BRAZIL: It may be the world's biggest Catholic country, but the church is fast losing followers in Brazil

Record ID: 837312

  • Title: BRAZIL: It may be the world's biggest Catholic country, but the church is fast losing followers in Brazil
  • Date: 3rd May 2007
  • Summary: EXTERIOR OF UMBANDA (AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGION) CENTER VARIOUS OF UMBANDA FOLLOWERS VARIOUS OF PEOPLE PLAYING DRUMS DURING RITUAL OFFERINGS (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) UMBANDA LEADER MARCIO IGOVSKY SAYING: "Umbanda is a lot more flexible, it is also a lot more up to date, if this is the correct way to say it. It is a lot more open to technology and especially to the people's needs." VARIOUS OF UMBANDA RITUAL
  • Embargoed: 18th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Brazil
  • City:
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAADTOQWZ4OU11Z4NMEKNLCW88D
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  • Story Text: As Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country, prepares to receive Pope Benedict XVI at a time when the popularity of the Roman Catholic Church seems to be diminishing among Brazilians, a question comes to mind: where are the nation's Catholics?
    In Brazil's slums - where violence and poverty are a daily fact of life - thousands of the urban poor are drifting away from the Catholic Church - seeking spiritual guidance in other religions.
    Many experts say Pentecostal congregations have been able to fill gaps left by the Catholic Church.
    Pentecostalism is especially strong in poor urban areas, where the precariousness of daily life -- blackouts, violent crime, high unemployment -- can make people turn to divine intervention. According to the 2006 UN Development Report, Brazil ranks tenth among countries with the worst income distribution in the world.
    Many converts are also attracted to the pop music and dynamic sermons which resonate with contemporary tastes more than the traditional Catholic Mass.
    Zilda Ferreira, a resident of Babilonia slum in Rio de Janeiro, is an example of this phenomenon.
    Ferreira said she left the Catholic Church because the priest was not always available to help her as the pastor in the Assembly of God Church does.
    "At any time we arrive there (evangelical church) to look for the pastor, he is ready to see us. Now the priest, he can help us, but only according to his time," she said.
    Conversions like Ferreira's are increasingly common all over Brazil, where a boom in evangelical Protestantism is steadily chipping away at the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
    The growth of Protestant evangelism in Brazil is dramatically altering the religious landscape of a country where the national identity has been intertwined with Catholicism since the Portuguese landed 500 years ago.
    The trend, which is playing out all across Latin America, poses a major challenge for Pope Benedict, who arrives in Brazil on May 9 for a five-day visit largely aimed at blunting the decline of Catholicism in this continent-sized nation.
    When the late Pope John Paul II visited Brazil in 1980, 89 percent of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. By 2000, when the last census was taken, the share of Catholics in the population had fallen to 74 percent, while the number of evangelicals rose significantly from 7 percent to 16 percent during the same period.
    Catholic Priest Father Vinicius Pessoa, says evangelist faiths attract people by promising wealth and power, instead of showing people they must fight for their rights.
    "People are increasingly living the dream of materialism, in search of power and richness. These churches (evangelical) open their doors, showing a rich and powerful God, but they (followers) are slowly finding out that it isn't quite that easy, that they must fight with faith for justice, love, to fight like Saint George fought and won. The people must fight for their rights," he said during a celebration for the Turkish saint.
    Meanwhile, other experts blame the Catholic Church for cracking down on the Liberation Theology movement which emerged during Brazil's dictatorship in 60s and 70s. This school, associated with left-leaning ideologies, focuses on Jesus Christ not only as the Redeemer but also the Liberator of the Oppressed, emphasizing the Christian mission should bring justice to the poor and oppressed.
    Lina Boff, theologist and sister of Leonardo Boff, a controversial liberation theologian, said the movement was significant in Latin America as it began to practice Christianity from its own perspective and reality, instead of following European movements.
    "With the Liberation theology, with the birth of the CEBs (Ecclesiastic Communities of Base), with this new form of practising a theology, we started a stream of theology that isn't reflexive from Europe to here (Brazil), but that interprets God's message and tries new ways of living Christian faith," she said.
    In 1985, Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) famously censured Boff, whose writings were attacked for using Marxist ideas. Boff was ordered to make no public statements for a year.
    In Brazil, the Baptist Church, of Protestant denomination, also gained in popularity since the 1980s, with an estimated 2 million followers in the country. The Baptists, very popular in United States and Canada, are the second fastest growing denomination after the Pentecostalists.
    Father Carlos Novaes said the non-Catholic denominations are growing rapidly because of the distant and reserved relationship between Catholic priests and worshippers.
    "There is a separation of the evangelical pastor's figure from the clergy. He is no longer seen as a part of a clergy, so there is a greater proximity (between the devotee and priest). There is this idea that the pastor is also a member of the church, but with a different function. So this view, brings the devotee of the evangelical church a lot closer to its pastor than the Catholic comes to the priest," he said.
    Another problem facing the Catholic Church in the country is the blending of different beliefs. Many Catholics are also devotees of the Umbanda, a religion that mixes Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritualism and African beliefs.
    In Umbanda rituals offerings are granted to different saints while people sing and play drums in a circle. Marcio Ignovsky, who leads Umbanda rituals in Rio de Janeiro, said it's a more flexible religion, more in tune with the modern world.
    "Umbanda is a lot more flexible, it is also a lot more up to date, if this is the correct way to say it. It is a lot more open to technology and especially to the people's needs," he said.
    But many Catholic leaders have been trying to turn the tide in Brazil. In a movement that has come to be known as the Charismatic Renewal, some Catholic churches in Brazil have adopted animated styles and Pentecostal practices like speaking in tongues and divine healing.
    So far, however, the shift to renew the Catholic style of worshipping has done little to reverse the evangelical rush -- a trend that Catholic leaders acknowledge is worrisome.
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