HOW THE ITALIAN PRESS SET THE STAGE FOR THIS TRIP
:
Benedict XVI's counter-offensive
against the drift towards 'sects'
By Massimo Introvigne
As Benedict XVI makes his first visit to Latin America, the first problem that presents to him is that of Protestant proselytism.
A study by the Bolivian bishops conference concluded that the conversion of Catholics to Protestantism in Latin America is greater than the wave of conversion that followed the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the 16th century.
[In absolute numbers, obviously, because of the 5-century difference and the astronomical difference in the
population base, but in percentage?}
The Protestant galaxy in Latin America is complex: The denominations which have grown most are the pentelcostals. These denominations are called sects thre, which has a diffrent connotation from what the word means in Europe.
The phenomenon proceeded slowly at first, but even slower was the capacity to observe and understand it. In 1984, when the sociologist David Martin told colleagues he was writing a book about Protestantism in Latin America, he was told, "It's surely going to be a small book!"
When Martin's book came out in 1990, it documented that 5,000 persons were converting to Protetantism everyday in Central and South America.
The last documented rate was 8,000 a day, and there are now 70 million Protestants, 15% of the population. Moreover, the number of non-practising Protestants is low among them and very high among Catholics.
Graphic prepared by AFP on religions in Brazil.
Nevertheless, on the problem of Protestantism in Latin America, three myths are current that have been completely refuted by sociologists but which some local bishops still go by:
One, that these are 'dollar churches' which have grown mainly because of United States aid as a means of imposing American hegemony. Numerous studies have shown that the fastest-growing sects are those that are authocthonous and have absolutely no links to the United States.
Second, that Protestants are leftist whereas Catholics are on the right; that the Protestants are bourgeois, while Catholics are populist. In his time, John Paul II saw clearly that liberation theology, which was inspired by Marxism and spoke much of the class struggle but less of Jesus, had dubious results. Protestant conversions apparently have been more numerous where liberation theology 'dominated.'
Protestants are largely anti-Communist but are not necessarily 'on the right', and many of them are active in center-left political parties.
Finally, it is not correct that the drift to Protestantism is unstoppable. After the initial headiness of liberation theology, Protestant successes have pushed the Church into a vigorous missionary campaign, and the number of practising Catholics is said to be growing everywhere these days.
It is to pursue this 'new evangelization' begun by John Paul II that Benedict XVI is going to Latin Ameirca.
Il Giornale, 9 maggio 2007
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Here is the lead article in Corriere della Sera -
Benedict XVI:
'I face enormous
challenges in Brazil'
By Luigi Accattoli
VaTICAN CITY - When Wojtyla went to Brazil for the first time in 1980, he was 60 years old. Benedict XVI is 80.
Then, Brazil was under the colonels, and Lula was a young clandestine labor leader who met with the Pope in a small room in Sao Paulo's Morumbi stadium. Now Lula is President of Brazil adn will be receiving Benedict XVI at Palacio dos Bandeirantes.
Then, the Cahtolics made up 90% of the population, now they're down to 75% - the erosion by Protestant sects has most affected the largest Catholic naation in the world (155 million baptized).
The comparison between the two Papal trips - 27 years apart - shows dramatic differences but also suggests a common point. The central message of the theologian-Pope will be exactly that of the Polish Pope, which is Christian commitment to social justice.
John Paul's 12 days in Brazil in 1980 was a series of appeals in the name of slum dwellers, of 'campesinos', of the 'indios' and of workers.
That Benedict XVI intends to emphasize social justice during his five-day trip was reiterated by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in three different interviews this weekend.
He said the trip was "an occasion to re-launch a great movement of solidarity and promotion of justice on tehj Latin American continent."
The Pope himself spoke Sunday during his Regina caeli message of "my first pastoral visit to Latin America" and invited the faithful to accompany him with prayers because "the challenges for the Church (in Latin America) right now are so great and manifold".
