"Why does Protestant North America so consistently and so overwhelmingly outperform Catholic Central and South America?"

I think it has something to do with the differences in how we abused our respective indigenous peoples. We kept shoving ours further west onto smaller and smaller parcels of undesirable land, whereas in Central and South America they enslaved theirs. Gave us more breathing room for those noble impulses of "honesty, modesty and accountability in civil authorities," dontcha know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Catholic Church has problems. Nobody denies that. But it's just plain loopy to think the bishops actually have some master plan to replace the white faces in their churches with brown, more subservient ones. Do you really think they have that much foresight, let alone planning ability? Utter nonsense.