Even though Mexico continues to be predominantly Catholic, during the last few decades there have been significant transformations of this country's religious panorama that manifest themselves as: a decrease of Catholic-professing members; an increase of population becoming members of other religions (mostly Christian Evangelical, Pentecostal, Protestant or Para-protestant); a proportional augment of those who are not members of any religion; a reinstating of native, neo-indigenous or ethnic religious streams that tend to break away from popular Catholic practice; and, finally, a marked tendency to de-institutionalization and subjectivization of beliefs and values. This tendency traverses and diversifies cult practices and ways of acting and believing inside Catholicism. We hereby analyze several sources that deliver empirical data on a national scale, with the purpose of informing on these tendencies towards religious change, namely, INEGI's 1950-2000 census results on the plurality of religious confessions; the results of a study on Catholics in Mexico, which was carried out to contemplate diversity inside Catholicism; an analysis of compared results provided by 1990-2000 World Values Survey data; and, finally, information extracted from a longitudinal study in Guadalajara city. All of these data will help us assess current tendencies towards de-institutionalization and subjectivization of Mexicans.
religious pluralism; religious individualization; religious de-institutionalization; Mexico
