The Media is lying about Religion in South America.

Adherents.com, cia.gov, foreign censuses, PC Latin-Am Studies Dept., etc. ^ | 5.11.07 | Dangus

[dangus]

Once the nation with the fewest priests per nominal Catholic, Brazil now has more seminarians than it had homegrown priests in 1980. The number of major seminarians in Brazil has increased ten-fold since 1972. The rate of increase has been even higher in Peru and Bolivia, and comparable in the rest of South America.

The source of claims of a collapse in Catholic adherence comes from statistical abuse of mainstream media sources. Take the instance of Brazil.

Brazil’s black and mixed-race populace was recently largely unevangelized by Catholics as well as Protestants. In 1968, there were nearly 30 million adherents of syncretic religions, but they would individually answer that they were “catholic.” Today, outside of poor, rural areas, such syncretists are far fewer in number, and usually identify themselves by one of the names of the syncretist religions.

Neighboring Uruguay provides an example of the falsity of the presumption that South Americans are necessarily “hispanicized”: Over 30% of the populace is pagan, and the most prevalent language is non-European.

Comparing consistent data shows the lack of a migration away from Catholicism, since the initial move of syncretists out of the church. In 1980, 89% of Brazilians were affiliated with the church. In 2006, 85% were. By 1990, only 70% of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. In 2004, 75% did.

The growth of Protestantism has largely stalled. In 1987, there were reportedly 30 million Pentecostalists. Many of these churches promised the same faith healings and promises of divinely-ordained wealth that pagan religions had. (This is not to characterize global Pentecostalism, in general, in that way!) Subsequent estimates were often based on mere exptrapolation. For instance, the Assemblies of God were estimated to have 15 million members in 1994, but in 2000, only 8 million identified with that denomination family.

The total number of Protestants reportedly reached 30 million by 1993, but the government census in 2000 and a non-sectarian poll in 2004 showed only about fifteen million.

Similarly, Mormonism grew from about 50,000 members in 1978 to 640,000 in 1997, but not in the last decade.

The mix of which Protestant religions are the dominant non-Catholic sects in which South American is surprising. According to the CIA World Fact Book, in Bolivia, Evangelical Methodists are strongest. In Peru, 7th-Day Adventists are. In Paraguay, Mennonites!

South America isn’t the economic disaster most Americans presume it is. Birthrates in Brazil, Argentina and Chile, home to most South Americans, are as low as the United States, even though they prohibit abortion. Argentina and Chile have the 2nd and 3rd lowest Global Hunger Indexes of any developing nations in the world. Child mortality and hunger rates are very close to the United States’. In fact, the South American nation with the highest Hunger Index has a lower Hunger Index than any nation in Subsaharan (i.e., non-Arabic) Africa or South Asia, except Malaysia. Even so, most hunger in South America is confined to the rural mountains and rain forests, where narco-terrorists, funded by U.S. crime, have destabilized governments.

Sources: Global Hunger Index data comes from the International Food Policy Research Institute. 2000 Brazilian Religious Census data is available at www.ibge.gov.br. Citations for past levels of religious identification and numbers of priests come through adherents.com, which has more detailed source information. Numbers of seminarians comes from the Statistical Yearbook of the [Catholic] Church, 1975 and 2002, as compiled by Providence College Department of Latin American Studies. The more recent Brazilian church statistics come from Catholic News Service, and from www.catholic-hierarchy.org, which are based on more recent editions of the yearbook.]

[dangus]

[Non-Iberian states in South and Central America: Guyana was a Dutch colony, purchased from by the British (like New York). Belize was also British. Hindu is more common than any Christian denomination in Guyana. Catholicism is most prevalent in Belize, even though most residents speak English.]

[dangus]

This belongs in the Religion section. Sorry.

[dangus]

Then again, at the rate it’s getting views, it would *kill* to leave it here awhile... ;^D

[dangus]

Catholic ping?

[ThePythonicCow]

Could someone explain this article to me?

• What is the "Media Lie" referenced in the title?
• What are "seminarians"?
• What does this mean: "populace was recently largely unevangelized by Catholics" ?
• What does this mean: "an example of the falsity of the presumption that South Americans are necessarily hispanicized” ? And how does being pagan and speaking a non-European language exemplify this falsity.
• This is getting ridiculous. He writes:

  Comparing consistent data shows the lack of a migration away from Catholicism, since the initial move of syncretists out of the church. In 1980, 89% of Brazilians were affiliated with the church. In 2006, 85% were. By 1990, only 70% of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. In 2004, 75% did.

  What the heck? He says the data shows a lack of migration from, then cites data showing a migration from.

I give up. This article must be bad joke.

[dangus]

>> What is the “Media Lie” referenced in the title? <<

2nd sentence says: “claims of a collapse in Catholic adherence comes from statistical abuse of mainstream media sources.” I chose not to publicize the specific lies further.

>> What are “seminarians”? <<

As used in this context, men who are studying to enter the priesthood.

>> “populace was recently largely unevangelized by Catholics” ? <<

Although South America was formerly presumed to be Catholic, because it was colonized mostly by Spain and Portugal, there hadn’t been nearly enough missionaries to teach the South Americans the Christian faith.

>> What does this mean: “an example of the falsity of the presumption that South Americans are necessarily hispanicized” ? <<

Contrary to popular belief, South Americans did not all adopt the culture and language of Spain and Portugal.

>> And how does being pagan and speaking a non-European language exemplify this falsity. <<

The people retained their own religion and language, rather than that of Spain and Portugal.

>> He says the data shows a lack of migration from, then cites data showing a migration from. <<

75% is greater than 70%. Hence, the MORE people identified themselves as Catholics in 2006 than in 1990. This happened despite the fact that pagans (syncretists) were less likely to consider themselves Catholics.

>> I give up. <<

As stated, the article was intended for the Religion forum, where I expected people would understand such concepts.

[ThePythonicCow]

Thanks for your patient explanations.

[NYer]

Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[dangus]

Any time you’re ready to move this, it’s good to go where it belongs (in the Religion section). I’m sorta glad it got News section exposure at first, but I was ONLY half kidding about leaving it where it was...

(I’ll shut up now, so I don’t come across as nagging.)

[Dark Wing]

Very Interesting...

[dangus]

test

[Salvation]

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