Institute for Tolerance Studies
Religion in Latin America
Ron Duncan Hart
Contents
Latin American Civilization
Conflict between Religious & Secular Authorities
Bartolomé de las Casas & Rights of Indians
The Inquisition
Church, Independence & New Republics
Folk Catholicism
African Based Religions
Church, Civil Wars & American Hegemony
Appendices
About the Author
Introduction
The Guides to Religion and Culture at present include Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and other religions world-wide.. The purpose of this series is to provide education and understanding of the religious traditions in our increasingly linked world.
These volumes are written as an anthropology of religion, and I have attempted to state the beliefs, practices, and histories in words that are consistent with each religious tradition. I have provided historical, social, and cultural information to define the context within which each religion has come into being and developed as a living society today. To the extent possible, I have discussed and reviewed these materials with religious scholars and believers from each tradition although I recognize that there are internal differences in belief and practice within religions, and I have tried to reflect those in a correct manner.
Belief and behavior are at the heart of our self-definition as human individuals and the emotional core of our identity. Our religious and/or ideological identity is so important that
it shapes major life decisions. This series is published recognizing the powerful importance of religious belief and practice among us as humans, respecting and honoring the uniqueness
of the spiritual nature that defines us.
Latin America
The Christian Kings, Fernand and Isabella, defeated the last Muslim kingdom in Spain in 1492. It was considered a religious and military victory, and Christianity was the official religion of the unified Spain that they were building. Long before this victory Fernand and Isabella had decided that religious unity would be necessary to create a unified Spain, and they set out to expel the non-Christians, the Muslims and Jews.
The Muslim kingdom surrendered on January 1 of that year, and on March 31 they wrote the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews. These two events marked a turning point for Spain. Instead of the pluralism for which the Spanish kingdoms had been known, it became a unidimensional society in which the Inquisition was used to enforce Christian homogeneity under the threat of torture and death. In a curious twist of fate, as one of the events celebrating the new Christian Spain that they were constructing, they approved the voyage to the west of Christopher Columbus which was to project Spain into an inconceivably large world of non-Christians, the Americas.
These events created modern Spain, and the Spanish came to believe that their culture was Christian culture, their language the Christian language, and their Church the true Church. This faith in their exclusive right to God’s truth fueled their expansion into the Americas, and their belief that the ends justified the means. Indians who did not submit to Spanish (and Christian) sovereignty were killed or enslaved and literally worked to death. They sought to build new Christian kingdoms in the Americas with the military, Crown, and Church unified in their common goals. The Americas became the proving ground for the religious, political, and economic expansionism of Christendom.
For the second time in Christian history an entire continent of non-Christians was about to be converted to Christianity. In the first case with Rome, Christianity was declared the official religion by imperial decree, and over a period of time people gradually converted to the new religion. Now in the case of the Americas, empires were defeated by force of arms, and the long slow process of missionizing the Indian communities began. The Church made agreements with the secular authorities to have control of missions and education in the Americas. Over the next 300 years the Church would use schools and missions as tools to convert and educate the American populations in Christianity and the Inquisition to police their faith.
Through this process the Church built the largest concentration of Christians in the world, supplanting even that of Europe. This role of Latin America as an important center of Christianity was recognized with the election of Pope Francis in 2013, who is from Argentina. He is the first non-European pope in 1300 years.
The Christian missions movement has transformed Christianity from a European religion into a largely Latin American and African one. In parallel processes the mission movements in Latin America and Africa largely followed the armies and colonial control of European countries. The Spanish and Portuguese control of the Americas was more complete than the more fragmented European colonial presence in Africa, resulting in Latin America being more solidly Christian. Here is the story of the building of a continent of Christians in Latin America.
Latin American Civilization
The construction of the new civilization that was to become Latin America began in the sixteenth century as the Spanish and indigenous inhabitants of the Americas synthesized their cultures and religions into a new lifestyle. The Spanish contributed a hierarchically administered Church which was grafted onto the existing indigenous religions. The Spanish colonial social organization divided the people into a rigid caste system of Europeans, mestizos, Indians, and Africans, each one with their own unique religious expressions.
Latin America is a mosaic of indigenous and African peoples mixed with the Spanish, Portuguese, and other Europeans. The Spanish who came to the Americas were culturally influenced by the Muslims and Jews who had long lived on the Iberian Peninsula. Those influences from Spain were melded onto the Indian and African religions to produce mestizo and mulatto religious heritages.
The Conflict between Religious and Secular Authorities
After the contact made by Columbus with the Indian groups in the Caribbean in October of 1492, the conflict between religious and secular authorities was quick to appear. The secular people were interested in controlling the Indian populations and using their labor to exploit mineral wealth and do public works among other things. The use of force in controlling the populations and the forced labor led to high rates of death among the Indian people. The religious people protested because they did not have the opportunity to save the souls of these Indians. The saving of souls and creating Christian communities was in direct opposition to the desire for wealth and empire on the other hand. The secular and religious interests of the Spanish regularly came into conflict.
In the Andes, a special kind of church architecture evolved which included an “Indian” porch, and some of these churches can still be seen today. The central part of the church was enclosed as would normally be, but the entrance area had an open-walled porch area where Indians could stand and observe and listen to the service going on inside. Baptized Christians could enter and sit for the service, while the unbaptized stood outside. This architecture was symbolic of an attitude toward Indians that still exists in Latin America. A common expressed about undesirable behavior is “Que no sea Indio” which translates “Don’t be an Indian”, and it means “Don’t do the wrong thing.” Indian behavior is the wrong behavior, it is not Christian.
Bartolomé de las Casas, the Church
and the Dispute over the Rights of Indians
Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas denounced the conquistadores as indiscriminately killing the Indians in basic violation of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the natural law of respecting the life of others. Although the protests of Las Casas did not stop the massacres or the exploitation of the indigenous populations, his arguments for Indian rights became one of the great statements of all time for human rights. By today’s standards his arguments and thinking were still too narrow, but he was the first to denounce and challenge the inhumane exploitation inherent in European expansionism. Las Casas was not alone among the clergy in denouncing the social abuses of the Conquest. Later, Father Antonio de Montesinos added his voice to the call for reform and human rights for the Indians.
In the 1550’s, Las Casas had a debate at the University of Valladolid with the leading Aristotlean philosopher of the day, Juan Ginés Sepúlveda about the civil and human rights of indigenous peoples and the European expansion. Las Casas argued that the indigenous peoples of the world had the same human rights as any European. On the contrary, Sepúlveda argued that the military power of Spain gave it the right to take land and enslave indigenous people whom he considered to be “natural slaves”. The real debate was over whether the Spanish had the right to impose their government and religion on the indigenous civilizations of the Americas. This was the first case of European conquest at the beginning of the European expansion into the world, and it is important because it defined the terms that all other countries would follow as they used superior arms to defeat indigenous groups in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and other areas.
