When was catholicism introduced to latin america

Over a thousand people were executed in Lima, Peru, alone. As the Inquisitors labored to purge the continent of non-Catholics, the new Spanish and Portuguese governors encouraged the spread of Catholicism among the native populations, and not just because it gave them political support from the Vatican.

The Catholic Church was key to their ability to control the continent with only a small military. By , the Portuguese, Spanish and French had grown distrustful of the power of the Jesuits. You're making my eyes bleed.

Until the Catholic Church worldwide recognizes that property rights and attendant social institutions which enshrine honesty are required conditions for economic progress, they will condemn hundreds of millions to poverty. It's that simple. In the wrong direction both spiritually and politically. They miss the one thing that makes a difference in the human spirit, freedom.

And for that they are steering the Church against the tide of progress. The poor are disappearing from the world and the Church's policies will inhibit this process.

They use the word "reality" a dozen times but then ignore reality at every turn and never mention freedom. How could they be so blind? The authors should ask how the most Catholic area of the world became one of the poorest and most violent? That is the reality they ignore. The answers are available, maybe they should. Aside: two of America, the magazine, authors are darlings of socialism, Elizabeth Bruenig and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When will we see them again?

I have read here a lot of brave declarations and theological buzzwords, but have to ask what the real-world results have been. Latin America continues to export its impoverished people to the United States, to engage in horrendous violence within its communities, to produce children that it cannot feed, and to some extent to desert the RC Church.

And let us not pretend that this influx of the impoverished is somehow a blessing to the United States. Scanning this I couldn't help thinking about all the bishops in Chile who resigned after yet another big sex abuse scandal surfaced within the Catholic church. It does seem that the bishops and cardinals and even the pope should step down from their lofty and uncaring positions.

The pope clearly cares but he is old and and overwhelmed and seems unsure how to proceed from here. The church needs to be for the poor, as Jesus was. It doesn't need layers of bureaucratic structure between Christ's clear call to pool our resources and help the needy even if we have to sell our homes to do so. That's the spirit that has been long gone from the church.

And efforts to recapture this spirit in Latin America may not be perfect but they are in the right direction; they are efforts to carry out Jesus' message. Perhaps an editor can delete my earlier comment. I was trying to edit that comment by breaking it into two paragraphs, and instead I produced two identical comments except for the number of paragraphs.

And now I have produced a third comment. More than enough from me. After each comment there is an edit button. Eventually someone will erase the comment with duplicate in it.

You can also put another comment in it. Relatively few Latin Americans who are religiously unaffiliated say they attend worship services on a weekly basis. In many countries across the region, women demonstrate higher levels of religious commitment than do men, and people ages 35 and older tend to be more committed than those between the ages of 18 and Protestants generally display higher levels of religious commitment than Catholics in comparable demographic categories.

For example, Protestant men report attending church more frequently than do Catholic men, and young Protestants report attending religious services more frequently than do young Catholics.

Compared with U. Hispanics, Latin Americans are generally more conservative when it comes to social and sexual mores. In most Latin American countries, by contrast, solid majorities oppose allowing gays and lesbians to legally marry. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and parts of Mexico , but nowhere else in Latin America. In most Latin American countries, opposition to same-sex marriage is more pronounced among Protestants than among Catholics.

And in countries where there are adequate sample sizes to permit separate analysis of the views of religiously unaffiliated people, this group tends to be more supportive of granting marriage rights to gays and lesbians. Differences among Catholics, Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated also are apparent on other social issues. Across Latin America, Protestants generally are more likely than Catholics and the unaffiliated to say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, that sex outside marriage and divorce are morally wrong and that a wife is always obligated to obey her husband.

When asked what they think is the most important way for Christians to help the poor, Catholics in nearly every Latin American country point most often to charity work. Even though Catholics are more likely than Protestants to say charity work is most important, higher percentages of Protestants report that they, personally, have joined with members of their church or others in their community to help the poor and needy.

In most countries surveyed, solid majorities of Protestants say they have participated in charity work in the past 12 months. Among Catholics, roughly half or fewer report that they have done so. In addition, among those who attend church, higher percentages of Protestants than Catholics say their house of worship helps people find jobs or provides food and clothing for those in need. Favorable views of the new pontiff prevail across the region, with two-thirds or more of the population in most countries expressing a positive opinion of Pope Francis when the survey was conducted in late and early Latin American Catholics are particularly enthusiastic about Pope Francis, with clear majorities across the region rating him favorably.

Indeed, in 14 of the countries surveyed, at least half of Catholics say they have a very favorable opinion of Francis. Former Catholics, by comparison, are ambivalent about the new pope. For many former Catholics, the jury is still out. In most places surveyed, a third or more of ex-Catholics either offer no opinion on Francis or volunteer that it is too soon to assess him.

The survey also asked whether the election of Pope Francis signals a major change, a minor change or no change at all for the Catholic Church. Half or more of Catholics in 16 of the countries polled view the selection of the former Argentine bishop as a major change.

In the U. Catholics in Latin America are more divided when it comes to changes in the priesthood. On each issue, most Hispanic Catholics in the U. See the glossary. Scholars of religion in Latin America offer several possible sociological explanations for the rise of Protestantism, and especially its Pentecostal variant.

Another potential explanation highlights the practical reasons why Pentecostalism may have gained a following in the region. Pentecostals often emphasize upward social and economic mobility and thrift. Consequently, followers of Pentecostalism may see the religion as more conducive to economic prosperity.

The estimates reveal only two places that experienced double-digit declines in Catholic identity between and Chile a decline of 20 percentage points and Puerto Rico a point decline.

In Colombia, the percentage of people who identified as Catholic actually increased by 15 percentage points between and By comparison, the period between and is marked by significant declines in the percentages of Catholics in nearly all of the countries surveyed — ranging from a point drop in Honduras to a 5-point decrease in Paraguay.

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The complicity of church and dictatorship in Argentina. Mulligan J The Nicaraguan church and the revolution. Penyak L, Petry W The right to appropriate, the duty to evangelize.