Posted on 05/03/2007 12:50:55 PM PDT by siunevada
CARAPICUIBA, Brazil (Reuters) - For years, Ronaldo da Silva's daily routine consisted of drinking himself into a stupor until he passed out on a sidewalk.
Now he spends his days praying and singing with hundreds of fellow Christians at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Carapicuiba, a sprawling shantytown on the outskirts of Sao Paulo where Pentecostal congregations are found on just about every block.
"I'd probably be dead or in jail if it weren't for this church," said da Silva, a 38-year-old former Catholic who claims God cured him of epilepsy and helped him straighten out his life when he converted to Pentecostalism a decade ago.
Conversions like da Silva's are increasingly common all over Brazil, where a boom in evangelical Protestantism is steadily chipping away at the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
The trend, which is playing out all across Latin America, poses a major challenge for Pope Benedict, who arrives in Brazil on May 9 for a five-day visit largely aimed at blunting the decline of Catholicism in this continent-sized nation.
Although Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, with about 125 million, the percentage of believers that practice the Vatican's brand of Christianity has been dropping rapidly in the last three decades.
When the late Pope John Paul II visited Brazil in 1980, 89 percent of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. By 2000, when the last census was taken, the share of Catholics in the population had fallen to 74 percent.
The number of evangelical Protestants nearly tripled in the same period to 26 million, or about 15 percent of the population.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Rising Protestant Pentecostal Tide . . .
Act 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Act 20:30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
I'm surprised they didn't call him a "formerly devout Catholic".
I'm reminded of someone ... was it Chesterton? ... who said that the problem with Christianity wasn't that it had been tried and found wanting, but that it hadn't been tried.
A passing fad.
Perhaps if so many in the Church hierarchy down there would have spent the last few decades promoting Catholic orthodoxy and moral law instead of socialist politics (”liberation theology”), they wouldn’t have this problem.
Why would anyone willingly forsake their Mother - the Blessed Virgin Mary?
It just makes no sense to me!
Do you really want to return to that tone?
Some of us Proties can fling Scripture with the best of them.
Problem?
I’m extremely skeptical that The Lord or Mary see it as a problem AT ALL.
I’m fresh out of confidence that I could explain it sufficiently and convincingly well enough for it to make sense to many RC’s.
I might even be reduced to muttering in tongues.
I should say:
I might even be elevated to muttering in tongues.
Well there is that formerly devout Catholic JimMcGrevy who wants to become a Presbyterian priest.
You'd have a hard time convincing the one that was set free and delivered from epilepsy and alcoholism.
To him it is likely the power of the Most High God, through the name like no other name, Jesus. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead. The life-changing Holy Spirit.
I'm sure the Pharisees were muttering similar things to one another when Jesus was on earth turning their little world upside down!
Praise God for the power that changes lives!
They will come back when they realize they are missing the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and when their children are baptized.
Go ahead and be skeptical. I’m not interested in being roped into a religious debate with you. For the bishops, it’s a problem.
**I might even be elevated to muttering in tongues.**
The only “tongue” I want is Latin!
There are charismatics there, but a lot of them are part of the Catholic charismatic movement, which has really taken hold in Brazil. I read just a couple of days ago that Brazil is actually one of the few places in Latin America where Protestant charismatic groups have made relatively few inroads.
I don’t particularly like or feel comfortable with Catholic charismatics. But most of them are very orthodox, and Latin Americans seem particularly attracted to this. Brazil is probably the leader, which I would assume is why the Pope is going there. In addition, Brazil has a very active Traditionalist movement...
Mary died for them?
Long as they are being saved, it matters not whom God uses as His instrument.
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