Las Casas had been one of the early Spanish landholders in the Americas, and he saw the forced labor, enslavement, and wanton killing of Indians. He was so shocked by what he saw that he became and priest and defender of the Indians and repeatedly wrote protests to the King of Spain. He described the genocidal treatment of the Indians saying,
“...from the very first day they clapped eyes on them the Spanish fell like ravening wolves upon the fold, or like tigers and savage lions who have not eaten meat for days. The pattern established at the outset has remained unchanged to this day, and the Spaniards still do nothing save tear the natives to shreds, murder them and inflict upon them untold misery, suffering and distress, tormenting, harrying and persecuting them mercilessly. “
In Valladolid, Las Casas argued that Indians had human capacities equal to those of the Europeans and that they should be treated equally. In contrast, Juan Ginès Sepúlveda was the official chronicler (historian) for the monarchy and one of the most erudite men in the kingdom. He represented official interests, and his argument was that Spain as the stronger power needed to exercise control over the Indian civilizations of the Americas. He argued that Spain should take Christianity to them as well as the perceived benefits of a “superior” Spanish culture. The unspoken reasoning behind Sepúlveda’s argument was that Spain was to gain great wealth from the Indian labor and the mines of gold and silver in the Americas.
Las Casas won the moral argument, and he is still honored today by the Mayans with whom he worked, but Sepúlveda won the policy argument. The monarchy pronounced laws to protect the Indians, but the everyday business of conquering and ruling the Americas continued to follow Sepúlveda’s argument for the use of force. The Euro¬peans of successive generations frequently assumed similar ethnocentric and even genocidal attitudes toward both civilized and tribal peoples of the non-European world. The resulting colonial culture constructed in the Americas was a conquest culture based on the exercise of physical force by a small European elite. A caste system was developed with Europeans at the top and Indians at the bottom.
The defense of the human rights of Indian groups has been carried on since the colonial period by other activists. The person who most recently has taken the role of Las Casas as the defensor of Indian rights has been Rigoberta Menchu, a Mayan woman from Guatemala. She was active in defending Indian rights during the Guatemalan civil war, especially in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Her efforts were recognized in 1992 when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Church and Conquest Culture
The culture that developed in Latin America after the arrival of the Spanish is partly Indian, African (depending on the region), and Spanish, but more importantly it was colonial in nature. The Crown relied heavily on the encomienda system and the Inquisition as the mechanisms for controlling the colonial society. As the Spanish imposed religious, social, and political conditions on the indigenous peoples they began to rule, a new culture and social structure emerged. The official conquest culture of Latin America was Spanish and Christian, and it included the imposition of Catholicism, the Spanish language, a centralized government organized around the Crown, control by the military, a system of social castes, and the education system which emphasized history and knowledge from a Eurocentric Christian perspective. Those who wanted to work or carry on business in the new society were obligated to learn the official culture, speak the language, and accept the working code of values.
La Encomienda and the Church. The Spanish Crown did not have the resources to conduct the conquest in the wide spread provinces of the Americas from the Caribbean to Mexico, the Andes, and the southern-most regions of South America. So, it developed a system called the encomienda (putting a person in charge). The Crown would give a land grant to a prominent individual in return for his raising an army with his own funds and conquering the people living there. The encomienderos were expected to collaborate in the evangelization of the Indians, but since they focused on their own profit, they frequently saw the presence of the priest as an interference. Supporting the priest and building a church cost money, which cut into the profits available to them, and the priests’ concern about human rights sometimes limited the methods they could use to rule and collect taxes. The clash between church and secular authorities occurred most directly at the local level between the encomendero and the priest.
The encomendero collected taxes on the production in the area under his control, giving 20 percent to the Crown and keeping whatever else he could collect for himself. This was a system of conquest by private enterprise. Some encomenderos with important mines became enormously wealthy, but others with poor agricultural villages gained much less. This established a social system in which the Spanish and their descendants controlled the land and natural resources, a system that has basically continued to the present day.
This colonial system remained intact throughout the seventeenth century, but in 1733 the Hapsburg dynasty in Spain gave way to a new monarchical family, the Bourbons from France, and they brought new ideas about social rights. The onerous Hapsburg colonial controls on the Americas were softened by the Bourbon Reforms in 1778. More local autonomy was granted to the various viceroys in the Americas, and the power of the Inquisition was curtailed. The reforms were intended to make the colonial status more tolerable and save the empire in the Americas, but as history would show, it was too little and too late. Within a few decades the winds of independence would sweep across Latin America, costing Spain its empire. The Church largely survived the whirlwind of changes that came with Independence although its powers and privileges were restricted and the Inquisition was terminated.
The Inquisition
In addition to ruling the conquered peoples and collecting taxes, the goal of the Spanish Crown in the Americas was to create Christian societies. The problem was that the populations of these colonies were predominantly non-Christian with 90 percent or more of the people being Indian or African. The Americas were also a haven for conversos, or recently converted Jews. In Spain, they were perceived as a threat and religiously suspect, and the Inquisition focused on them as sources of heresy. Migrating to the Americas was an attractive alternative for conversos because it represented a new society distant from the controls of the Church. As early as 1508, the bishops of Havana and Puerto Rico warned that conversos were filling their colonies.
The Crown had prohibited conversos from migrating to the Americas, and it required a certificate of “clean blood”, meaning no Jewish or Muslim ancestors in the family, before granting permission to travel to the New World. However, there were many loopholes, and people knew how to use them. Since the Inquisition was not established in Latin America until 1569 (Mexico and Peru) and 1610 (Colombia and Venezuela) and it had limited impact until 1640, that gave a window of opportunity in the early colonial period for Spanish citizens of Jewish descent to make a life in the Americas free from the fear of that dreaded institution.
The Inquisition was established in the Americas as a part of the Counter Reformation effort to re-establish the control of the Catholic Church and as a part of the Crown’s effort to tighten control over its new empire. It sought to control the heresies introduced by pagan and heretical beliefs of Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Indians, and Africans, all the people of religiously different backgrounds. Although Jewish and Protestant influences were suppressed by the mid-1600’s, the Indian and African influences continued to be prevalent.
The Church was a key element of the conquest culture. Although the priests were the defenders of the human rights of the Indian peoples of the Americas against the Spanish mercenaries, at the same time they supported the Spanish colonial regimes and persecuted Indians for their traditional religious beliefs. The priests burned Indian books and offered them salvation before turning them over to the military to be killed. In some cases, such as Fray Pedro Simón in Colombia, priests justified the genocidal tactics of the Spanish by demonizing the indigenous people as being cannibals and barbarians. The Church functioned as an important component in the machine of conquest, tearing down the traditional ideologies and threatening the Indians with damnation if they were not practicing Christians.
From colonial times marianismo (from Maria the mother of Jesus) is the ideal gender behavior for women, and it suggests that women should be chaste, religious, accept the authority of the man, be devoted to the home and the children, and uphold the moral rectitude of the family. Although these behavior patterns are changing, they are still present in many sectors of Latin American society.
The Church, Independence, and the New Republics
In 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo called for the independence of Mexico in a famous speech remembered as “El Grito de Dolores”. That call for independence resonated throughout the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Although the Church was a part of the Colonial establishment, it was Father Hidalgo, the local priest in a small town in northern Mexico, who called for action and touched a nerve of resistance that had been building up against the Spanish. Father Hidalgo was a dissident priest and was expelled from his position for his involvement in the Independence movement. The Church opposed independence throughout Latin America and actively worked against it.
The power and influence of the Church was limited in the new Latin American republics which were organized along the French model. Jesuits were expelled because of their aggressiveness in supporting the Church and their opposition to Independence, and the activities of the preaching orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, were greatly reduced. Church properties were confiscated as a means of reducing religious power, and many were not restored until the mid-twentieth century. Antagonism developed between the Church hierarchy and the leaders of the Independence movements because of their mutual distrust and opposition to each other.
