And, she adds, her mother, a lifelong Catholic, converted several months ago after seeing her daughter's spiritual path. She has traveled throughout South America and the Caribbean and visited many Hispanic Muslim communities here. She said that many of the converts she has talked with say the Catholic Church is large and impersonal. The Catholic Almanac estimates that 100,000 Hispanics in the United States leave the church each year, although some other experts put the number as high as 600,000. Most have moved to Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant faiths as well as Mormonism, Islam and Buddhism.
Converts appear to be both men and women in equal numbers.
We find that the conversion efforts of many faiths have increased recently, which has led many Hispanics away from the Catholic Church. Many area Latinos who have converted say their attraction to Islam is spiritual and pragmatic. Spanish translations of the Koran, for instance, are popular at several Northern Virginia mosques.