Church in Latin America in accelerated collapse

Tancred at Eponymous Flower posts some timely data regarding the Church in Brazil, where the Holy Father is trying to stem the tide with another World Youth Day extravaganza. Recent polling data from Brazil indicates the Church there is in severe, if not terminal, decline.  Membership in the Church has fallen by over 1/3 just inthe past 40 years. Most fallen away Catholics there are opting for evangelical protestantism, but some are simply skipping that step of the process and jumping straight to sexular pagan atheism (Brazil has long had great struggles, culturally as a nation, with chastity and modesty). Most other nations in S. America mirror this trend, although the problems are more advanced in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, than they are in some other South American nations.  The problem seems to get worse as one goes east on the continent.

I note in passing that these eastern South American nations (Brazil, et., al), are where the “spirit of Vatican II” has most insidiously asserted itself into the life of the Church, and where Tradition is most assiduously disregarded. There are other factors – such as the ascendency of the left in those countries, with the “right” being associated with Tradition, often unfairly – but the prime reason is the radical shift in the practice of the Faith in the past 50 years. The data:

Brazil is the country with the most Catholics worldwide. 123 million Brazilians profess the Catholic Church. It was not until half a century ago virtually the entire population Catholic, the proportion of Catholics since the Second Vatican Council has plummeted. From 92 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 2010.

At the same time the Protestants experienced an equally unexpected and rapid rise. Their share in the same period grew from five to 22 percent. While the Catholics are holding during the years of he 20th century at just more than 120 million members, not decreasing, but not increasing either, while the number of Protestants has grown only since 2000 from 26 to 42 million. [Liberalism and excessive emphasis on “social justice” do not move people to participate in the Faith.  The people who have left, by and large, probably felt starved of a real relationship with Jesus Christ, of an understanding of the Sacraments (anyone who understands the Sacraments could never leave the Church, save, perhaps, to the Orthodox), or of any truly transcendental experience.  People who, at one time, received tremendous influx of Grace from Baptism or whatever Sacrament, will not be sustained by clown Masses, touchy-feely humanism, and constant leftist agitprop. “Social Justice,” as it is presented by church liberals, and even worse, liberation theology, are death to the authentic, sanctifying practice of the Faith.  That is reason #1 why the Church in Brazil especially, but Latin America in general, is rapidly collapsing.]

By Protestant, is not meant the Lutheran or Reformed churches known in Northern Hemisphere. In Brazil this historical strand of Protestantism does not flower, but the Pentecostals and Evangelicals do. One in five Brazilians belongs to a group of younger Protestant sects which were imported from the United States to the Latin American country. Since then, several new communities that have arisen in Brazil, the Igreja Pentecostal Deus é Amor (IPDA). [What do the pentecostals and evangelicals stress?  Bible study, and a personal relation with Jesus – that is, the transcendent, a vision beyond the misery of this life.  When the Church, in these people’s experience, has been reduced to a lefty worldly do-good society (even though leftism does only harm, in the long run), there is no choice, they flee.  I have to add, they only flee, because they are so badly formed in the Faith to begin with, they do not understand what they had.]

On a smaller scale, other religions have grown in recent decades. Most through immigration. Within the country, the number of followers of syncretic Afro-Brazilian spiritualist cults such as Umbanda and Candomblé increased from six million in 2000 to ten million.

In 1970 there were less than a million without a religion, the number of agnostics and atheists has grown to 15 million.

The changes occur as a phenomenon in both women and men, among educated and less educated. It is more pronounced among the under-50s. One difference is particularly visible between the cities and the rural areas. While the country is still 78 percent Catholic, it is in the urban areas at only 62 percent where the Evangelicals and Pentecostals are particularly active, but also the number of atheists and agnostics is greater.

In Rio de Janeiro, the goal of Pope Francis, Catholics are at 46 percent only a minority.

So, the leading city of Brazil is no longer majority-Catholic.  That’s not a shame, it’s a calamity of earth-shattering proportions. 

Someday, the Church will learn it’s lesson. Someday, all this wrong emphasis, error, heresy, and rank apostasy will be recognized for what they are.  It may not be until the Last Day, but it will happen. 

Domine, miserere nobis.