From 1825 to 1900 the new countries of Latin America went through a period of defining constitutions and the powers of government, defending boundaries, and settling struggles between the liberal and conservative branches of the creole elites. Conservatives supported the continued role of the Church, but Liberals did not. The Liberal leaders of the Independence were influenced by the rationalism of the Enlightenment, and they saw little value for the organized Church in the new social order. As a result, the Catholic Church was marginalized as being Spanish and colonial.
Other than the government, the Church has been historically the wealthiest entity in Latin America. With the exception of the period of Liberation Theology, it has usually used its influence to preserve its wealth and that of its elite constituency, and it continues that posture in the current global economy.
Timeline for Religious Development in Latin America
Precolumbian World South America
Spanish Conquest Period
Independence
Twentieth Century
Latin America and the Fusion of Religions
Latin America is a world culture created between three different religious traditions: the indigenous civilizations, the Christian culture of the Spanish conquerors, and in certain areas African cultures (Brazil, the Caribbean basin, and Pacific lowlands of Colombia and Ecuador). As a result of these divisions, Latin America is composed of a series of distinct religious and cultural areas, based on the unique histories and ethnic groups of each country.
Latin America is “Latin” because the European influence in this area is from the Roman and Latin influenced cultures of Iberia (Spain and Portugal). Although the official culture in each Latin American country is “Latin” and controlled by the small European elite, in contrast, the domestic cultures draw largely from indigenous and African traditions. There is not one, but several, Latin American religious cultures based on climate and ethnic heritage. The major cultural areas are Mesoamerica, Central America, the Andean region, southern cone countries, Brazil, and the Caribbean. The varying degrees of the importance of Indian, African, and European populations in each of these areas largely accounts for the religious and cultural differences between them.
Latin America is one of the important Christian areas of the world, but it is a Christianity that combines European Catholicism with local indigenous and African religious beliefs and practices. Latin America is not so much Spanish as it is a series of mestizo/mulatto cultures formed in the crucible of the colonial experience in which the small Spanish minority ruled. They set up a caste system in which Christian Spaniards were at the top, and the Indians and Africans were at the bottom. There was prestige in being a Christian and speaking Spanish, borrowing the culture of the conquistadores.
The Spanish who arrived to the Americas thought of themselves as the cutting edge of Christianity and the most devoted of Christians because of their long fight with the Muslims in Spain itself. Since the Muslims ruled Spain for 800 years, Spanish culture had adapted itself to Muslims norms in many ways from language to architecture, family organization, and intellectual life. In the long siege and reconquest of the Spanish Muslim kingdoms by the Christian kings, other aspects of the Spanish character were developed including a devoted zeal to Christian causes and the willingness to sacrifice everything for them.
As indigenous kingdoms and chiefdoms were conquered, they were pressured to convert. Of course, people who convert under pressure are not always willing to give up their true beliefs. Not being European, the indigenous and African peoples in the Americas did not understand, nor practice, their newly adopted Christianity in the same way as the Europeans.
Syncretism. Since Latin American Catholicism has been characterized by the blending of Christianity with local practices, the result has been a hybrid system that integrates them. An example is the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Patron of Mexico, who in 1531, only ten years after the Spanish defeat of the Aztecs, appeared on Tepeyac Hill just outside of the capital city to an Indian man, Juan Diego. The same hill had been dedicated to the worship of the mother earth goddess Tonantzin under the Aztecs, and the Virgin was seen as a dark skinned, Indian woman, essentially a Christian replacement for the Aztec deity. Just as Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was renamed Mexico City to become the Spanish capital, the Aztec goddess was fused with the Virgin beginning the cycle of acculturation to Spanish beliefs. Among many people in Mexico today, the Virgin Mary is still known by her traditional name of Tonantzin. This story can be repeated many times all across Latin America as Indian and African gods, goddesses, rituals, and healing practices have been fused with Christian practices.
In the Indian traditions of Latin America the godhead commonly has both male and female figures. When the Spanish introduced the trinity of Christianity, it was understandable to the indigenous people that there were three figures in the godhead, but the absence of a woman figure was difficult to comprehend. To indigenous people Mary, as the mother, was understood to be a special interlocutor with Christ, and she had a special status alongside her son, Christ, and the father, God, completing the holy family. So, she came to have a central role in the practice of Latin American Christianity.
Iconism. Within Latin American Catholicism, religious images and symbolism are a visualization of beliefs, and they portray the values and behaviors that people are to emulate. The images are a visual language, teaching people the beliefs of Christianity. When a Quechua man dressed in traditional clothes kneels before an image of St. James (Santiago) the Conqueror in the cathedral on the plaza of Cuzco to pray, it may seem ironic because St. James is mounted on a horse in full armor like a Spanish conqueror. Even though the Quechua man is illiterate, he knows the story of St. James because of the image, and he sees this saint as a person who might intercede for him before God. The icon is his book from which he can learn the basics of Christian theology and especially the role of the saints. To this Quechua speaker who knows little or no Spanish, the icons give visual messages to help him remember the major events and beliefs of Catholicism.
Conservatism. The Church in Latin America historically has been conservative in its beliefs and rituals, in some cases retaining beliefs from the colonial period in the twenty-first century. This is one of the results of Christianity being introduced into Latin America as a part of a colonial system which has never been completely eliminated. The Church, government, and military functioned like a three-legged stool on which the colonial system rested. If any one of the institutions was threatened, the entire cultural system of Spanish control of Latin America would have collapsed.
During the independence movements in Latin America, each one of these three institutions was threatened, but only the government and military collapsed. They were quickly replaced by American-born equivalents, but the Church remained largely intact, maintaining the cultural basis of the society. Many of the new leaders of the Latin American republics were secularists who did not support the traditional Church, and there were serious challenges to its power at that point. Eventually, the Church retained its position within the newly independent Latin American societies, and the next time that it would be challenged would be by Protestantism in the twentieth century.
Beliefs and Practices of Latin American Catholicism
Although the Roman Catholic Church is a dominant presence in Latin America, it is not monolithic, and it is sub-divided into groups, representing distinct interests and needs. Approximately 90 percent of Latin America’s 550 million people identify as Catholic. A cross-section of the countries shows the number of Catholics as Argentina, 92 percent; Brazil, 80 percent; Colombia, 90 percent; Ecuador, 95 percent; Mexico, 89 percent; Peru, 90 percent; and Venezuela, 96 percent. Although Catholicism is the most visible representative of Christianity in Latin America, it is practiced in various ways, ranging from the traditional Church to the popularizing Church, Folk Catholicism, and Liberation Theology. The Church itself is conservative, but the everyday practice of Catholicism is dynamic, and it generates new practices in the lives of people.
In the tradition of the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, the official Roman Catholic Church defines itself as the only way to salvation based on the seven sacraments, attendance of mass, regular confession, and approved prayers to God through the saints. The priest is the connection with God, and the emphasis is on religious practice within the physical walls of a church. The priest gives the sacraments by which the believers mark the great moments in their lives through holy rites that communicate their oneness with God. The sacraments are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, marriage, anointing of the sick, penance, and holy orders.
The Priest and the Church guide the ritual life of the believer. Not only is attending mass important to salvation, but regular confession is essential to living a godly life. Mass and confession link the believer to the Church as a regular place of worship and prayer. Women, older people, and the wealthy are the ones who are most faithful to the traditional Church, and to them the rituals of the sacraments, attendance at mass, and confession are comforting expressions of their faith. In much of Latin America, only women, children, and older people go to mass regularly. Few adult working aged men attend mass, but in contrast they are very much present in the street festivals of folk Catholicism and other popular activities.
