By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 30 2013 (IPS)

At odds since colonial times, Catholicism and Afro-Brazilian religions have embarked on a process of mutual acceptance. Pope Francis added words and gestures to this reconciliation of two groups that share a common interest: confronting the growth of evangelical and neo-Pentecostal churches.

The photo of Francis wearing a “cocar” headdress given to him by Ubiraí, a Pataxó Indian, went around the world.

Ivanir dos Santos, a “babalawo” or priest of the Afro-Brazilian candomblé religion, was also received by the pope in the Municipal Theatre of Rio de Janeiro as part of the rapprochement between the Catholic Church and other creeds and cultures during his Jul. 22-28 visit to Brazil.

“For the first time, a representative of candomblé was received by a pope. This is unprecedented,” dos Santos, a member of Brazil’s Committee Against Religious Intolerance (CCIR), told IPS.“When the pope stands up for the secular state, which guarantees religious freedom and prevents persecution, he is being very pragmatic." -- Maria Celina D'Araujo

“It was a very important step. It marked a gesture of respect for Afro-Brazilian and minority religions,” he said.

That day, the pope called for inter-religious dialogue and surprised politicians, among other invited guests, with a declaration in favour of the secular state.

“Peaceful coexistence between different religions is favoured by the laicity of the state, which, without assuming any one confessional stance, respects and values the presence of the religious factor in society,” he said.

Francis probably had two audiences in mind, according to political analyst Maria Celina D’Araujo, a professor in the social sciences department at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro.

On the one hand, “the most fundamentalist Islamic sectors, Islamic theocratic states, where Christians and the Catholic Church have been persecuted, as in Egypt,” D’Araujo told IPS.

But on the other hand, the message was also for Latin America, particularly Brazil, where “evangelical fundamentalism is growing and has strong political participation,” she said.

Francis chose Brazil for his first overseas visit as pope, taking part in the week-long World Youth Day event for young people organised by the Catholic Church.

In a survey by the Datafolha polling firm on the eve of Francis’ arrival, 57 percent of respondents declared themselves Catholics, compared to the 64 percent who identified themselves that way in 2007, when his predecessor Benedict XVI (2005-2013) visited the country.

The proportion of interviewees describing themselves as Pentecostal evangelicals, meanwhile, rose from 17 to 19 percent, while non-Pentecostal Protestants increased from five to nine percent.

A similar phenomenon is occurring in other parts of Latin America, although Catholicism remains the dominant faith.

Evangelical and neo-Pentecostal denominations have also grown in terms of political influence. D’Araujo estimates evangelical forces in Congress at 30 percent, holding decisive sway over congressional votes to do with reproductive rights, sexual minorities or the decriminalisation of abortion.

“When the pope stands up for the secular state, which guarantees religious freedom and prevents persecution, he is being very pragmatic. The Catholic Church knows it is losing ground, and will not be able to grow with fundamentalist, intolerant parties in power,” the analyst said.

A meeting ahead of World Youth Day shed light on the Catholic position on religious freedom and diversity.

At the “terreiro” (temple) of Axé Bamgbosè, in the municipality of Duque de Caxias, candomblé priests including dos Santos gathered with Jesuit priests, seminarians and young people from different parts of the world.

At the meeting, which IPS attended, the Jesuits heard theological explanations about candomblé from representatives of this religion brought to Brazil from West Africa by slaves, and repressed during colonial times by the Jesuit order, to which Francis belonged until he became pope.

The Catholics visited the shrines of the “orixás” or minor gods or spirits, and even watched a ceremony of African origins.

“For me, as for others, this discovery of religions, other creeds and viewpoints, other spiritualities, is a new thing. Probably 50 or 60 years ago they were hidden or forbidden. When the Americas were colonised, they were also banned and denied,” Sergio Montes, a Jesuit from Bolivia who took part in the ceremony, told IPS.

In Brazil, followers of African religions like candomblé or umbanda were persecuted, often violently, down the centuries, until a law permitting police repression of their ceremonies was repealed in 1970.

Today Afro-Brazilian religions are still persecuted, but by the neo-Pentecostal churches that call them “satanic cults”. Catholicism is also attacked by the same groups.

“The neo-Pentecostals do not respect different beliefs; they think they own the truth, they talk as if God speaks only to them. That is fascism. We cannot generalise, but many of these segments are very bad for democracy in Latin America and Brazil,” dos Santos said.

The Catholic Church’s openness is not entirely new. “The Society of Jesus throughout its history has been opening doors in what we now call inter-religious dialogue,” Montes said.

He cited, for example, the Jesuit missions in what are now Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, as well as the order’s historical ties with China.

“For the Society of Jesus this is not a novelty, although the context is new,” he said.

Montes said this is a propitious time to put into practice guidelines that were proposed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and that “are beginning to take shape.”

Inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue have advanced in Latin America since then, especially at the episcopal conferences at Medellín, Colombia (1968), Puebla, Mexico (1979), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (1992) and Aparecida, Brazil (2007).

“Much emphasis has been placed on the possibility of getting to know and recognise each other, respecting rather than only tolerating each other, with a powerful vision of the fact that what is important is the humanity that unites us,” said Montes.

