Mexico, Central America, South America, portions of the Caribbean: It would be impossible to
paint Latin America in a single portrait. The same is true for the Catholic Church in that region,
where an array of parish plans, liturgical forms and concepts of church vary greatly from nation
to nation as well as from parish to parish.
Surprisingly, despite being the dominant religion for almost five centuries, the Catholic
Church only came into its own in Latin America with Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World. That 1965 effort to transform the Catholic Church into a "world
Church" that integrates its values within diverse cultures was enthusiastically embraced by the
Latin American bishops. So they gathered in 1968 in Medellín, Colombia, for a watershed
convocation during which they mapped appropriate actions based upon contemporary Church
thinking and the prevailing cultural realities of Latin America.
"Four and three-quarter centuries after Catholicism arrived on these shores," wrote the
Chilean historian Jorge Goles in 1970, "the Latin American Church was born, bringing with it a
new Pentecost that must be preserved."
The enormous range of cultures and the rapidly changing realities within Latin America
had demanded multiple responses from the Church at the most local levels. The bishops had to
find effective ways to meet the spiritual and temporal needs of parishioners while simultaneously
maintaining close bonds to the universal Church. Their extensive social analysis produced a
much sharper awareness of Latin American life and recognized repression, poverty and other
violations of human rights as institutional sin.
And so the new spirit, based on the work coming out of Vatican II and the Medellín
conference, arose from three initiatives that became the cornerstones of the Latin American
Church: the preferential option for the poor, small Christian communities (or CEBs) and
continuing opposition to that type of economic development which can make the lives of the
poor even more difficult.
Last May, some four decades since the Latin American bishops gathered at Medellín,
about 260 Church leaders convened in Aparecida, Brazil, for the fifth Conferencias Episcopal de
America Latina -- CELAM V. I was fortunate to have been a peritus (adviser) in the last session
of the Second Vatican Council, as well as a close observer of the historic conclave in Medellín.
A credentialed journalist at all the intervening conferences, I was invited by the U.S. Secretariat
for Latin America to be present at CELAM V.
The bishops at the conference did unequivocally endorse and expand the three key
concepts of the Latin American Catholic Church. Many also expressed acute concern about the
challenges posed by environmental aggression, which is endangering the Amazon rainforest;
globalization; rapid urbanization; the changing roles of families and youth; and the demand for
much better dialogue with the indigenous and Afro-American communities. They also analyzed
such ongoing issues as greater decision-making roles for women in the Church, and balancing
the roles of ministry and the laity.
That the bishops are now focusing more attention on these issues than at any other time
in CELAM's history suggests a growing commitment to adapting the mandate of promoting
social justice to meet the demands of present realities.
A history of tension
Tension between Church and state, between the institutional Church and its people in Latin
America, has been the dominant story throughout the history of the Church in this New World.
Although the 16th century missionaries were deeply committed to sharing the Gospel, their work
was thwarted in 1530 when King Charles I of Spain prohibited non-Spanish priests from entering
his American lands without royal permission, which was rarely granted. All too often the early
Latin American Church was reduced to the role of civil agency in service more to the Spanish
crown than to God and His people.
Despite major successes by some individual priests, the Latin American Church as a
whole spent much of the 17th and 18th centuries in stagnation or, even worse, in conflict. Royal
decrees in 1752 and 1754 removed the religious of all orders from most of their Indian parishes,
crippling efforts to evangelize the indigenous peoples and to protect them from neglect and
oppression. The Jesuits were expelled from the entire continent by royal proclamation in 1767.
Few European clerics volunteered for missions in Latin America, and many of the religious
already there saw little opportunity for fruitful ministries.
The struggles for independence and the rise of autonomous nations beginning in 1808
profoundly altered the political-ecclesiastical balance of the area. It also posed new challenges
for the Church. Although religion did not cause the revolutions, major shortcomings within the
Church -- its vast wealth amid extreme poverty, its history of collaboration with the elite power
structure, and its frequent failures to oppose institutionalized social and economic injustices --
undoubtedly contributed to broad popular support for constitutional separation of Church and
state in the newly independent nations.
Although the Catholic Church of Latin America was theoretically free from
governmental interference for the first time, its position remained unstable for more than a
century. An overwhelming majority of Latin Americans regarded themselves as good Catholics,
but relatively few recognized much connection between their faith and their daily lives. The
Church remained "otherworldly," without much regard for social justice or advancement of the
kingdom of God, and its moral authority rarely extended beyond the sacraments.
Recognizing the need for profound revitalization, Church leaders began to re-evaluate
both their thinking and their pastoral practices in the mid- to late-1950s. Papal teachings on
social justice, and lay movements such as Catholic Action and Cursillos de Cristiandad had
great impact. The Latin American Church was being prepared for important changes as the
decade ended and Vatican II began.