The traditional Church emphasizes that the goal of faith is to enter heaven, so the believer should downplay his or her involvement in the things of this world in order to enter the next. This re-affirms the neo-Platonic separation of the body, mind, and soul and says that political power and wealth in this world are less important than spiritual rewards in heaven. This is particularly emphasized with the masses of Latin Americans who languish in working class poverty conditions. They are promised rewards in the next life if they are faithful to the Church in this one. The sacraments are the avenue to salvation which is individual and personal. Through these teachings, the Church re-enforces the social, economic, and political status quo. For this reason, the Church is popular with the wealthier classes, but it becomes a barrier for the poor who seek social change. It is not surprising that the majority of the people who convert to Protestantism come from the poorer classes and rarely from the wealthy and educated.
Folk Catholicism
The intermixing of Indian, African, and Spanish religious traditions has resulted in a uniquely Latin American religious synthesis, called Folk Catholicism, a combination of local cultural practices with those sanctioned by the Church. For centuries the mixture of Catholicism and quasi-Christian religious beliefs has been practiced outside of the Church in the streets and homes of Latin Americans. Everything from street festivals to curing ceremonies become religious events, and people have blended traditional beliefs with those of their Spanish overlords to produce a unique mestizo version of religion.
Synthesis of the Christian Trinity with Indigenous Gods. In both Indian and African adaptations of folk Catholicism, people have synthesized the trinity and saints with traditional spirits and gods. For example, among the Mayans, their traditional deities, the lord spirits of the heavens, were fused with the trinity and the Virgin Mary, each of whom has a counterpart from the prehispanic religion. God the Father is equated with the spirits of the World and Elder Brother; God the Son is equated with the spirit known as Second Brother; the Holy Spirit is equated with the Lord Sun and with Younger Brother; and, the Virgin Mary is equated with Our Grandmother the Moon. Contemporary mythical narratives mesh Biblical figures with traditional Mayan ones.
As indigenous and African spirits and gods are synthesized with Christian ones, new religions are formed. They are neither completely Christian, nor completely indigenous or African. They correspond to the unique circumstances of the colonial experience in the Americas and represent the fusion of cultures that characterizes this part of the world. The Brazilian and Caribbean cultures are inherently Afro-Christian, just as the cultures of Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia are inherently Indianized Christian.
Patron Saint Festivals. Every town in Latin America is expected to have a patron saint, and the annual celebration of the day of the saint is a large street festival, usually the most important event of the year for the town. These patron saint festivals are also popular in small towns in Spain, but in Latin America people are more uninhibited at festival time, and the roots of Indian and African cultures manifest themselves. In the name of the patron saint people play music, sing, dance, play games, drink, and eat. The religious nature of the festival varies from town to town, but some religious activities form a part of the patron saint festivals. There may be group activities such as pilgrimages in which people walk long distances to shrines to the saint. People come to the town from the surrounding rural areas or return from cities where they have migrated, and family members and friends gather to visit and catch up on the news of each other since they last met.
The central event which usually starts the patron saint festival is the display of the figure of the saint in a procession through the streets that allows as many people as possible to see it. The priest leads the procession out of the church and along the streets sprinkling the faithful lining the route with holy water. Behind him comes an altar boy or layman carrying the incense burner swinging it from side to side with the incense wafting over the crowds.
Next comes the saint carried on the shoulders of men on a canopied platform, swaying with the rhythm of their steps. The saint is surrounded by the most beautiful flowers. As it makes its way along the designated route, the crowds of people part to allow the saintly figure to pass then they fall in behind praying as they follow it back to the church. Throughout the year the saint is kept in its special place on an altar in the church, and there is a women’s society that is responsible for the care and dressing of the saint.
There may be several sets of fine clothes and even jewelry for the figure, and before the festival, women of the group clean and dress the saint for its presentation to the community. It is an honor to be a member of the women’s group that dresses the saint or the men’s group that carries it in the procession, and membership in these groups may even be inherited from parent to child. Once the saint has returned to its place in the church the festival itself begins.
The patron saint festivals are also good for business because the town is filled with people, and they are buying as well as celebrating. Food stalls are set up complete with outdoor kitchens, and people begin eating in the morning and continue until well in the afternoon. The food varies from region to region within Latin America. In the Andes, people eat mostly potatoes and beef, and in Mexico and Central America they eat beef with rice and beans, but it is usually accompanied with beer.
The streets fill up with the temporary canvas covered stands of merchants who have come to hawk their clothing, shoes, jewelry, or religious souvenirs. People crowd into the streets to look and buy, and in the larger towns and regional capitals pickpockets and purse snatchers follow them. They take advantage of the crowding and people pushing together to work their trade, and there are the inevitable shouts of “thief” and chase scenes through the crowd trying to catch the culprit. People enjoy the crowding, the human dramas that unveil, the visual excitement of carefully crafted religious figures, the street photographs, and the memories to be taken home afterwards.
A bull fight is frequently celebrated as a part of the patron saint festival. In the smaller towns where these festivals are most popular a bull fight ring is made by a simple plank circular fence set up in the town plaza or some other convenient place. A few local bulls are rounded up and brought in to confront the men who want to challenge them with their bravado. The men who enter the ring are not trained bull fighters, nor do they kill the bull, but the act of defying the horns of the bull can be an exciting part of these street festivals.
Much like the Roman circus from which it is derived, the bull fight confronts human intelligence with the dangerous brute force of nature. It is a moment of spiritual challenge between goodness represented by humans and evil represented by the wild destructiveness of nature. The control of humans over the powers of nature is re-affirmed time and time again as the pageantry of the bull fight is repeated. Its association with the patron saint festival draws the parallel with the ultimate victory of Christianity over the forces of evil.
Promesas. The promesa or promise to God is another defining practice of folk Catholicism. It is based on the idea that God will respond to a sacrifice on the part of the believer and grant the petition or prayer that the person makes. If the sacrifice is genuine and demanding on the believer, it is thought to be more compelling for God.
In Bogotá, Colombia the mountain of Montserrat towers almost one thousand feet above the city itself, and the top of the mountain has a church and shrine complex which is a pilgrimage center. People who have a special petition to God, such as the healing of a seriously ill loved one, may climb the mountain on their knees to reach the shrine above. It is a difficult climb up these steep slopes which can take people hours, and they arrive with their knees bleeding and in pain. It is that blood and pain that they offer to God as they plead for divine intervention in the problems that they themselves cannot solve otherwise.
Lesser promesas will be made for smaller problems, such as praying ten “Hail Marys” per day for twenty days so that a daughter or son makes a passing grade in a difficult class at school. When the problems of life are outside the believer’s control, it may seem that only God can solve them. When the believer does not see the problems as having human causes or answers, he or she turns to the magical world with faith that ritual properly performed may be able to get God’s intervention to solve the problem. The person sees cause and effect as mystical. God can solve the problem.
Shamans and Curanderos. Another avenue of folk Catholicism for the treatment of health are the curanderos or shaman healers, and for the rural and small town poor they are frequently the first line of defense for health. Either may use a combination of herbal remedies and magical practices to cure the person, but a shaman has a wider range of powers through which he or she can contact the supernatural powers. The shamanistic tradition of healing comes from Asia, and the use of herbs and other natural substances is a richly developed medical tradition in China. The Indian based shamans and curanderos in the Americas draw on a parallel tradition that may well have its roots in those Asian origins.
