Religion
The Spanish arrival and colonization brought Roman Catholicism to the country, which became the main religion of Mexico, however, Mexico has "no official" religion, and the Constitution of 1917 and the anti-clerical laws imposed limitations on the church and sometimes codified state intrusion into church matters. The government does not provide any financial contributions to the church, and the church does not participate in public education.
The last census reported, by self-ascription, that 76.5% of the population is Christian. Roman Catholics are 89% of the total population, 47% percent of whom attend church services weekly. In absolute terms, Mexico has the world's second largest number of Catholics after Brazil.
According to the Government's 2000 census, approximately 87 percent of respondents identified themselves as at least nominally Roman Catholic. Other religious groups for which the 2000 census provided estimates included evangelicals, with 1.71 percent of the population; other Protestant evangelical groups, 2.79 percent; members of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1.25 percent; "historical" Protestants, 0.71 percent; Seventh-day Adventists, 0.58 percent; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 0.25 percent; Jews, 0.05 percent; and other religions, 0.31 percent. Approximately 3.52 percent of respondents indicated "no religion", and 0.86 percent did not specify a religion.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Mexico
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)
“The religion of the Bible is the best in the world. I see the infinite value of religion. Let it be always encouraged. A world of superstition and folly have grown up around its forms and ceremonies. But the truth in it is one of the deep sentiments in human nature.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)