influential Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a Conservative Catholic group founded in Peru by Luis Fernando Figari in 1971, was finally dissolved by the Vatican, following decades of wrongdoings.

The association, which gathered significant wealth during more than five decades operating among the white elite in Peru, was seen in general as “a group of rich people” by the lower social segments, affirmed Lecaros. She doesn’t consider that the SCV’s downfall has impacted the Catholic Church’s public image.

“The Church managed to keep a high approval rate – of over 60 percent – among Peruvians, despite the SCV’s problems,” she said.

But the recent denunciation of Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, formerly the Archbishop of Lima (1999-2019), may have had some effect on Peru’s Catholicism, said Lecaros.

Known for his conservative stances, Cipriani has been a member of Opus Dei for decades. At the beginning of 2025, he was accused by the Spanish newspaper El Pais of having committed abuse in 1983 against a minor.

“It had a major press impact and may have impacted the public,” Lecaros said.

The major problem, however, has to do with the Church’s own insufficiency in dealing with the current challenges, Tovar analyzed. In her opinion, the priests formed over the past few decades tend to be “clericalist” and to lack “a close pastoral approach to churchgoers.”

“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 said.

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 Church is paying the price of that tendency,” she said.