[siunevada]

I'd guess that if the Pope wasn't attending the Latin American Synod then Reuters and the WaPo wouldn't find this ongoing trend particularly newsworthy.

[Quix]

The Rising Protestant Pentecostal Tide . . .

[kawaii]

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.

[Campion]

For years, Ronaldo da Silva's daily routine consisted of drinking himself into a stupor until he passed out on a sidewalk.

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.

[NYer]

A passing fad.

[marsh_of_mists]

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.

[Macoraba]

Why would anyone willingly forsake their Mother - the Blessed Virgin Mary?

It just makes no sense to me!

[Salvation]

They will come back when they realize they are missing the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and when their children are baptized.

[livius]

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...

[Larry Lucido]

Long as they are being saved, it matters not whom God uses as His instrument.

[Thorin]

The problem the Church is facing in Latin America is a severe shortage of priests, a shortage that has existed there for centuries. Because of this shortage, a number of Latin Americans are inadequately catechized and seldom able to go to Mass, making them open to the Pentecostal groups.

[marshmallow]

Evangelical Protestantism, with its emphasis on ecstatic personal experience, is a great lure in a situation of deteriorating social and economic conditions. Since the 1950s, millions of peasants have left their villages because of guerrilla and military violence or to seek a better life in the cities, changing the balance of Latin America’s population from rural to urban. Uprooted from families and religious traditions, living in slums and at the mercy of criminals and sometimes of governmental predators, the urban poor are a fertile seedbed for evangelical proselytism.

Furthermore, the dwindling number of Catholics is due not only to a rise in Protestant numbers but also to the rising popularity of traditional pagan practices such as candomble and other African based forms of spirituality.

The Catholic Church itself has greatly facilitated this process due to its abandonment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in many places in favor of a socialist/Marxist mission, which de-emphasises the spiritual in favor of a political ideology which is cold and unsatisfying to the inner spiritual yearnings of man.

Given everything which has taken place in the Catholic Church in the last half century, the only surprise to me is that the exodus from the Catholic Church has not been greater.

[redgolum]

My boss is a Baptist (3rd generation) from Brazil. I have also met a few Lutherans from Brazil, and quite a few from other parts of Latin America.

What is new is that there are a lot of people who were (for lack of a better term) “social” Catholics who are now joining other churches. Many were not really Catholic to begin with. Much the same way that there are a lot of illegal aliens joining Evangelical churches. They aren’t so much leaving the Catholic church as they are having the opportunity to actually join ANY church in a meaningful way.

[dangus]

>> 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. <<

And since 2000, it has fallen to... 74 percent.

[Scothia]

Having lived and worked with an interdenominational mission in Brazil during the late 80’s, I am very happy to read this. Many so-called devout Catholics in Brazil were, as I recall, in reality enthusiastic practitioners of the various voodoo-like sects such as Macumba and Candomblé; probably quite a few nominal Pentecostals and other Protestants as well.

[firebrand]

"The language of evangelicals is simple, direct, with minimal theology, making it easily understood by the masses," said Silvia Fernandes, a sociologist at the Center of Religious Statistics and Social Research in Rio de Janeiro.

Yes, that's us. Simpletons. And it helps to have some disease or addiction first, as well, according to the Wash Post. Also, if we were attending Catholic services previously, we weren't that "catechized" anyway, according to someone on this thread, and will soon return to our roots, per another one.

News for you: wrong on all counts. And the WaPo doesn't even have the guts to present the simpleton opinion itself but predictably hides behind a quote from a sociologist.