New Faiths for Latin America

For more than four centuries, this Indian village, like almost any from the Peruvian Andes to the Mexican Sierra, had just one place of worship: the Roman Catholic church on the square. But now it has 18 churches--and 17 are Protestant.

Inside the three-story Calvary Church, which now dominates the square, Mariano Riscaoche and Roque Yac told the story of the spiritual quest that changed their lives and their village.

“Twenty-one years ago, God was dead for the people here,” Yac, 46, said as he and his friends sat on folding chairs. “Their minds were on parties and drinking.”

To find an alternative, Yac and a dozen friends traveled to a nearby city, going from church to church. They studied the Bible. They tell of hearing from and experiencing God. Thus began the Protestant movement here.

Today, the Calvary Church has grown to 500 members, including Riscaoche, and 80% of the villagers are Protestants.

Although its conversion may have been exceptionally sweeping, Almolonga’s switch from Catholicism is not unique, experts say. The Roman Catholic Church, while still the predominant religion of the region, is losing ground to other faiths in Latin America; the continent that was conquered in the name of Catholicism is growing more diverse in its beliefs.

Old-line Protestant churches that once attracted only a tiny minority now are being joined by fundamentalist, evangelical and Pentecostal churches. These newer denominations are vigorously seeking out and winning many converts with promises of miracles and visions and, many say, with meticulous attention to parishioners’ needs.

Mormons, who do not consider themselves Protestants, also are finding huge new numbers in Latin America.

Sociologists, religious leaders and ordinary Christians offer various explanations for the trend.

Battles over liberation theology and politics have riven the Catholic faithful and, perhaps, sometimes distracted church leaders from tending their flocks. The church also has come under fire for ties to a corrupt elite that has perpetuated the impoverishment of millions.

Indeed, the most striking changes have occurred among the poor and uneducated--long Catholic stalwarts and, ironically, the ones for whom many of the churches’ battles have been fought.

“We told people that we want to look for answers with them,” said Father Rogelio Poncelle, a Catholic priest in Morazan, an area of heavy combat during the Salvadoran civil war that ended four years ago. “But people want security, answers, and the [Protestant] sects offer that.”

The changes are occurring even as Pope John Paul II is scheduled this week to visit Venezuela and Central America, an area in which the highly popular pontiff has urged Catholics to reinvigorate and spread their faith.

That has not happened. Instead, by most estimates, at least one in 10 Latin Americans--40 million people--is not a Catholic, eight times as many as three decades ago.

Up to one-third of the population is now Protestant in Brazil and Guatemala, 18% in El Salvador and 5% in Mexico.

Protestant churches had been confined to Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, where they were started by British settlers. Now, 72 denominations extend throughout the nation, which may be as much as 25% Protestant. A study by the Socio-Cultural Analysis Center at the Central American University in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, projects that by 2000, Nicaraguan Protestants will have nearly tripled their 1975 membership.

To be sure, the Catholic Church remains a dominant factor in the lives of millions in Latin America, where it has been a force for social justice and has served as an official state religion.

Both Guatemala and Nicaragua have Catholic presidents. In El Salvador--where the 1980 murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the social activism of his successor, Arturo Rivera Damas, strained church-state relations--the recent appointment of a more conciliatory archbishop has markedly eased political tensions between the government and the Catholic Church.

But as their congregations grow, the non-Catholic denominations are themselves growing more political, demonstrating their clout by forming religious political parties and demanding more attention from governments.

Most Protestant converts from Catholicism appear to be the poor and poorly educated, the Central American University in San Salvador has found. Its nationwide survey last year showed that poor Salvadorans were three times as likely to be Protestant as the rich. Also, the likelihood of being Protestant diminished as education level rose: 23% of those who had not finished grade school said they were, compared with 15% of those with college degrees.

The loss of these souls to other faiths is a huge irritant for many in the Catholic Church, underscoring disputes that have bedeviled Latin American Catholics for three decades. In 1968, the Latin American Bishops Conference in Medellin, Colombia, resolved to champion the poor in the struggle for social justice. The ways that different Catholics tried to fulfill that mission deeply split the church.

Priests and nuns who spoke out for the poor during the region’s civil wars often paid with their lives. The murders of Archbishop Romero and others pushed some Catholics to oppose their governments. That made many middle- and upper-class parishioners feel threatened by movements within the church that espoused social change, such as those that pushed liberation theology.

Governments also perceived the Catholic activism as a challenge to them, and, in response, the administration of former President Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala, for example, promoted Protestant denominations, notably his own Christian Church of the Word.

Pastor Dario Silva--whose Church of the House on the Rock in Bogota, Colombia, has grown from 72 members eight years ago to 5,000 now--sees a reason for the rise of Protestantism, saying, “After 500 years of Catholic domination, many people are passing the bill for . . . problems to the Catholic Church and are looking for other spiritual options.”

Protestants, particularly Pentecostal groups, have “a great interest in increasing their numbers,” and they work at this goal, said the Rev. Gilberto Aguirre, director of the Evangelical Conference for Development, the principal association of Nicaraguan Protestant churches.

Father Francisco Zuluaga, an advisor to the Episcopal Conference of Colombia, noted: “The [Protestant] sects work person to person, family to family, visiting homes and inviting people to talk about their problems. And that makes people feel so welcome and accepted that they begin to live the sect’s religious experience as well.”

In one measure of the churches’ respective attentiveness to members’ needs, the Salvadoran survey found that more than two-thirds of Protestants reported that they recently had received a visit from their clergy members, compared with one-quarter of practicing Catholics.

With Protestants sometimes targeting lapsed Catholics for conversion and making inroads in general among the church’s faithful, even the pope has assailed those who would make predatory assaults upon his flock. John Paul, in a 1992 speech, called evangelizing Protestants “hungry wolves,” telling his bishops that they needed to curb divisions in the church that had allowed outsiders to prey upon the poor and ignorant.

