Catholic heritage in an increasingly secularized environment: The abbatial church of Saint Benedict's Monastery (Mosteiro de São Bento), as seen from the entrance to the São Bento Subway Station, in São Paulo, Brazil. Pope Benedict XVI will be the guest of the Benedictines during his visit to São Paulo and Aparecida, Brazil, on May 9-13, 2007. The city of São Paulo was founded by Jesuit missionaries on January 25, Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, 1554. (Thanks to the reader who sent us the picture and the information).
In the next few months, as hundreds of bishop-delegates get ready for the largest regional gathering of bishops, the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), which will be opened by Pope Benedict XVI in the Marian town of Aparecida, Brazil, this weblog will try to provide views on the real challenges facing the Church in the most Catholic region of the planet.
The greatest of these challenges is the seemingly unstoppable growth of Evangelical sects throughout the region since the 1970s, when, in the wake of Vatican II and of the materialistic consequences of the disastrous II General Conference of the CELAM (1968), in Medellín, Colombia, the Church lost its spiritual leadership in the region. As millions of Catholics moved from rural areas to the burgeoning cities, the "new" politicized "Church of Liberation" could not quench the spiritual thirst of the Catholic masses, who became easy targets for the Pentecostal sects.
The current shepherds of Latin American Catholics are men who were indoctrinated with Liberation Theology, which is still taught throughout the region. The efforts of Pope John Paul II in Puebla (1979) and Santo Domingo (1992) could not alter the course of events. Is there any hope that the Catholic hemorrhage will be stopped?
We invite our many Latin American friends and readers to provide us with news and views from their countries. Send us your views and news of the Church crisis in your country (in English, en español, em português) as the Pope goes to Aparecida.
The greatest of these challenges is the seemingly unstoppable growth of Evangelical sects throughout the region since the 1970s, when, in the wake of Vatican II and of the materialistic consequences of the disastrous II General Conference of the CELAM (1968), in Medellín, Colombia, the Church lost its spiritual leadership in the region. As millions of Catholics moved from rural areas to the burgeoning cities, the "new" politicized "Church of Liberation" could not quench the spiritual thirst of the Catholic masses, who became easy targets for the Pentecostal sects.
The current shepherds of Latin American Catholics are men who were indoctrinated with Liberation Theology, which is still taught throughout the region. The efforts of Pope John Paul II in Puebla (1979) and Santo Domingo (1992) could not alter the course of events. Is there any hope that the Catholic hemorrhage will be stopped?
We invite our many Latin American friends and readers to provide us with news and views from their countries. Send us your views and news of the Church crisis in your country (in English, en español, em português) as the Pope goes to Aparecida.