The preferential option for the poor
The vast majority of experienced Latin American priests regard the preferential option for the
poor as both a guiding principle and as one of the most crucial elements of their pastorates --
one that not infrequently relates to the very survival of many millions of destitute persons. In a
region gripped by poverty, acute social injustices and institutionalized sin, the preferential option
for the poor has become a keystone of the Latin American Church's post-Vatican II dedication to
a Christianity that unites faith with justice, with promotion of people and societies, and with
service to the kingdom in accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The option continues to serve as a lifeline to countless millions of marginalized persons
and as a key element of the Church's social mission.
In a concrete demonstration of the necessity for the preferential and evangelizing option
for the poor, the bishops at CELAM V issued a statement to the leaders of the G-8 nations --
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Great Britain and the United States -- calling for
the elimination of extreme poverty from all the world's nations before 2015 and making that
goal "one of the most urgent tasks of our time" and "inseparably linked with world peace and
security."
Those small Christian communities
In the late 1950s in Brazil, because of a shortage of priests, there began what were called
"Sunday Services without priests." These were small gatherings of the faithful, coming together
to reflect on the Sunday scriptural readings as they related to everyday life.
When the Second Vatican Council began in 1962, there was heightened awareness of the
community-based dimension of the Church, as had been true in its early days. In 1968, at the
Medellín conference, the Church gave strong official impetus to the formation of small Christian
communities because of their potential to give flesh to the Biblical image of the Church as the
people of God -- a concept highly valued at the Second Vatican Council.
Over the years and in various Latin American countries, some of the Comunidades
Eclesiales de Base became known more for their political activism than their pastoral work.
Additionally, some Church leaders still fear that the small communities might break away from
the institutional Church. This is a concern I do not share.
At the conference in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, the bishops emphasized the dynamic
linkage with the Church by strongly supporting the CEBs. In Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic, in 1992, however, support for the Basic Ecclesial Communities was weaker. At
Aparecida, in 2007, there was a much stronger emphasis upon the role of CEBs. Even so, at
Aparecida some bishops were not totally comfortable with these communities. The tension
between the Church as institution and the Church as community continues.
The most successful CEBs make special efforts to attract young people, to better serve
the youth and to revitalize the communities. Almost two-thirds of the members are women,
which contributes to a certain empowerment of women in the Church and in local civic society.
Active support from the Church hierarchy indeed has waxed and waned over the years,
but occasional reports of the condemnation of CEBs are unfounded. The Instrumentum Laboris (1997) statement of the Synod of Bishops for America calls base ecclesial communities "the
primary cells of the Church structure" and views them as being "responsible for the richness of
faith and its expansion, as well as for the promotion of the person and development."
The role of women
Somewhat less controversial than many other issues in Latin America, the role of women within
the Church and within secular society is by far the largest issue in terms of the number of
persons it directly impacts.
"Faces that Question Us," part of the conference Synthesis -- a document that
summarizes the contributions from numerous local dioceses and committees in the immediate
preparation of CELAM V -- presents a troubling portrait of the realities faced by all too many
Latin American women:
Countless women of every condition have suffered a double exclusion by reason of their
socioeconomic situation and their sex. They are not valued in their dignity, they are left
alone and abandoned, they are not sufficiently recognized for their selfless sacrifice and
every heroic generosity in the care and education of their children or in the transmission
of the faith in the family, nor their indispensable and special participation in building a
more humane social life and building up the Church in the merging of its Petrine and
Marian dimensions sufficiently appreciated or promoted.
Several years ago, Sister Aline Marie Steur, CSC, a veteran missionary in Latin America,
shared some similar observations: "Women continue to offer the main support of the Church and
to comprise the overwhelming majority of its active members, but the inclusion of women and
women's issues does not reflect their numbers, their contributions, or their needs."
CELAM V -- which included 25 women among the 266 participants -- gave the role of
women more attention than any previous general conference of the Latin American and
Caribbean bishops. The Vatican-approved final document praises motherhood as "an excellent
mission of women" but also says that motherhood "does not exclude the need for their active
participation in the construction of society." A later paragraph calls for women to have decision-making roles in the Church, and decries "discrimination against women and their frequent
absence in organisms of ecclesial decision."
Deacons and lay ministers
"I am the only Bible that most people will ever read," a laywoman said recently, while leading
scriptural study at a casa culto, a "house church" in Havana, Cuba. Her statement may sound
self-aggrandizing, but it accurately reflects the prevailing reality faced by the many millions of
Latin Americans who must find ways to cope with such obstacles as shortages of ordained
clergy, limited seating capacities of churches, lack of transportation, and ethnic or
socioeconomic differences that make some parishioners fear they will be unwelcome in the
churches of their "betters."