There are both Indian and African roots for these practices, so they exist in both mestizo populations (Indian-Spanish areas like Mexico and the Andean countries) and mulatto ones (African-Spanish like the Caribbean and Brazilian). In Mexico, Central America, and the Andean countries it is common to find the herbal remedies in open markets, which may have a broad display of roots, leaves, ground up substances that can be used singly or combined in complex prescriptions to cure specific pains and illnesses. These herbal remedies may be gathered from a wide range of geographical zones. In the Andes shamans and curanderos travel from the starkness of high Andean villages down into the tropical lushness of the Amazon basin searching for the plants needed to cure specific maladies.
These traditional healers may be men or women. The shaman is usually from an Indian or mestizo village, and he or she may have served as an apprentice for years or even decades learning the songs and rituals necessary to accompany the herbal cures. Shamans frequently practice within a long tradition of knowledge and cultural continuity. On the other hand, urban curanderos may be people who have learned the herbal cures but do not have the other background of ritual practices. A curandero or herbalist may be a local woman in an invasion barrio (squatter’s settlement) on the edge of one of Latin Americas mega-cities who has a good knowledge of herbal cures and who is consulted by her neighbors for minor illnesses for themselves and their children. She will charge a modest fee and may even supply the herbs. People prefer to consult these local healers and only go to a medical school trained doctor if the illness is intractable or debilitating.
Shamans and curanderos blend into folk Catholicism because people believe they have powers that go beyond the natural qualities of the herbs. These are not priests, but they can contact the supernatural to help in the cure. The reliance on shamans and curanderos varies according to the social class and ethnicity of the person. A person of Indian or African origin will more readily have access to a shaman who may live in a rural or small town environment. A person of mixed background (mestizo or mulatto) living in a town or the working class area of a city may access to a local curandero, and in the city there are specialized stores that stock the herbal remedies they prescribe. A person of the European educated elite may also use herbal remedies, but they will probably get them from a homeopathic doctor who uses a scientific basis for his or her work.
African-Based Religions
In the countries of the Caribbean basin and in Brazil there are a number of African-based religions that have been mixed in varying degrees with Christian beliefs and practices. These range from Santería in Cuba to Spiritism in Puerto Rico, Voodoo in Haiti, Spiritual Baptists and the Orisha religion in Trinidad, and Candomblé in Brazil among others. These religions are characterized by drumming, dancing, spirit possession, and the use of herbs and other substances for healing, protection, and even trance inducement. The African-based religions have a loose organization in which each local group can have its own set of beliefs and worship liturgy. They are open to changes and in fact do introduce new beliefs and practices from one generation of believers to another.
Many of the African gods or spirits (orishas) have been synthesized with Christian saints and prophets, perhaps done under the duress of priests pressuring Africans to convert during the colonial period. Not all African deities have Christian counterparts, and these religions are increasingly emphasizing their African roots today. Some of the orishas that have Christian counterparts are Shango (St. John), Ebeje (St. Peter), Dada (St. Anthony), Erele (Jonah), Ogun (St. Michael), Osain (St. Francis), Oya (St. Catherine), and Shakpana (Ezekiel or St. Jerome) among others.
Religious meetings commonly begin well after dark and last into the early hours of the morning or even until dawn. People drum and dance, eat and drink, visit with others, and may become possessed as the night drags into morning. The orishas are called during the drumming and dancing, and they come down and possess worshipers. The orishas are said to mount a person when the possession starts, so the possessed person is called the horse. When the person is possessed by the orisha, she or he may scream out as if struck in pain and then fall on the floor in uncontrollable writhing. Frequently their eyes grow large and fixed, and the person may tear their clothes. After this initial period when the possession may come on like an attack, the person settles into more predictable behavior acting out the character of the possessing spirit for an hour or more.
Possession is evidence that the orishas have been present among the people, and the possession of multiple worshipers is the culmination of the religious service. Animals may also be sacrificed, and people bring chickens and goats to be offered on the shrine of the resident orisha. First, the animals are ritually cleansed with an herbal bath, and then they are led to the shrine where their heads are severed. Their blood is poured onto the shrine to complete the offering.
Connecting with the orishas is a visceral experience. The soft glow of dozens of candles or other lights around the altar lights up the holy of holies and holds back the black mantle of night. The drumming throbs in your ears, and the swaying of the dancers wraps you into a cocoon of sound and rhythm that pushes out the rest of your consciousness. Even if you are not mounted by an orisha, you are lost in the other world of the spirit for the eight hours or so that the service lasts. Some people who do not want to be mounted and who are not really believers wind up possessed and writhing on the floor, showing that the power of the African spirits was greater than they had thought.
Some of the leaders of the African-based religions have magical powers which can be used in healing, making love potions, or attacking your enemies. Magic is the ability to perform certain rituals that lock in the supernatural force to act for prescribed purposes. If you can perform the magical ritual properly, you will be guaranteed the desired result because the ritual is a lock on the supernatural force. These magical powers can cause a person to fall in love or to lose it, can bring on illness or cure, bring on death or stave it off, or can bring a person good luck or bad luck in work.
The belief in these magical forces is wide spread in the Caribbean and Brazil, but it may also be found in other areas. Magic is a parallel force to religion which works through a different channel to connect with the supernatural. The religious experience is one of awe and obedience before the divine, but magic is the manipulation of the supernatural force for a human purpose. In religion, the supernatural controls the humans, but in magic it is the reverse.
The Twentieth Century
the Church, Civil Wars, and American Hegemony
The religious changes of the twentieth century have been profoundly affected by the growing hegemony of the United States in the first half of the century and the period of civil wars in the second half, the latter inspired by the communist ideal of Cuba and the dream of egalitarian societies. As the domination of the United States over Latin America grew, so did Protestant missions, beginning in the Caribbean basin states which were geographically closer.
The Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 began the process of religious reform in modern Latin America. The powers of the Church were greatly curtailed, something unique in Latin America. No outdoor public meetings could be held, and the interiors of many churches were white-washed to eliminate the Christian icons. The Church lost its control of state functions such as education and marriage, reducing its influence in the society, and greater religious freedom was allowed. Protestant churches began to operate freely, and Jewish people could worship openly. This created a new religious environment in Mexico, one in which Protestants and Jews were recognized as well as Catholics. This led to an era of Protestant missions coming mostly from the United States. The Mexican Revolution became a beacon to other Latin American countries.
Communism, the Church and the Cold War. After World War II there was a period of hope when European colonialism collapsed and more than one hundred new nations came into existence. The political situation throughout Latin America divided between the religious conservatives identified with the Church, the United States, and capitalism and the social liberals who tended to be anti-clerical and pro-social reform, and even pro-Communist. In most of the region, the Church aligned itself with the anti-Communist forces while the intellectuals aligned with the social liberals.
Over the next half century, a series of civil wars were fought throughout the region between the two sides, first in Guatemala, then Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Although the official Church was identified with the landowners and military, the Liberation Theology movement emerged during this period, and through it individual priests advocated a social theology that broke with Church traditions.
This period of armed conflict between religious conservatives and social liberals started in the mid-twentieth century. The Church rallied to support the military as it battled Communism in Argentina and Chile in the 1970’s, Peru in the 1980’s, and Colombia from the 1950’s to the present. After the emergence of Liberation Theology in the 1960’s, some members of the clergy began to support the cause of the poor. Following the tradition of Bishop Bartolomè de las Casas, Father Camilo Torres in Colombia and Bishop Romero in El Salvador among many others dedicated their work and even sacrificed their lives for the cause of social equality for the poor.
