Modern-day Hinduism in India envelopes culture, politics (BJP) & institutions through Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh, the far-right nationalist group embraced by PM Modi, acc. to a lengthy update by Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar. (incl @scpo-research.bsky.social in Paris) @nytimes.com, Dec 29 2025, A1

Spiritual practices can be an antidote to uncertainty and stress, according to Emma Jacobs and @anjli.bsky.social in the FT. They include LDS, Judaism, CoE, and Islam faiths as well as data from @pewresearch.org, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation. @financialtimes.com, Dec 22 2025, p. 11

Religion in the Amazon is featured in The Times today, by Christina Lamb (renowned foreign reporter but with little time spent in the Amazon). Pegged on COP 30, she writes about the few survivors of Juma people now near Humaitá. Orgs cited: ILV, YWAM, SI, FUNAI, IBAMA. The Sunday Times, Nov 9 2025

Fascinating article on religious change: a Boston suburb no longer is majority Catholic save for the firehouse & the precinct. St Michael still guards the police, St Florian the firemen. Religious diversity impacts professions at different rates. @benbrasch.bsky.social Washington Post, Oct 26 2025

Some Catholics think 1960s' 2nd Vatican Council was too radical calling Leo a 'woke Protestant Catholic' for not resolving 2 dueling docs: Benedict's Summorum Pontificum vs Francis' Traditionis Custodes. Cited: theologian Andrea Grillo, blogger Brian Williams + clergy. Wash Post Oct 20 2025, p 12

🇮🇳India's PM Modi crafts religious overlay from Trump Tarrifs: Diwali, Hinduism's annual festival of lights, given tax break to spur gift-giving and purchases. (Also: kudos to @financialtimes.com for insisting on light double entendres on front page + inside.) Financial Times, Oct 15 2025 A1

"Ireland has 13 new priests this year. Can the Catholic Church save itself?" The 7pp article insists survival is probable by importing priests, transforming what Church means. "We’re going to have a lesser priesthood, but we’re certainly not the last." The Sunday Times Magazine (London), Oct 12 2025

The Church of England designates Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to lead the church in its 500 years. NYT is the only UK/USA newspaper to recognize the historicity of this event by placing her on A1. Articles are from NYT, Guardian, The Times, WaPo, FT UK (not USA), WSJ.

Local U.S. TV stations take on last week’s rapture. 🤔 Beyond the humor: it's an interesting look at the End of the World thru local color in North America. Religious demography can show how diverse forms of Christianity gets lived, narrated, broadcast, even dismissed. John Oliver, HBO Sept 28 2025

Judaism has adapted tech (writing, printing, computing) for millennia. 🤔 I wonder if AI reshapes religions w/ written texts. As AI can search, summarize, remix texts better, who becomes the interpreter? AI Isn't Replacing Rabbis - it's Saving Them @washingtonpost.com, Sept 25 2025 wapo.st/42FPBQb

Islam was the world’s fastest growing religion from 2010 to 2020. @conradhackett.bsky.social at @pewresearch.org

While global Catholic pop ⏫ 2x since 1970 # of priests has declined (WSJ on A1). Focus is on seminaries shrinking even in LA. But it's more than a staffing issue: how do individuals weigh identities in modernity; Catholics may add a twist but it seems like a general crisis in religious vocations.

Pope Leo's first interview was w/ Crux this weekend & covered an array of topics incl: United Nations, World Cup, his own identity (1st Q: are you American or Latin American?). The Times placed him on the cover and focused on his comments economics and pay scales. The Times (London), Sept 15 2025

The census bureau in Peru (INEI) decided against including a question on religion in the 2025 census. Peru has included this question in all national censuses going back to 1862 (save for the 2005 one, retaken in 2007). This is my plea to get the question re-inserted next time. (Univ. del Pacífico)

📊El Salvador Survey > Cath, Evang tied @ 39%; 19% None; 3% Other (a pattern w/ Indigenous pops - categories don't capture the local). By educ: primary / secondary mirrors society. In Higher ed, Cath rises noticeably wrt Evang. LA Religion shifts not only across generations, but also social spaces.

#ExMo ExMormons Go Viral, says WSJ on A1 this a.m. LDS "is facing a 21st c. reckoning, driven by social-media". Cites from John Dehlin, Justin Turman and (of course) Ryan Burge who says "Mormonism has a retention problem". # in US who identify as Mormon has almost halved since 2012. WSJ Sept 4 2025

Fantastic news about David Voas’ new website.🥂 He and @conradhackett.bsky.social are among those who consistently challenge how I think about religious identity change here in Latin America.

🇵🇪 Otra columna re: la falta de medición de religión en el censo. El autor mezcla una supuesta culpabilidad a la jerarquía de la iglesia católica por omisión, que es "estadística irrelevante", que el Papa va a dirigirse al tema. La Herejía del Silencio Luis Balazar García Diario Uno, 25 agosto 2025

La Monde's cover article on the growth of French evangelicals incl profile of Une Famille qui Grandit, a Baptist church in Pontault-Combault with pastors Manuel Renard & Cédric Pallud; Valérie Duval-Poujol (Fédération Protestante); Sébastien Fath, sociologist / historian @ CNRS Le Monde, 25 aug 2025

I'm flabbergasted how many people blast audio from phones in public. Shouldn't everyone know better? Take this Pew Research quiz to see whether your views about acceptable public behavior are in sync with others: https://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/which-public-behaviors-do-you-find-rude/

🇵🇪 Congressman Alejandro Muñante questions why Peru's 2025 census doesn't include a question on religion, in an op-ed today in the Expreso newspaper. However, he seems to be as focused on polemics as on social measures. I offer a few reactions on Facebook: bit.ly/AM-response

Protestantism expands in the Amazon, acc. to data from Brazil's 2024 census, highlighted by Samantha Pearson in the WSJ over the weekend. Evangelicals = 25% of Brazilians, 1/3 indigenous pop; are larger than the Cath pop in the states of Acre & Rondonia. WSJ Aug 9 2025 www.wsj.com/world/americ...

