RELIGION-BRAZIL: Pluralism Takes a Toll on Catholicism

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 27 2003 (IPS) - Religious diversity has taken root in Brazil over the past few decades, chipping away at the number of Roman Catholics as more and more people identify themselves as evangelical Christians or say they do not profess a specific faith.

This trend gathered strength in the 1990s, as shown by official census figures. In 1980, 89 percent of Brazilians said they were Catholic, but the percentage fell to 83.8 in 1991, and to 73.8 in 2000. Meanwhile, those who identified themselves as evangelicals grew from 6.6 percent to 9.1 and 15..5 percent, in the same periods.

The number of Brazilians who do not claim a religion also grew, from 1.6 percent in 1980, to 4.7 percent in 1991 and 7.4 percent in 2000.

These processes – towards evangelical Christianity or away from institutionalised religion – continue today.

“Before, people were hesitant to admit a change in faith, but no longer. They say it publicly. They feel free to do so in a climate of religious pluralism,” Catholic priest José Oscar Beozzo, a theologian and expert in religious history, told IPS.

And there are asymmetrical strategies and forces at work. The Catholic Church has only 17,000 priests in Brazil to attend to 130 million faithful, while the evangelical Assembly of God has 60,000 pastors for its eight million followers, said the priest.

The Vatican played an indirect role in this process, according to Beozzo, by refusing to allow changes in the Catholic Church, tying its hands so that it could not respond appropriately to the enormous changes taking place in Brazilian society, particularly in the second half of the 20th century.

In 1950, the Brazilian population was mostly rural, but now 80 percent live in the cities. The migration to urban areas has resulted in many state capitals that are home to more than half of respective state’s total population.

“Thirty years ago in my diocese there were 600 rural chapels. Today 80 percent of them are abandoned,” said Beozzo, who serves the Catholic Church in Lins, a municipality 450 km from Sao Paulo.

In the big cities there is “a different way of life that requires a different sort of church,” said the priest, who also directs the Sao Paulo-based Centre for Evangelisation and Popular Education Services, and in the 1990s headed the Latin American and Caribbean Study Commission on Church History.

The rapid urbanisation process took place as the Brazilian population grew from 51.9 million in 1950 to 169.8 million in 2000.

The Brazilian Bishops Conference identified these changes early on, and in 1969 presented a proposal to the Vatican aimed at increasing the number of priests – by allowing married men to be ordained. But that effort went nowhere, said Beozzo.

It was not a radical proposal, such as eliminating celibacy, or ordaining women or readmitting priests who had gotten married, but rather it sought to allow already-married men who had the vocation to become clergy, he explained. “But Rome blocked that solution.”

Nevertheless, the Christian Base Communities emerged in the 1970s as a way to mobilise the faithful to play an active role in their parishes.

Today, 80 percent of Catholic religious services in Brazil are not led by priests but by laypersons, including women, noted Beozzo, author of a book on the history of the Brazilian Catholic Church from the period of Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) through John Paul II.

Catholicism is losing followers because of its “difficulties in updating its evangelisation methods and in making the church structure more flexible,” wrote Frei Betto, a Dominican friar, in a recent essay.

The structure of the Catholic Church remains based on territorial, parochial organisation, but in the cities people join churches not because of geographical proximity but because of shared areas of interest, says Betto.

Census figures indicate that there was a greater decline in the number of Catholics in areas where the bishops were more conservative and prevented the development of the Christian Base Communities, as in Rio de Janeiro, according to the friar.

The Catholic Church underwent profound changes with the implementation of proposals from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The resulting “crisis of the Catholic clergy” coincided with the rise of Pentecostal churches in the 1970s, says Silvia Regina Fernandes, an expert with the Centre for Religious Statistics and Social Research (CERIS).

This accentuated the religious pluralism “that always existed” in Brazil, in spite of the predominance of Catholicism, Fernandes told IPS. “Society grew more complex, and it is natural that religion would absorb the effects of that process.”

The evangelicals “talk about individual prosperity, healing and well being,” with a message that is less generic than that of the Catholic Church, which refers to “salvation and a more global perspective of well being,” said the sociologist.

This difference is one of the reasons behind the growth of the evangelical churches, particularly among the poorer strata of the population, as they feel that their problems are being heard and are attracted by the offer of immediate solutions, she said.

Most Brazilians who categorise themselves as “without religion” do so because they are not institutionally part of any church. But that does not necessarily mean they have no religious beliefs. Instead they often “construct their realities” based on various forms of religious experience, without choosing any faith in particular, explained Fernandes.