Latin America: It's Complicated

From a Catholic News Service story of Jan 31:

"In 1995, 80 percent of Latin Americans identified themselves as Catholic, but by 2004 that figure had dropped to 71 percent, according to the Chile-based Latinobarometro polling firm. Only 42 percent of Catholics considered themselves practicing, however, compared to more than 74 percent of evangelicals.

"It's pretty evident that the church is going through a long period of disengagement" compared to the close church-state relationship that existed in colonial times, said Jesuit Father Jeffrey Klaiber, a historian at the Pontifical Catholic University in Lima.

Father Klaiber said the strength of the region's Catholicism has always been somewhat exaggerated. The church was always weaker than it appeared, "even in colonial times, but people didn't realize it, because of its dependence on the state," he said. "People were there not so much for the church, but for the devotions."

Religious devotions such as those to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and the Lord of the Miracles in Peru are celebrated by Latin Americans around the world.

In Argentina, where the disengagement of church and state dates back to the 1850s, only 34 percent of people identify themselves as Catholic, according to Latinobarometro. In Chile, which legalized divorce in December 2004 over the protests of the Catholic bishops, the figure is 31 percent.

But while people may be less willing to follow their bishops' lead on issues such as divorce or birth control, the church still "has the power to call people together in a crisis. And people still look to the church to have a voice" on social justice issues, Father Klaiber said.

Although many of the bishops who spoke out most strongly on those issues in recent decades have retired, the church's defense of human rights and social justice continues to give it great credibility in the region, according to Dominican Father Edward Cleary, who heads the Latin American studies department at Providence College in Rhode Island.

With seminary enrollment up, about 175,000 religious and more than 1 million lay catechists, "to me it looks like the church (in Latin America) is doing better than in the United States in terms of work force, confidence and missionary spirit," Father Cleary said. "How can there be 1.1 million lay catechists if there's not a commitment?"


Excellent question. Could it be the sign of a spiritual resurgence or something else? And encouraging that it is the lay catechists who are regarded as the sign of missionary spirit and commitment.

This paragaph really struck me:

Father Klaiber said the strength of the region's Catholicism has always been somewhat exaggerated. The church was always weaker than it appeared, "even in colonial times, but people didn't realize it, because of its dependence on the state," he said. "People were there not so much for the church, but for the devotions."

I have two observations. Note that Fr. Klaiber said "People were there no so much for the church, but for devotions."

What does he mean? Are those engaged in devotions doing so out of devotion to Christ or as a kind of popular magic? Is he implying that there is some kind of "devotions and me" dynamic going on without any real commitment to the Church herself?

Two: "the church was always weaker than it appeared."

Couldn't that have been said of the golden age of US Catholicism prior to the Council? It seemed to be flourishing but collapsed in upon itself in a single decade when the wide-spread cultural assumptions that supported it were challenged during the 60's.

All of us are children of our culture and disrupting the culture we presume disrupts everything. How can we make sure that we have not confused culture with discipleship? How can we be rooted enough in our discipleship so that we stand apart just enough to both love and discern the flux of the culture about us and respond in a Christ-like way?