A 6-page profile of Vatican Astronomer Guy Consolmagno. Of Francis: “When you would walk into a room, his face would light up in a smile ... I’ll miss his good humor, his gentle support.” Also: Leo XIII, the 19th c. Pope, was the founder of the modern Vatican Observatory. The New Yorker Aug 4 2025

🇵🇪 My op-ed in Peru's La República this morning addressing the removal of the religion question from Peru’s 2025 national census. To understand and debate the role of religious transformation in our country, we need data that only a census can provide. Peru has included religion since 1862 census.

USA Today publishes a 56pp celebration of Pope Leo XIV. Nice to see 4 pages on Peru + a related Maryknoll advert. (Half the pages of the 56pp product are advertisements incl centerfold by Fox Nation.)

Time publishes an 8-page cover profile of Pope Leo, focusing on childhood in Chicago, high school in Holland, MI, college at Villanova then Catholic Theological Union. (Parochial Take: 2 paragraphs + 1 photograph of his 20 years in Peru. It's a USA magazine.) Tima, July 28 2025 by Belinda Luscombe

Paolo Benanti's take on Catholic Church & AI. > Pope Francis: "We're not living [in] an era of change but a change of era." > Vatican this year hosted execs fr Google, Meta, Anthropic, Palantir for conference on AI, ethics, corp governance. Benanti is tech advisor to Vatican. @pbenanti.bsky.social

👍 overview of Pope & USA church The balance: "Retaining the US-born will call for different commitments, approaches, understanding." (Hosffman Ospino) Fun fact: North Dakota is fastest growing Hispanic population in USA. @michelleboorstein.bsky.social @rachelbianca.bsky.social + ARH wapo.st/3UiIM2l

Jimmy Swaggart's impact in Peru was likely more consolidating than proselytizing. He made a visit in 1986 tho influence thru radio dates back to 1970s. Oral Roberts probably had a larger impact. Peruvian media obits do not mention his time in Peru. (Adapted from www.facebook.com/groups/Puente.pe)

🇨🇳 Xuanxue (mysticism) on the rise among Gen Z in parts of China, according to Amy Hawkins' reporting in The Guardian, including in-house fortune tellers who specialize in qiuqian. The Guardian, July 2 2025

Cuzco religion, solstice in New Yorker photobooth essay by Ana Karina Zatarain based on P’unchaw photos by Victor Zea. Focus on "mixed Catholic, Indigenous Andean beliefs". 10 of 14 photographs on Zea's Insta: www.instagram.com/p/DLOCfK8SMQh The New Yorker, June 21 2025 (not in print magazine)

The WSJ headlines "evangelical" but then buckles down on an A-hed profile this morning of the Rev. Nathaniel Rios as the "Pentecostal pastor from Mississippi [who] has emerged as the sartorial cog in Washington’s new Republican machine". Wall Street Journal June 18

An inflection point? 🤔 "The share of people telling pollsters they are irreligious has stopped growing" in many countries (cites @jeanetbentzen.bsky.social, Ryan Burge, @pewresearch.org's Stephanie Kramer & Gregory Smith, Pippa Norris, David Campbell, Andreas Sandberg). The Economist, June 14 2025

🇵🇪 Religion in the Américas w/ 3 chap on Peru > Matthew Casey-Pariseault: LT - archives, missionary analysis > Veronique Lecaros: Pentecostal conversion in jails, some become clergy others backslide, 'a shared logic informs both' > Ann Hidalgo: implicit feminism in nuns' rock & roll band Las Siervas

New report on global religious change @pewresearch.org. Latin American default survey seems to be AmericasBarometer w/ census #s for Brazil Mexico Peru. NB: report does not count change w/in religions (eg fr Cath to Prot) the largest change in most of LA. Gracias @conradhackett.bsky.social & team!

🇵🇪 La afirmación oficial de que las preguntas en la cédula del Censo Nacional 2025 serán iguales del 2017. No estoy de acuerdo 💯% con las preguntas pero poder comparar con 2007/2017 es enorme. Cambiar *de facto* a *de jure* es inoportuno pero ya un hecho. Peru's 2025 census *will* count religion. 😎

Engagement with religion goes and comes in the UK, ⤵️ in the Church of England and a bit ⤴️ in Roman Catholicism. (The Economist, May 10 2025)

Well now, that didn't take long! NY Post, Jan 8, 2025 from the Oval, Jan 20, 2025 www.politico.com/live-updates...

best package warning graphic i've ever seen 🪶

Ohh Eugenio from Mexico - I could understand you confusing our similar email addresses. But can you please just decide on a tennis practice time that you can work with?

Every year, the Pew Research Center holds open (internal) brainstorming meetings about research opportunities for each of our teams. Today was the first brainstorming meeting for future research related to religion in the US and around the world. We came up with many exciting ideas!

Fascinating ad for Google phone (Pixel 8) encourages users to blur the line(s) between creativity and dishonesty. Yes, Photoshop has been doing that for a while now - but this seems to shift it all into a different gear altogether. Fun? 😃! Real? 🤔 ("real"?) youtu.be/1qjnB2uZMqw