Liberation Theology. The liberation theology movement developed in the 1960’s and advocates political awareness of the evil of oppression and exploitation that exists in Latin America. It is the heir to Bartolomé de Las Casas, the sixteenth century priest, who denounced the killing and enslavement of Indians as the Spanish built their colonial empire in the Americas. The people associated with this movement believe that the political and economic exploitation of people is not Christian and that the Church must use its influence to correct that cultural malady that reduces so many people to poverty and powerlessness. The Latin American council of Bishops meeting in Medellín, Colombia gave authority to this movement to develop its position.
During the 1970’s and 80’s as civil wars raged through Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua members of the Church increasingly came out in support of the Indian and peasant communities who were struggling for land rights. The political and economic analyses of the liberation activists were frequently Marxist without their becoming communists.
On a number of occasions priests and nuns who were struggling for the rights of the poor were killed by the military or right-wing paramilitary groups. This culminated in the killing of Bishop Romero in El Salvador, shot down at the altar of his church as he performed mass. In Guatemala, some sectors of the Church became so identified and involved with the Indian and peasant movements for land reform and better public services, that the army and paramilitary squads killed them along with guerrillas as if they were also fighting in the armed struggle.
Liberation Theology is based on the premise that exploitation of the poor is ungodly, and that Christians should work to correct the abuses and inequity in the social class system. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) created an atmosphere of freedom of thought within the Catholicism, and it denounced the wide disparity between the rich and the poor in the world. In other meetings in Latin America during those years, theologians developed the idea of social action as Christian, especially in Rio de Janeiro in 1964 and Bogotá in 1965.
The culmination came in 1968 at a conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellín when basic approval was given to the idea of committed Christian action for social reform as acceptable pastoral practice. The bishops denounced the inequality between social classes, the exploitation of the poor, and the unjust use of power. In subsequent years the Church denounced Marxism, making it clear that social justice should not be the Marxist version, but in 1986 one organization of the Church went so far as to say that it was legitimate for the oppressed to take action “through morally licit means, in order to secure structures and institutions in which their rights will be respected.” Liberation theology is also shared by some Protestant groups.
Father Camilo Torres (1929-1966). Like many other priests in the Liberation Theology movement Torres studied sociology, and he was a professor at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. He was one of the first urban sociologists in Colombia. With Orlando Fals Borda he founded the Sociology program at the University, and later founded a group to do research and social action in the poor barrios of Bogotá. He was also Chaplain of the University, and he introduced the reforms of the Vatican Council II, such as saying mass in Spanish, rather than Latin. By 1961 Cardinal Concha Córdoba was expressing opposition to his work and eventually forced him out of his positions in the University. Over the next few years he continued to write and teach, by in 1965 the Cardinal forced him to resign from the priesthood. He advocacy of social, political, and economic reform appealed to many, and he had a large public following.
Toward the end of that year he joined the National Liberation Army (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional), but he was killed in combat with the Colombian Army a few months later. Torres did not live to see the formulation of Liberation Theology by Church prelates, but as a sociologist and activist he represented the priests who did eventually support it.
Bishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980). Bishop Romero had originally conformed to official Church teachings and been supportive of the government of El Salvador. He was named the Archbishop of El Salvador in 1976 with the expectation that he would support the status quo. But, that same year a Jesuit priest friend of his was killed by a death squad because of preaching self-determination, Bishop Romero realized that he could no longer support the government. He began speaking out publicly against the policies of the government and the involvement of the Church with it. He advocated that the Church should provide a community where people could come together and talk about social and political issues of importance to them. In his pastoral letters he denounced government abuses. After four years of speaking out for human rights and government reform, Bishop Romero was shot as he finished a sermon in the pulpit by a paramilitary death squad.
The Church evolved from its Colonial posture of supporting the landed elite, the government, and the military to a posture on the part of some clerics to support the poor and the oppressed. The support for the rural poor among the Catholic clergy led to their becoming targets of the paramilitary death squads in the Guatemalan and El Salvadorean civil wars of recent decades. The story of one defector from the Guatemalan military in given in the Appendices.
At the start of the twenty-first century in Latin America, the Church in Latin America represents many different social and political positions. The traditional Church exists with Bishops and Cardinals who are closely involved with the political and economic elites of their countries, but there are also priests who are involved in social activism and trying to help their parishioners. Rather than telling the poor that they should wait for the afterlife for their rewards, more priests believe that they have a right for a better life on earth. Along with the changes introduced by the Liberation Theology movement, other new expressions of Catholicism have emerged, and collectively these are known as the Popularizing Church.
The Popularizing Church. In recent decades a movement led by younger priests has tried to re-connect the practices of the Church with the everyday lives of the congregants, which some are calling the progressive Church. This is the Church of Vatican II and Pope John XXIII in which mass is said in the local language of the people, guitars and local music are played in the services, and the Bible is more actively studied by people. This has made the mass more exciting as people move from traditional sacred music to popular styles of music that respond to contemporary tastes. These younger priests more readily discuss topics that have been taboo in the past from premarital sex to abortion, and they tend to be more involved in social causes. Helping those in need is seen as a way of acting out Christianity.
The charismatic movement within the Church is another avenue through which people have become more expressive of their religious feelings. The Espiritu Santo (Holy Spirit) is the central figure for believers in this movement, and they feel that the Spirit comes down and possesses them, making God a visceral experience inside of themselves. This is a mystical movement, characterized by the feelings of awe and celebration of God. Charismatic groups frequently gather in the houses of individual parishioners to read the Bible, pray, and sing, which are experiences that did not occur in the traditional Church. These groups may be led by lay people or priests who are seeking more dynamic ways to express their religious experience. The charismatic movement seems to parallel the Protestant Pentecostal groups which have had considerable success in Latin America, and it appeals to those looking for a mystical quality in religion.
Liberation Theology, the Popularizing Church, and the Protestant evangelical movement have introduced powerful social changes in the religious world of Latin America over the last century. Religious life in the region has been marked by the invasiveness of the North American presence and the revolutionary movements that have challenged the traditional Church and social order. The social and economic needs of the poor have challenged both Catholic and Protestant Christianity to think about human rights and justice within the context of their overall religious view of the world.
Protestantism
The Protestant Missions Movement. Although Latin America is predominantly Christian, some Protestants do not accept Catholics as truly Christian, a mind set that continues the conflict of the seventeenth century religious wars in Europe. To those Protestants, Latin America is a mission field similar to China, India, or Africa. The Protestant mission movement in Latin America developed essentially as an anti-Catholic movement.
Not only do Evangelicals believe that Catholics are not completely Christian, but they also see much of the Latin American population as not being truly Catholic. They see traditional religious practices among the Indian or African populations as being “witchcraft” or worse. These North American-centric views of Christianity were the foundation of the Protestant mission movement in Latin America. As the North American commercial and political presence grew in Latin America, so did the presence of Protestant missions. Just as Catholicism is identified with the expansion of Spain in Latin America, so Protestantism is identified with the expansion of the United States into the region.
The Protestant population in Latin America ranges between 5 and 10 percent in most countries, but it has a larger presence among the poor and the people of African descent. The successful Protestant churches are the more evangelical ones with lively music and spirited meetings. Pentecostal groups have been particularly successful, and their openness to talking in tongues and having trances has found a niche among working class groups. Protestants feel that they have been enabled by their religious beliefs to be and achieve more than they would be able to otherwise.