For these and many other members of the faithful, lay catechists and deacons are often
the primary source of pastoral care and teaching. Recently, for example, Father José Oscar
Beozzo, a leading expert on Brazil's religious vocations and training, pointed out that 80 percent
of all the Sunday celebrations in Brazil are led by laity.
Working at the grassroots of the Church, with different degrees of success, lay ministers
have long been essential both to the faithful and to the Church, and their role continues to grow.
They preach the Word to those who would otherwise rarely hear it or might not understand it in
more formal modes of expression. They preside at the celebrations, comfort the ill and the
bereaved, and find countless other ways both to animate the journey and to contribute decisively
to the role of the laity as protagonists within the Church. In fact, Edward Cleary, O.P., director of
Latin American studies at Providence College, cites the 1.1 million lay catechists currently
active in Latin America as a basic strength of the Catholic Church in Latin America.
The bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean are keenly aware both of the lay
ministers' contributions and of the need to promote a still more active laity. The bishops'
position is not new, but there seems to have been a significant rise in Vatican support for lay
involvement in the Church's ministries. Rome has long endorsed lay ministries, but it has often
done so cautiously. In Aparecida, however, Pope Benedict urged the laity to join with priests and
religious in an ambitious program of evangelization and missionary and pastoral outreach.
A crisis of vocations?
The dramatic rise in lay involvement has been partly necessitated by the decline in clergy to
serve the Latin American Church. Father Beozzo has repeatedly pointed out that Brazil has just
over 18,000 priests to serve 140 million Catholics. The numbers vary from diocese to diocese
and from country to country, but all 20 Latin American nations are experiencing shortages of
priests and nuns so pronounced as to leave gaping holes in the Church's pastoral nets.
Father Cleary recently reported that the number of seminarians throughout Latin America
has increased by about 400 percent since 1972, so Latin America seems to be responding to this
global need more successfully than perhaps any other region. Certainly, the shortage of priests,
sisters and brothers throughout Latin America is nothing new, nor is it as pronounced as it was
throughout most of the past 500 years.
Charismatic movements
Both the Vatican and the Latin American bishops have expressed concerns about the number of
people being drawn away from the Catholic Church by the various charismatic movements and
by evangelical Protestant churches, but those concerns are often misunderstood. Declines in
church rolls do not threaten the existence of the Catholic Church in Latin America. Additionally,
the Catholic Charismatic movement, sometimes blamed for drawing members away from the
mainstream Church, is having the opposite effect.
The rapidly growing Catholic Charismatic movement is helping the Church to share in
the religious renewal that is sweeping across many areas of Latin America. The charismatics also
help retain those active Catholics who seek a "high energy" Mass and the practice of charisms,
and who might otherwise leave the Church to join one of the fundamentalist Protestant
denominations. In Brazil and many other nations of Latin America -- as in portions of Africa,
Europe and the United States -- the rapid growth of the Catholic Charismatic movement has
made charismatics a major constituent in many parishes.
Pope John Paul II regarded the Catholic Charismatic movement as integral to the renewal
of the Church. Popes Paul VI and Benedict XVI have both cautioned charismatics to remain
fully grounded in the universal Church, but they have otherwise acknowledged the many positive
elements of the movement. Although most of those who join evangelical or Pentecostal churches
come out of the Catholic Church, most researchers agree that the majority come from the
nonpracticing sector of Catholicism.
Nevertheless, the decrease in the per capita percentage of Catholics in Latin America is
real. In Brazil, for example, the most recent national census revealed that 74 percent of
Brazilians identified themselves as Catholics in the year 2000, compared to 89 percent in 1980.
Those who self-identified as charismatic, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants grew from 7
percent to 15 percent during the same period. Similar trends have been documented in three
Mexican states and in four Central and South American nations in addition to Brazil, which
remains the country with both the highest per capita percentage and the greatest number of
Catholics on Earth, approximately 140 million.
Pope Benedict undoubtedly had both facts in mind when he made his call at Aparecida
for the members of the Latin American religious community to remain "courageous and
effective missionaries" in order to maintain Catholicism as the dominant religious force on the
continent.
The Catholic Church of Latin America did indeed come into its own with the Second
Vatican Council and the CELAM convocations. It is continuing that mission today, facing many
strong challenges but displaying a deep sense of commitment and perseverance to become what
Karl Rahner, S.J., and other theologians term ecclesia semper reformanda -- the eternally self-reforming Church.
Robert Pelton, CSC, is contributing to and editing Aparecida, Quo Vadis? The book will be
published by the University of Scranton Press in 2008.
(January 2008)