Last January, speaking to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, he called these challenges 'enormous' and enumerated them: "Cultural changes generated by mass media which indicate how people should think; migratory movements; questions about how nations should assume responsibility both for the national collective memory and the future of democracy; globalization; secularization; growing poverty; environmental deterioration in the large cities; violence and drug trafficking."
The Pope's trip - his first as Pope outside Europe - was originally planned in order for him to inaugurate the fifth general conference of the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida, on May 13.
First, he will meet with President Lula, with the youth and with the bishops of Brazil in Sao Paulo. He will also preside at the Mass to canonize the first native-born Brazilian saint.
Corriere della sera, 9 maggio 2007
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Giuseppe di Carli, head of the Vatican bureau of RIA (Italian state TV), and one of Italy's most popular TV news and current afffairs hosts, also writes for the newspapers regularly - sort of like if NBC's Tim Yussert wrote regularly for the newspapers too. He wrote this piece for the newspaper Il Tempo, which published it yesterday, 5/6/07.
In Brazil, the Pope
will re-launch
Church initiatives
begun by John Paul II
By GIUSEPPE DE CARLI
Pope Benedict XVI's 5-day trip to Brazil will be literally breathtaking, not only for the many major events on the schedule - perhaps complicated by the time difference between Italy and Brazil - but for the urgent examination of conscience by the Catholic Church in the planet's 'nursery for Catholicism'
as well as the 'green lung' of the world.
The Pope last Sunday asked the faithful for their prayers, and he will need these, not only because of his age and the effort, but more for the extraordinary complexity of the problems he faces.
It will be the 18th trip by a Pope to the 'continent of hope', counting Paul VI's trip in 1968 and the 16 trips made by John Paul II. At least 140 out of Brazil's 186 million inhabitants consider themselves Catholic.
Brazil has 269 dioceses, 427 bishops but only 18,000 priests and 9,500 parishes - less than half what Italy has.
If Catholics still represent at least 73% of the population, the triumphal march of the pentecostal Protestant sects, eating away at the Catholic numbers, has been phenomenal. It is this erosion that appears to be the mother of all challenges.
The theology of liberation advocated in the 1970s and 1980s by rebel Catholic priests has been replaced by the 'theology of prosperity' - the illusion of Paradise at arm's length, and of spiritual wellbeing easily available in a supermarket of religions.
"If you give one cent, God will give you back ten." A typical slogan, coined by one of the more successful television preachers, is the kind of message that has taken hold of the masses.
Election after election, the continent seems to be trending left, allowing the consolidation of a range of leftist leaders from Chile's Michele Bachelet to Cuba's Fidel Castro [
passing through Bolivia's Evo Morales and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. 'Worker-President' Lula of Brazil has tried to indicate a 'third way' among the leftist leaders of South America.]
And among the people, individualist and relativistic ideas are making inroads that threaten the family and find expression in fiercely anti-Catholic legislation, like the proposal to recognize homosexual unions in Colombia or the recent decriminalization of abortion in Mexico City.
Money, power and corruption appear to be the winning combination in a region that has the worst unequal distribution of wealth in the world and where 40% of the population live below the poverty line.
"The Pope will have strong messages about the right to life and will seek to promote a grand movement of solidarity and promotion of justice within the Latin American continent," said Cardinal Bertone.
He listed the 'open wounds': urban violence, drug trafficking, unemployment, migrations, democratic shortcomings.
Cardinal Claudio Hummes, until recently Archbishop of Sao Paulo, has urged a literal door-to-door campaign by the Church to bring back stray Catholics and reinforce the faith in those who are still in the Church.
The changes that have taken place in the past quarter century have been vertiginous. Even liberation theology has been metabolized and its deviancies have been consigned to the bone heap of history.
Pope Benedict knows all this. Priorities are different now. The church should engage itself in society, with the Gospel in hand.
On it could depend not just the future of the church in Latin America but of the universal church itself.
Il Tempo, 8 maggio 2007
DON'T FAIL TO SCROLL UP, AS THIS IS ALREADY THE 7th POST FOR TODAY,
DAY-1 OF THE POPE'S TRIP TO BRAZIL.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/05/2007 19.25]