Since worship in Protestantism is more individualized, it offers a more direct spiritual experience with God. For example, a person confesses their sins directly to God, not to a priest, and this spiritual independence appeals to many people. Protestant churches are usually small and controlled by the local people, so there is an immediate connection between the church and the community. There is also an intimacy in the services as if it were a gathering of friends, and pastors regularly draw the members of their extended family, friends, and neighbors into these churches.
These churches are highly participatory, so lay people are involved in singing in the choir, leading music, teaching, or church administration among other responsibilities. There is a sense of ownership, loyalty, and identity in these churches that binds them together in the face of the wealth and power of the Catholic Church. The success of the Protestant movement seems to be a reaction at least in part to the centralized hierarchical organization of the Catholic Church. Although these churches are usually poor, funding from churches in the United States helps to support them through construction of church buildings, providing training, and publishing printed materials in Spanish.
Social Class and Protestantism. Since converts to Protestantism usually come from the working classes, they are frequently people who want to be upwardly mobile. The fact of their conversion indicates their interest in social change. They want to create a better life for themselves, and Protestantism represents the United States, the capitalist world, and increased material success in this life. Although Protestants frequently report economic improvement in their lives after conversion, it actually has more to do with changes in personal lifestyle than any actual increase in income. One of the key issues of improved conditions for some families is the curtailing of week-end drinking by men which results in the family having more money available. Protestant families tend to emphasize education and shared family commitment to the church, and they frequently attend services as a family group.
Cecília Loreto Mariz explains how religion is used as a coping strategy in the slums of Brazil by Pentecostals, Catholics, and African based religions. Although she suggests that Protestants are perhaps more successful in an economic sense, the other religious groups play important roles in the social adaptations of their followers.
Historically, Protestantism has had little appeal among the established, elite classes of Latin America. Those groups are usually closely identified with the Catholic Church which has been a supporter of their class interests. Given the strong association of Protestants with the working classes and African descent people, the Eurocentric elites have avoided them. On two occasions in recent years, Protestants from emerging middle class backgrounds have had a significant impact on power. In 1982 General Efraín Ríos Montt, a Protestant, led a military coup and established himself as dictator of Guatemala. In his messanic vision of himself and Guatemala, he said, “Guatemalans are the chosen people of the New Testament. We are the New Israelites of Central America.” David Stoll gives a detailed account of the religious movement that backed Ríos Montt, and the abuses committed under his regime in the name of the unquestionable rightness of his cause. In a couple of years he was removed from office amid the scandals about the army wiping out entire villages and killing political detainees in their pursuit of leftist sympathizers.
In 1990 Alberto Fujimori became president of Peru with the prominent support of the Protestant churches of that country. Although initially successful, he was eventually forced from office because of questionable behavior and corruption. In both cases these men claimed high moral standards for themselves but turned out to be ruthless and corrupt. Protestants in power had shown themselves to be no less corruptible than their predecessors.
Guerrillas and Protestantism. Given the interest of Protestant converts in social change, it is not altogether surprising that where there are high rates of conversion sometimes there are also high rates of support for guerrilla resistance to national governments. Protestants do not become guerrillas normally, but they are responding to the same desire for social change as the guerillas do.
While some people within the community turn to religion as an answer for their problems, others turn to political action or even armed insurgency for the same reasons. This was the case in Guatemala where Protestant churches had considerable success during the latter decades of the twentieth century at a time when the guerrilla movement was its strongest. It has also occurred in Colombia where the regions of the country that produce people for the guerrilla movements are also regions where Protestants have had success. Guerrillas and Protestants do not support each other, rather they respond to the same needs and compete as to who provides the better solutions.
Judaism
Although it was illegal to be Jewish in the American territories during the Spanish colonial period, Jewish communities existed since the early colonial period as documented in Martin Cohen’s study of the Carvajal family in Mexico and other sources. They were eventually suppressed by the Inquisition which lasted until the independence from Spain. One of the actions of the new Latin American republics was to eliminate the Inquisition and permit the immigration of Jews, but it was decades before significant Jewish communities were settled in Latin America. Religious pluralism was slow to come to Latin America, even after independence.
German and French Jews were the first to migrate to Latin America in the modern period, and they chose to leave Europe during the conservative aftermath of the Napoleonic wars when the rights of Jews were restricted. As the industrial revolution and agricultural crisis of the mid-eighteen hundreds disrupted the European economy, more Jews migrated to the Americas, both North and South. In Latin America, they primarily went to Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, but some went to Chile, Colombia, Peru, and other countries. As had occurred during the Colonial period, Jews in Latin America tended to be merchants or medical doctors, but other professions such as mining and engineering were also common. With the political turmoil in Europe with the two World Wars, the Nazi persecution, and the Holocaust, Jews migrated to Latin America by the tens of thousands during the early and middle twentieth century. Argentina was to develop the largest Jewish community in Latin America with over 250,000 residents.
Jews in the Americas still suffered persecution from the Christian majority, and it was not unusual for the front wall of a Jewish house to be painted with a swastika during the night or the world judio to be scrawled across the wall. Jewish children were taunted in schools and made to suffer indignities. In the second half of the twentieth century, many Jews eventually left their Latin American homes for the tolerance and safety of the United States and Canadian societies or for the Israeli homeland. In the latter twentieth century the Jewish population of Latin America reached 500,000 people, but in recent decades that number has dropped significantly. Large Latin American Jewish populations can now be found in Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Israel. The Enlightenment ideals of the founders of the Latin American republics included religious pluralism, and they envisioned more diverse societies. The slight opening toward pluralism that did occur permitted a small minority of Protestants to establish themselves, but non-Christian groups such as Jews have not been so fortunate. Latin America today remains the most solidly Christian bloc in the world, more so than Europe or North America.
Non-Believers: The Secular Population
Latin America also has a large and powerful secular movement that historically has worked to control the power of the Church, and the enlightenment ideology of this group emphasizes the rationality of human behavior and the need for social justice. Although most Latin American countries show Catholic identity at 90 percent or more of their population, many of those people are non-practicing and consider themselves as more secular than religious. Many were baptized and experienced religious education as children but no longer practice their religion. This secular population is frequently more liberal politically than their Catholic or Protestant fellow citizens. Many of the educated elite, especially intellectuals and artists belong to this group.
Rationalism and Secular Liberalism. The ideology of their behavior is more oriented toward the objective knowledge of science rather than the mystical knowledge of religion. They are more interested in social justice for the poor than the final judgment in heaven. This group is more oriented toward this life and what can be done concretely here rather than the possibilities of a heavenly paradise in the afterlife.
This group of secular liberals has long sought to control the power and influence of both the Catholic and Protestant churches, and in all countries of Latin America there is separation of church and state largely as a result of the efforts of this group. The secularists are probably a larger group than the religiously active Catholics, but since it is not an organized group, it is difficult to know how many there are. There are no statements of faith, no churches where they meet, and no rituals to act out their beliefs. This large undifferentiated population has a major impact on the various countries of Latin America, but it is like a cloud. It is there, and you can see the results, but it cannot be grasped.
Anti-Clericalism. The people who identify more with rational secularism, than the Church are also frequently anti-clerical. This does not mean that they are anti-religious, only anti-Church establishment. Although the Church holds a dominate position in Latin America, much of the intellectual and artistic elite is anti-clerical. They see the Church, and its representatives, as aligning with the wealthy elite and manipulating the poor, uneducated masses. They are opposed to the clergy as they are to the wealthy landed elite. They believe that the priests use the beliefs of the masses of the people to manipulate them to support the political ends of the Church, rather than limiting itself to spiritual concerns.