Humberto Belli, the Nicaraguan education minister and a Catholic, expressed displeasure at Protestant proselytizing, saying such groups “appeal to the sentiments [of the poor and uneducated] without a very intellectual focus.”

The faithful of Calvary Church flatly reject such claims.

“Our growth is not because of fanaticism or ignorance,” Riscaoche said. “We have had supernatural experiences. My conversion was directly from God. I heard his voice.”

Riscaoche, 44, said God guided him in 1975 to the small congregation that Yac and a few friends had founded in Almolonga.

In Managua’s working-class neighborhoods, the Protestant devout fill Saturday nights with the sounds of singing and prayer. Groups of 10 to 20 gather in living rooms for Bible study and prayer.

Some of the faithful were meeting next door to Marta Miriam Narvaez four years ago when she heard a soprano voice that made her cry.

“I could not stop until I went to the meeting,” she said.

Narvaez says she was an agnostic, a former Sandinista combatant, a three-pack-a-day smoker and an accomplished blasphemer. Now she is the principal of a church school and leader of a family prayer group. In her two years as a leader, her flocks thrice have grown so large that they split in two, part of a pyramid strategy that has fostered the growth of the Assemblies of God in Nicaragua.

Meanwhile, in downtown Guatemala City on a recent Sunday morning, the Christian Church of the Word assembled for services in an auditorium the size of half a city block. Two electric guitars, a keyboard and drums played a pop rhythm as a tenor sang lyrics projected on the wall. Below the stage, dancers twirled dreamily.

Elder Carlos Velazquez announced the day’s Bible verses, and most of the congregation carefully and exuberantly followed his 45 minutes of impassioned expounding upon them.

“I believe that Guatemala will be the first Latin country under the kingdom of God,” he told them. “Protestants who do not become involved in national affairs should consider that the nation is a reflection of the church. If there is corruption in the nation, it is because there is corruption in the church.”

His comments reflected a growing sentiment among Protestants that they must make their voices heard politically. But with that has come a growing resentment that religious pluralism is often unrecognized in this region.

The Rev. Norman Bent of the Moravian Church, Nicaragua’s largest Protestant denomination and one of the world’s oldest Protestant denominations, noted: “Sometimes you wonder whether the Catholic Church governs Nicaragua. . . . Nothing is agreed upon in this country of late that the cardinal is not consulted.”

Nicaraguan presidential spokesman Mario Amador said Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo is usually included in talks at the request of groups negotiating with the government. The cardinal, he insisted, is not invited by President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

But Protestant groups often feel that the Catholic Church unfairly uses its clout in other ways with Latin American governments.

After a decade of pressure, for example, the Catholic Church recently persuaded the Venezuelan government to expel a Protestant missionary group called New Tribes from an area near the Brazilian border for violating the culture of the Indians.

To date, though, the biggest battles for influence have been in Guatemala, where Protestant presidents--starting with former leader Rios Montt, who took power after a military coup in 1982--have embittered Catholics. Besides promoting his own church, he presided over one of the most repressive periods in Guatemalan history, which included the murders of dozens of priests, nuns and Catholic lay leaders.

Recently, Bishop Efrain Hernandez, spokesman for the Guatemalan archbishop, accused Rios Montt of indirect responsibility for those murders. Because he made the remark a week before the presidential election in January, Protestants accuse him of trying to turn Catholics against one of the candidates, Alfonso Portillo, a Protestant backed by Rios Montt who lost by just 31,900 votes.

While resentful of the bishop’s remarks, Protestants acknowledge that many of their political problems were caused by one of their own, former President Jorge Serrano. Protestants appeared to have gained a victory when Serrano, an elder of the Pentecostal Shaddai Church, was elected in 1991. But victory quickly turned to embarrassment when he tried to close down the Congress and Supreme Court to rule alone. He was exiled in disgrace in 1993.

Protestants are also becoming more politically active in other countries. Jaime Ortiz Hurtado, a Colombian senator who is a Protestant, won his seat in 1994 on what he called a “Christian platform” of anti-corruption measures and benefits for the poor.

In Nicaragua, the Moravian Church has a tradition of nonpartisanship. But with most of its members on the impoverished Atlantic Coast, the Rev. Bent said, “We served as the political voice of the people until the 1980s, when Nicaragua produced political leaders that replaced us in that role.”

The newer Protestant churches are joining established parties or forming their own. Assemblies of God Pastor Guillermo Osorno for years staunchly believed that ministers should stay out of politics. He used his morning radio program to criticize evangelical Protestants who entered politics. Now he is a candidate for president in this year’s election.

“I abandoned the idea of politics when I converted to Jesus Christ,” he said. “Then I realized that the only way our people can change is by putting Jesus Christ in first place” politically.

After a series of dreams and visions, he said, he decided to run as the candidate of a new Christian party. But he still opposes campaigning from the pulpit or seeking other ministers’ endorsements.

Even with those exhortations and strict guidelines, many Protestants are reluctant to enter politics.

“This has been a prickly issue for Protestant churches because there has been this idea that politics was sinful,” said Nicaraguan pastor Aguirre. “We do not have the same level of participation as the Catholics. . . . But at least now we have a face and a voice.”

Times special correspondent Steven Ambrus in Bogota contributed to this report.

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Protestant Numbers Rise

Protestant groups are growing quickly in some Latin American countries.

Country: Protestant pop.*

Guatemala: 24%-35%

Brazil: 20%-35%

Chile: 24%

Nicaragua: 15%-25%

El Salvador: 18%

Bolivia: 9%

Argentina: 8%

Mexico: 5%

* estimated