A new survey released shortly after Pope Leo XIV’s election on 8 May 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 per cent of the Peruvian people declared to be Catholic.
Six months later – coinciding with US-born Cardinal Robert Prevost, who also has Peruvian nationality following decades in the country, being elected as the new pontiff – the percentage of Catholics has fallen to 60.2 per cent.