An example of this occurred in Colombia during La Violencia (The Violence) than occurred following the assassination of a popular liberal Presidential candidate in 1948. For years revenge killers stalked the country killing people on the other side, especially member of the Liberal Party. Country priests were known to support the Conservative cause from the pulpit and offer forgiveness to those who killed Liberals. Such events contributed to the building of a strong anti-clerical sentiment among many in Colombia, and other parts of Latin America. The Masonic movement is important in some countries, and people with anti-clerical attitudes readily identify with its anti-papal tendencies.
The anti-clericalism in Latin America is fed by the anti-Spanish feelings among many people, feelings that come from the colonial period. The Church overtly persecuted many of the leaders of the Independence movements in Latin America, protecting its alliance with the Spanish Crown, and that has not been forgotten. Another historical event that feeds anti-clericalism was the forced conversion of Jews, who had to convert or be expelled from Spain. Many of these anusim, or forced converts, never became truly Christian, and their resentment toward the Church evolved into anti-clericalism. Throughout generations the resistance continued toward those who had coerced them with the threat of violence. Many of the people who are anti-clerical today are the descendents of the anusim.
Religious Change, Revolution, and Protestantism
Substantial religious changes have occurred in Latin America over the last century. The Roman Catholic hierarchy is still a powerful force in virtually every country, but the Church has changed. Liberation Theology and the Popularizing Church have made fundamental changes, and the rise of Protestantism and the acceptance of Jews have introduced a degree of religious pluralism unknown earlier.
Today, the religious landscape of Latin America is quite different than the way it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Through this new mosaic of religious movements, Latin Americans of differing social classes and ethnic backgrounds seek out the religious practices that respond to their social and spiritual condition.
Latin America was the first area of the world to experience the expansionism and colonialism of European Christianity. Missionaries arrived to convert the Indian people and change the pagan civilizations into Christian ones. By the end of the Spanish Colonial period in 1820 Latin America was nominally Roman Catholic, but it has always been much more complex religiously with the mixture of Indian and African beliefs and practices.
The colonialism of the Latin American experience is reflected in the continued association of the Catholic Church with the wealthy elite, and the frequency of shamanistic and African-influenced rituals among the urban poor and rural people. Latin America is the area of the world that has the largest number of people who identify as Christians. Although many people consider it to be the new center of Christianity, it is a Christianity very different from the European mother religion from which it sprang.
During the growth of capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the rationalism of markets and capital performance replaced theology as important topics of discussion in European circles. Both Catholic and Protestant evangelical churches continue to send missionaries into Latin America, Africa, and Asia to spread the idea of Christianity, but the national churches around the world now are frequently stronger than the missions movement.
Christianity has been a versatile religion repeatedly transforming itself from its Jewish roots through Greco-Roman thought to the eastern and western divisions of the religion.
In Europe, Christianity has been synonymous with civilization itself for most of the last thousand years. Only in the last couple of centuries with the rise of capitalism has Christianity lost its role as the ideological center of European civilization.
The Americas and Africa, colonized in the name of Christianity, have replaced Europe as the new center of the religion. In the Americas, Latin America with its 550 million Christians outnumbers the 250 million of predominantly Protestant North America, the 480 million in Africa, and 420 million in Europe. How did this new center of Christianity emerge?
Appendices
Maximón, a Mayan Healer
In the Folk Catholicism of Latin America, each area has figures who are thought to have special powers to heal or otherwise help people. In Venezuela, it is José Gregorio Hernandez, known as the doctor, and he can do invisible surgery to solve the most severe health problems. He is shown as a man dressed in a black business suit, much like a traditional medical doctor. In Guatemala, the figure is Maximón who is a mixture between the Christian Saint Simon and the Mayan “Great Ancestor”. The veneration of this ancestor saint is widespread in the Mayan dominated highlands. According to the anthropologist, Timothy Knowlton, who has studied this religious practice, “The name Maximón is composed of the Kaqchikel word ma’ meaning don or alternately grandparent, and Simón, an old southern Spanish pronunciation of the proper name Simón. He is called San Simón by the Ladinos, those mestizo Guatemalans that identify predominately with their European heritage, and generally speak only Spanish as opposed to one of the many different Maya languages spoken throughout the nation. Some Highland Maya, particularly the Tz’utujul Maya of the town of Santiago Atitlan, refer to Maximón as Ri Laj Mam (“the great ancestor”).”
In the shrines for Maximón a carved wooden figure sits in a chair next to the back wall, and he is positioned at eye level or higher. A scepter representing his power is placed in his right hand, and a cigar is placed in his mouth. An open space is left in front of him for offerings such as tobacco, candles, or flowers. Pine needles cover the floor, and retablos (folk religious art) cover the walls thanking Maximón for the cures he has made. A censer is placed in front of him where copal can be burned. People approach him to make their requests. A cofradia, or religious brotherhood, is responsible for attending to the figure and taking care of the shrine. People who are ill will probably visit a shrine of Maximón before visiting other medical practitioners. People who have other special requests also visit his shrines.
Magic Dolls and Love
For almost two decades I lived and worked in Latin America, and one day when my wife and I were walking on the beach in Puerto Rico, we found a small, hand-sized rag doll laying in the sand. When I picked it up, I saw that it was in fact two dolls bound together face to face. I realized that it was a work of love magic in which one person was trying to bind the other person to them, so I kept the dolls as an example of magic. The next time I discussed the subject in my anthropology class at the university I took the dolls. As we were starting the class, I walked over to the first desk and handed the dolls to the student and asked her to pass them around so that everyone could see. As I walked back to the podium, I heard a rustle and confusion behind me. When I looked back the dolls had already been passed back to the last person on the row, who did not want to touch them. Then, I realized that the students believed that the potent magic that still might be associated with them. By merely holding the dolls the person might be locked into the love magic and be bound in love with a person they did not even know or want to love. I had not anticipated that students in the university would fear the power of the dolls, and to avoid the panic that was forming, I picked up the dolls and returned them to my briefcase. Educated friends urged me to dispose of the dolls because my family might be affected. Eventually, when we moved, we left them behind.
Spells, Illness, and Healing. When I was Dean of Academic Affairs at a private university in Latin America, a number of people on my staff contacted a flu-like illness that caused them to miss work. Although I attributed it to germs and the fact that we worked in close proximity in the same set of offices, one of the administrative assistants came to me suggesting that someone had done magic on the office. The round of illnesses would only stop if the offices were “cleaned” by a person who knew the correct rituals. Although I listened to her request, I assured her that it would not be necessary and that the mini-epidemic would soon end on its own. Not to be dissuaded she arranged for the office to be “cleaned” on the following Saturday when no one was there, and she informed me on Monday morning. The person who had done the ritual cleansing of the office was one of the department heads of the university, who I learned at that point had special magical powers. The flu symptoms cleared up after that, and the office returned to normality.
Bibliography
Armstrong, Karen. 1993. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine Books.
Cohen, Jeremy. 1999. Living Letters of the Law. Berkeley: University of California Press.
About the Author
Ron Duncan Hart, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist from Indiana University with postdoctoral work at the University of Oxford. He is the Director of the Institute for Tolerance Studies and a former University Vice-President. Hart has written books on Crypto-Jews, Jews and the Arab World, and Sephardic Jews. He has spoken widely as an invited lecturer on Jewish life and culture at universities and other venues. He is a former President of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.
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