Evangelicals Are the Majority in Three Countries
Latinobarómetro puts Honduras at 44% evangelical, the highest share in Latin America, ahead of the 38% who are Catholic.
For the first time, evangelicals are the majority religion in three Central American countries: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Evangelico Digital published this on November 10, 2026, citing Latinobarómetro data released by Infobae.
For three decades, Latinobarómetro has asked thousands of respondents across the region the same questions about religious identity. Over that span, the Catholic share fell from 80% in 1995 to 55% in the 2025/2026 survey: 25 points lower, according to the report.
Evangelicals, on the other hand, rose from 6% to 19% of the Latin American total over the same period. Catholicism still accounts for more than 50% of the population in nine of the 17 countries analyzed, but its weight is no longer even across the continent.
«This data is a snapshot, not a goal achieved.»
Honduras leads the table
The country with the highest evangelical share in Latin America is Honduras: 44% of its people identify with that faith and 38% with Catholicism. This is the first time evangelicals have come out on top there. Honduran Catholicism has dropped from 76% to 38% since 1995.
Guatemala follows the same pattern, with 43% evangelical versus 41% Catholic, a 13-point drop for Catholicism (from 54% to 41%). In El Salvador, 42% identify as evangelical, and that group now outnumbers Catholics, something unprecedented in the study's series.
Panama shows the sharpest Catholic decline in the region: from 89% to 46%. Mexico goes the other way, with a drop of just eight points, and remains among the countries with the highest share of Catholics, along with Paraguay and Peru.
Practice, trust and method
The report doesn't just measure how many people identify with a church. In Guatemala, 64% of evangelicals describe themselves as practicing or very practicing, compared with 56% of Catholics. Across the region as a whole, the gap holds: 62% versus 48%.
The Catholic Church keeps the highest level of trust among the institutions Latinobarómetro evaluates, although it fell from 72% in 1995 to 63% today. The survey was given to people 18 or older: 1,200 face-to-face cases in South America and Mexico, and 1,000 in Central America, with a margin of error of 2.8% to 3%.
A number doesn't make disciples
A survey counts identifications; it doesn't measure conversions, fruit or faithfulness. A country having an evangelical majority says a lot about the religious map and little about the spiritual health of its churches. Numerical growth can also coexist with a faith of mere habit.
Paul put it plainly: "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:7, ESV). That verse takes the triumphalism out of the statistic. No congregation sustains itself by its own strategy; it is the Lord who opens doors and keeps his people.
Nor is it right to look down on those who think differently. In these countries, Catholics, evangelicals and people with no religion live side by side, and all deserve respect. Freedom of conscience and dignified treatment don't depend on who wins a survey.
This data is a snapshot, not a goal achieved. If your church prays for Latin America, add the believers of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to your prayers this week, and read the full report before drawing conclusions. What would change in your group if attendance numbers stopped being the measure of success?
