Irreligion in Uruguay

According to public opinion polls, irreligion in Uruguay ranges from 30 to 40 to over 47 percent of the population. Uruguay has been the least-religious country in South America due to nineteenth-century political events influenced by positivism, secularism, and other beliefs held by intellectual Europeans. The resistance of the indigenous population to evangelization, which prevented the establishment of religion during the colonial era, has also been influential. According to Nestor DaCosta (2003), irreligion has historically been a feature of Uruguayan identity.

Atheism and agnosticism have grown significantly. Non-believers are a statistical minority but have been present for more than a century. Some investigations present that in recent times, secularism and non-religious beliefs have grown in the religious landscape of Uruguay due to the influence of postmodernism, as in Western Europe. Some experts argue that the number of non-religious people has stagnated, but believers in non-Christian faiths have been growing in numbers in recent decades (Conwell Investigation, 2013).

Jason Mandryk said that secularism has slowly become less influential because of an increased interest in spirituality and a revival into Christianity, and young people are less anti-Catholic than previous generations.

Uruguay is still a secular nation socially, but the number of places of worship is increasing. Although public life is still secular, private life has become more religious.