Shepherd Arrives in Brazil to Find a Diminished Flock

c. 2007 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly SAO PAULO, Brazil _ On paper, the official reason for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit here this week is to canonize the church’s first Brazilian-born saint and to open a meeting of bishops from Latin America and the Caribbean. But his most daunting challenge may be shoring up the Catholic […]

c. 2007 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

SAO PAULO, Brazil _ On paper, the official reason for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit here this week is to canonize the church’s first Brazilian-born saint and to open a meeting of bishops from Latin America and the Caribbean.

But his most daunting challenge may be shoring up the Catholic faithful in this once proud bastion of Catholicism in the face of dramatic growth by Protestant _ and especially Pentecostal _ churches.


While Brazil’s 130 million Catholics make it the world’s most populous Catholic nation, it is also rapidly becoming one of the world’s largest evangelical Protestant nations as well.

According to a 2000 government census, the percentage of Brazilian Catholics dropped from 89 percent to 74 percent in only 20 years. A survey published in Sao Paulo’s Folha newspaper this week put the number of Catholics today at just 64 percent.

“Statistics are hard to read because the Catholic Church always had the privilege of baptizing most of the population,” said professor Archibald Woodruff of the Methodist University in Sao Paulo. “But what people do after they are baptized is another question.”

For example, most of the 2,000 members of Sao Paulo’s Agua Branca Baptist Church come from a Catholic background. The congregation outgrew its traditional church building and now meets under a giant circus tent.

Pastor Ed Rene Kivitz says people are attracted by the Protestant emphasis on a direct relationship with God.

“Our language, content and approach towards people is much more intense and direct than Catholicism,” Kivitz said. “In Catholicism, there is liturgy, clergy and the institution between God and the people. And the evangelical church doesn’t have that. You just have Jesus.”

The Protestant landscape in Brazil is complex and changing quickly. Massive megachurches now dot the streets of Sao Paulo, with more on the way. The vast majority of Protestants are part of Pentecostal churches such as the Assemblies of God and so-called “neo-Pentecostal” churches that are indigenous and often independent.


The largest, and one of the most controversial of the neo-Pentecostal denominations, is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Founded in 1977, the church now has 6 million members in 56 countries and owns a media conglomerate that includes radio stations and a major television network.

“Jesus said, heal the sick, cast out demons, and spread the word of God,” said Bishop Delmar Andrade of the Universal Church. “Basically, the church does that.”

Andrade was a Catholic for 33 years before he says he was healed of an incurable disease through the Universal Church.

“Nobody preached to me the gospel (in the Catholic Church),” he said, adding that in the Universal Church, “we believe in prosperity, we believe in healing, we believe in joy happiness.”

But some neo-Pentecostal practices generate controversy, even among other Protestants.

“Protestantism had something to do with getting an education, shedding your superstitions and helping Brazil become a modern country,” said Woodruff, the Methodist University professor. “And that’s not what they (neo-Pentecostal churches) are doing over there. Some traditional Protestants say, `This is not Protestant, this is something else.”’

Catholics are quick to criticize financial scandals in some neo-Pentecostal churches. But they are also beginning to acknowledge that their own church hasn’t been meeting people’s needs.


“Most of the conversions (to Protestantism) take place because these people weren’t assisted by the churches,” said Eduardo Cruz, who teaches religious studies at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. “The outskirts of the big cities grew so fast and the Catholic Church wasn’t able to reach all these people.”

Cruz said Catholics are learning from aggressive evangelical outreach programs that use radio, television and the Web. Catholics here are also highlighting new research that suggests their losses may have stabilized.

Pentecostal growth is also influencing Catholic worship. There is, for example, the Rev. Marcelo Rossi, the wildly popular “Singing Priest” on radio and TV. Some parts of his Catholic Mass look more Pentecostal than Roman Catholic. A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 57 percent of Brazilian Catholics call themselves “charismatic.” That doesn’t always sit well with the church’s hierarchy.

“There are some Pentecostal movements within the Catholic Church that are very big and important, but it also depends on the situation of the diocese and the bishop,” Cruz said.

Despite the growing evangelical clout, however, Brazil remains a predominantly Catholic culture.

“Evangelicals don’t have a public voice as great as the Catholics do, but this is changing with time,” Woodruff said.

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According to Kivitz, the Baptist pastor at Agua Branca, “both Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism are subcultures of Christianity, and they are fighting for who will have the most power, who will represent the Christian faith in Brazil.”


Benedict’s visit is expected to have implications far beyond Brazil. For Catholics and Protestants alike, the greatest church growth is seen in the so-called “Global South” _ Africa and Asia, as well as Latin America. Many in those areas are worried Benedict will try to impose a more European worldview.

“Benedict has the opportunity to tell the Global South, the Catholic south, that he’s their pope, too,” said John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. “And that their concerns, their struggles, their hopes and dreams, are very much part of the package for him.”

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A version of this story first appeared on the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly and is available to RNS clients.

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