Gold and copper mining drove 19th-century growth in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. The mines attracted workers, many of whom were Irish Catholics. And since Colonial days, southern Colorado has tilted toward HispanoCatholicism.
In 1990 the strongest Catholic counties in the region (over 50 percent of Catholics) still could be found in much of New Mexico, southern Colorado, southern Arizona and scattered across Montana.
In the Mountain West, high-commitment non-Hispanic Catholics are more liberal (39.6 percent) than their national counterparts (29.0 percent.)
Hispanics in the region are less often liberal (25.0 percent, nationally 32.5 percent.)
Who are they:
The Mountain West is made up of Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Arizona. When Catholics are combined – Hispanic, Caucasian, African-American, Vietnamese, Filipino and others – this is the largest religious denomination in the region, at 23.8 percent.
This tops even the “nones,” nearly a quarter of the population (23.2 percent) that self-identify as no religion/no answer.
Estimated numbers of
Catholic self-identifiers
in the Mountain West:
White non-Hispanic: 1,330,458
Hispanic: 1,396,341
Minority: 118,058
Adapted from: Religion &
Public Life in the Mountain West,
edited by Jan Shipps and Mark Silk