“Pope Francis has opened a very important door not only for the Church, but also for all religions and for the whole of humanity,” he said.

Dos Santos agreed. “It is time to unite in respect for diversity and against intolerance,” he said.

And from a religious viewpoint, the babalawo said he had hope.

“Not only the world changes. Religions must change too. And I think we are seeing new signs now,” he said.

A Nigerian diviner dances and sings next to a Brazilian priest of the Candomblé religion, brought to this South American country by African slaves, that is now being rescued from oblivion in school texts on national history and culture.

He is Jokotoye Awolade Bankole, a 55-year-old tribal prince from Onpeu-Ogbomoso in the southwestern Nigerian state of Oyo, and a devotee of Ifa, a divination system of the Yoruba people that was declared part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2005 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Candomblé priest Alexander Rocha da Silva, or “Alexander de Oxossi” as he is known in his religion, has welcomed Bankole to his “terreiro” or temple. He is white, although as he told IPS, “who in Brazil can say he has nothing of Africa under his skin?”

Half of the Brazilian population is black or mixed-race. Graffiti on a wall at the Bom Jardim Cultural Centre in Fortaleza. Credit: Mario Osava/IPSBrazil

This country, where over 50 percent of the population of 194 million identify themselves as black or “mulatto” in the census, has emphasised its European history, the Portuguese “conquest” and the practice of the Catholic religion.

According to the 2010 census, 64.6 percent of the population identify as Catholics, followed by 22.2 percent who profess evangelical, mainly neopentecostal, denominations.

Many of those who openly declare themselves to be followers of religions of African origin, like Umbanda and Candomblé, who represent 0.3 percent of the population, practise their rituals in the shadows.

“There is still a lot of discrimination, especially when someone at school or at university professes an African religion,” says Glaucia Bastos, an “iyanifa” (Ifa priestess).

Brought to Brazil by African slaves, Candomblé was subjected to more or less severe repression from colonial times, and had to disguise itself in order to survive.

“Candomblé did not suffer as much from the Catholic influence as other religions, because black people continued to worship their ‘orixás’ (deities) under the guise of Catholic saints,” Alexander de Oxossi told IPS.

Open persecution by the police of Afro-Brazilian religions continued past the mid-20th century.

Bastos, whose father is Portuguese but who identifies herself as black “because of her mother’s family tree,” tells IPS that “up until 27 years ago, people in the streets used to shout ‘macumbera’ at me,” a word of African origin used pejoratively to mean a practitioner of black magic.

Edna Teixeira de Araujo told IPS that until around 1970, Candomblé was practised in the backyards of samba – an Afro-Brazilian musical rhythm – houses. “There would be a samba dance circle in the front, and Candomblé would be going on behind, to keep it hidden,” said de Araujo, who like other participants at this celebration in honour of Bankole was wearing a festive Nigerian Yoruba gown.

But times changed, and federal law 7,716, which stipulates that religious intolerance amounts to racism, no longer permits open demonstrations of prejudice.

In 2007, Jan. 21 was named the annual National Day Against Religious Intolerance in memory of Mãe Gilda, a Candomblé priestess from the Northeast state of Bahia who died in 2000 from heart problems blamed on religious persecution by neopentecostal churches.

But in spite of the signs of progress, devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions still feel persecuted.

“Even today, any problem that arises is blamed on a curse by Candomblé or Umbanda practitioners,” de Araujo said.

Bankole, who is from a region of Nigeria that was decimated by the slave trade up to little more than a century ago, came to Brazil to help build respect for Afro-Brazilian religions.

Through an interpreter, Bankole told IPS that due to slavery, many Africans from different parts of the continent experienced the mixing or loss of their customs in Brazil, including their tribal languages and Ifa, which he is now trying to revive.

That was the aim of the lecture on “Memory, Ancestors and Identity in the African Context” that he delivered on Nov. 13 in Yoruba, a language spoken by 10 million people in Africa.

The event was organised by the “coordinating body of experts in education for ethnic and racial relations”, which trains teachers to apply the 2010 law that requires the study of African history and the Brazilian black community at all levels in the public and private education system in Brazil.

Bankole is optimistic because he has found on his travels that many other forms of awareness of African ancestry persist in Brazil and other Latin American countries, including orixá worship in Candomblé.

“And even Brazil’s carnival bears the imprint of African culture,” Bankole said, smiling.

Bastos, whose roots rejoined Africa when she married Edundayo Olalekan Awe, a Nigerian who was acting as interpreter for Bankole, again took trees as a metaphor to refer to cultural and religious mixing in Brazil.

“It’s the same tree, and everyone has planted it as he or she wishes,” she said.

Like a tree with different roots, the “xirê” – drumming and singing for the orixás – mingles in the terreiro of Alexander de Oxossi, the priest or “doté”, with the flavours of the foods to be offered to the orixás, prepared by Iya Rosana de Bessem, like acarajé, a typical dish from Bahia.

Bahian-style garments in the ritual circle alternate with Nigerian “alaká” shawls worn by Brazilian women.

So a piece of African earth is embedded in Brazilian soil, and Brazilian earth is embedded in Africa, keeping memories alive in the shade of the trees.