“The Our Lady of Guadalupe Church was really where my story started on the west side of the city,” Castro told Religion News Service in an interview days after the event. “I was baptized there, grew up not far from there, and went to school close to there. I wanted my announcement to present to the American people who I am, and my family and I have been Catholic for generations.”

His Catholicism, in other words, is not so much about how often he goes to worship — “I can’t say I go to church as much as I’d like,” he admitted — as it is about his family, his Mexican-American heritage and his progressive values. It’s also a form of the faith that, while sometimes obscured by other popularized visions of Catholicism, is deeply familiar to growing millions of Latino voters.