Saving Brazil

The country with the world's largest Catholic population is experiencinga rapid decline in Catholic identity. Will the pope's visit turn things around?

Brazil, the largest and most populous country in South America -- home to more than 188 million people -- must figure in any book of secular or religious superlatives.

The world's fifth-largest country, it is the leading producer of coffee, sugar and ethanol. Home to the world's longest river, the Amazon, it has the largest rain forest on the earth, where lurks the longest snake in existence, the anaconda. Nearly a quarter of the earth's known plant species grow in Brazil, and 20 percent of the world's fresh water lies in the Amazon basin.

From the religious perspective, Brazil is the country with the world's largest Catholic population --144 million -- and the largest national bishops' conference (CNBB), with more than 400 bishops.

Just how Catholic is it?

But with Pope Benedict XVI preparing to visit the country May 9-13 to inaugurate the fifth general assembly of Latin American bishops, a disturbing question arises -- how much longer will Brazil be a Catholic country?

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, former archbishop of Sao Paulo and current prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy, raised that question at the October 2005 Synod of Bishops in Rome.

Speaking in the presence of the pope, he said the government's statistics and the Church's research showed that "the number of Brazilians who declare themselves Catholics has diminished rapidly, on an average of 1 percent a year."

In 1991, 83 percent of all Brazilians were Catholic, he said, but new studies revealed that by 2005 the number had declined to 67 percent. Research also showed that "there are two Protestant pastors for each Catholic priest in Brazil, and the majority come from the Pentecostal churches," he added.

The cardinal told the synod there were indications the same is true throughout Latin America and added, "Here, too, we wonder, until when will Latin America be a Catholic continent?"

Cardinal Hummes concluded by telling Pope Benedict and the synod, "The Church must pay more attention to this serious situation."

Less than two weeks later, Pope Benedict decided the Latin American bishops' assembly would be held in Brazil, at the Marian shrine of Aparecida, and that he would attend. He thereby overruled suggestions from Latin American cardinals in the Vatican who wanted it held in Rome.

Priestly shortage

While the exodus of Catholics to Pentecostal churches is profoundly worrying, it is by no means the only serious challenge facing this dynamic Church.

According to CNBB statistics, while popular or traditional forms of Catholicism are widespread, especially in the interior of the country, only 20 percent of Catholics (a majority of women) attend Mass on Sundays and participate in Church activities. This fact, however, may be linked to one of the major problems facing the Brazilian Church -- a serious shortage of priests.

Today, the Brazilian Church has roughly 18,000 priests (10,000 of them diocesan). That translates to one priest for every 8,000 Catholics. Despite this poor ratio, Cardinal Geraldo Majella Agnelo, the CNBB president, said the numbers actually represent "an increase in the number of diocesan clergy."

When the flow of missionaries from Europe and America dried up, he said, the Brazilian bishops started working hard to get homegrown vocations and with promising results. Today, 12,000 young men are studying in seminaries, a good number, "but far short of what we need," Cardinal Agnelo said.

But a great weakness in the formation of Brazilian clergy has created a worrying situation, a Vatican source told Our Sunday Visitor. Cardinal Agnelo concurred. "Formation is the most important thing," he added. "Without formation we cannot go forward; we cannot win people over. This is true for both clergy and laity."

The Brazilian Church's other great human resources are its 33,000 nuns, 2,000 lay missionaries and thousands of small basic Christian communities. Movements such as Renewal in the Spirit, the Neocatechumenate, Communion and Liberation, and Focolare are also active.

In 1995, Pope John Paul II -- who visited the country four times -- articulated another challenge facing the Brazilian Church -- the crisis in the family. Migration is weakening family bonds. Marital splits and cohabitation are common, while there is a tendency to promote same-sex unions.

Social injustices

There is one enormous problem, however, that Brazil's Catholic Church cannot ignore: the social-justice question. Again in the realm of superlatives, Brazil ranks high among the world's most unjust societies in terms of the distribution of wealth. The consequences are disastrous and the statistics are staggering:

30 percent of Brazil's people live in poverty;

22 million are hungry;

20 percent are illiterate;

12 million lack electricity.

Many millions of Brazilians are landless, while the richest 1 percent of the population own 43 percent of the land. In addition, 57 percent of all HIV/AIDS cases in South America are in Brazil. Such inequities have led to a situation where unemployment is widespread, corruption is rife and violence and drugs flourish, especially in big cities.

For more than a half-century now, the bishops have been in the forefront of the struggle for socioeconomic justice and human rights. They stood up to the military regime that ruled the country from 1960 to 1985, the landlords and economic oligarchy and helped change things.

"The Church did a great work of consciousness-raising and put pressure on the government to respect human rights, restore democratic freedoms and bring about greater social justice," Cardinal Hummes said. It "must continue working for social justice, because as things stand there will be no future for many, many people. A servant church must have as its priority solidarity with the poor."

In 2002, the CNBB launched a national campaign against misery and hunger coordinated by Archbishop Luciano Medes de Almeida, who said then that the government's own figures confirmed "34 million Brazilians do not have enough to eat today."

Moral challenges

The Church supported Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ("Lula") when, on becoming Brazil's president Jan. 1, 2003, he made the elimination of hunger a top priority, and his effort continues.

In 2005, the Church commemorated the 500th anniversary of evangelization in Brazil. Cardinal Hummes then identified two questions of particular concern to the bishops -- the equitable distribution of wealth and the question of the country's indigenous population (see related story, Page 13).

Today, relations between Church and state in Brazil are "basically good," a Vatican source told OSV. The bishops supported Lula when he became president, and Church and state share common positions on many social questions.

But the bishops are disappointed that Lula's administration is not attentive to the Church on moral questions such as abortion and same-sex unions, the source said, adding there is "not great collaboration" in this area.

Nevertheless, the Brazilian bishops and the government are close to signing an important agreement that would include state recognition of the legal status of the Church. It also would resolve problems relating to education, the provision of pastoral assistance to people in situations where they cannot attend church, such as prisons and hospitals, and economic matters including taxation issues.

Gerard O'Connell writes from Rome.