SÃO PAULO, Brazil, May 8 — Pope Benedict XVI arrives here Wednesday for his first foray into Latin America, hoping to stanch the church’s steady loss of followers in the region. But some of the faithful frankly wonder whether an 80-year-old pontiff from Germany can speak to their needs.
When Pope John Paul II first visited here in 1980, nine of every 10 Brazilians described themselves as Roman Catholics. That percentage has dropped by one percentage point a year for nearly two decades. Today only two-thirds of Brazilians consider themselves Catholics, according to a recent church-endorsed survey.
Much of that ground has been lost to surging Pentecostalism in a region that has traditionally been home to nearly half the world’s Catholics.
“This is why he wants to go there,” Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, a Brazilian and former archbishop here, said in an interview in Rome. “Because he is worried. Because Latin America cannot be lost. I say that Latin America could be lost.” He was appointed last year as head of the Congregation of the Clergy.
“If you lose Latin America,” he added, “it would be a substantial loss, that could be irreparable.”
The trend in Brazil is so worrying that, according to church officials, the pope lobbied to have a 19-day conference of Latin American bishops, which opens Sunday, held here, after seeing the results of the survey.
“Brazil has become a country with a lot of religious mobility, a mosaic,” said Silvia Fernandes, a sociologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who worked on the survey, which had been conducted at the request of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops. “A disposition to change and experiment and to question doctrine has been growing for 30 years now, and Pentecostalism has been the biggest beneficiary because it is a more emotional religion.”
Another recent survey, by the nondenominational World Christian Database, showed that Brazil had recently overtaken the United States as the country with the world’s largest Pentecostal population. Based on numbers that churches themselves provided, the survey calculated that 24 million Brazilians belong to Pentecostal churches, while 138 million are Roman Catholic.
The challenge from Pentecostalism, say theologians and other religious experts, is likely to be one of the most important challenges of Benedict’s papacy. Philip Jenkins, a professor of religious studies at Penn State University who has written several books about the church in the developing world, called the spread of Pentecostalism in Latin America “the greatest single crisis facing the Catholic Church worldwide.”
Some segments of the Latin American church have responded by emphasizing the theology of liberation, which merges faith and politics. Others have incorporated Afro-Brazilian and indigenous rites into the Mass.
Another increasingly popular response has been the emergence of a charismatic renewal movement, which borrows liberally from the Pentecostal liturgy. Its most visible symbol is a young priest named Marcelo Rossi, a former personal trainer who is a devotee of the Virgin Mary and the rosary.
Blessed with matinee-idol looks and a strong singing voice, he draws thousands to the concrete warehouse where he celebrates his televised Masses. He has sold millions of records and even starred in a movie.
“I come here because the Mass is relaxed and informal, gets me more involved than at my old church and transmits a feeling of happiness,” Edilanis Diniz, a 31-year-old store clerk, said one recent Sunday as Father Rossi sang “God is a 10” to a rock ‘n’ roll beat. “I think this is the right path for the church, especially for young people.”
But Father Rossi’s popularity makes some traditionalists here uneasy. He has been excluded from any visible role during the pope’s five-day visit, and has also been cautioned about toning down the entertainment in his worship services.
“Priests aren’t showmen,” Archbishop Odilo Scherer, whom Benedict chose in March to be the new archbishop of São Paulo, said late last month in a clear reference to Father Rossi. “The Mass is not to be transformed into a show.”
As lay people, the bishops and other clergy members gather this weekend in Aparecida, a center of devotion to Brazil’s patroness, the Virgin of Aparecida, they will be looking to Benedict for guidance on these and other issues when he addresses the bishops’ conference there on Sunday.
But there is widespread curiosity, and even some skepticism here, about the personality and beliefs of the new pope. The faithful here will thus be alert for signs from Benedict that this region’s concerns can compete for attention with the central challenge for the church in Europe, namely rising secularism.
“The European church has its reality, and we can feel that this papacy is quite preoccupied with that,” said Agenor Brighenti, a Brazilian theologian who is the author of “The Church of the Future and the Future of the Church.” “But the survival of the church is not the problem we face here in the third world, and so we hope he can feel our reality, too.”
That reality includes poverty, social injustice and a shortage of priests.
At the 2005 conclave that chose Benedict, Cardinal Hummes was seen as a contender to become the first pope from Latin America, and there was much disappointment here when he was not chosen.
When a military dictatorship was in power here, Cardinal Hummes, now 72, was known as “The Workers’ Bishop” because he gave refuge to labor leaders, including Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, now president of Brazil, and sympathized with popular causes.
Benedict, in contrast, “is seen in many quarters as a quintessentially European figure, and I think the early line on him in many parts of the south is, quite frankly, that he doesn’t have much to say to us,” said John Allen, who wrote a biography of the pope. “It is therefore important for him to come across as someone who understands that part of the world and someone whose message is relevant to that part of the world.”
In recent weeks, the pontiff has sought to dilute that image by speaking out on issues of special interest to Latin America, which he described Sunday as “the continent of hope.” Last month, for instance, the Vatican released a letter in which Benedict recommended ways in which rich countries could help poor ones through relaxed trade rules, debt cancellation and medical assistance.
John Paul II’s first trip to Brazil lasted two weeks and included visits to squatter slums that so moved him that he donated his papal ring to one of the communities.
By contrast, and in recognition of his more advanced age and reduced stamina, Benedict’s itinerary does not include any events of that nature. But he is scheduled to visit a treatment center for drug addicts.
“In the course of his activities, seeing how he responds to the problems he faces will allow us to make an evaluation of him,” said Eduardo Moreira, a 56-year-old metalworker from the industrial suburbs here. “We hope that he is coming not just to teach, but also to learn.”
