Protestantism existed before Henry VIII and actually started out on a “the pope is corrupt and catholics have stopped serving god” platform
Then the protestant churches banned fun and everyone responded by losing interest in religion so catholic countries are actually more religious now
catholic countries are actually more religious now
In South America and Africa, somewhat maybe depending on the country and what you’re comparing to (current day America maybe, Middle Ages catholicism definitely not).
In Western Europe, L. M. F. A. O. I don’t think there’s a single catholic (or formerly catholic, now secular) country in Europe that comes close to being as religious as the US, by any useful metric.
Within Europe we can try to compare Catholicism vs Protestantism, but let’s be real, most of these guys were murdered, converted, or sailed off to the new world centuries ago.
Within Europe though, most Catholic areas (Iberia, Ireland, Poland, Italy etc.) are more religious than Protestant areas (Germanic countries) with the exception of France which is about equally religious…
The same pattern follows in the Americas, even though as you say the puritans were sailed off to the US centuries ago
