If we include the Latin West Indies, this amounts to about 185 million people. The Jesuits were often the only force standing between the Native Americans and slavery. The history of Roman Catholicism in the United States – prior to 1776 – often focuses on the 13 English-speaking colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, as it was they who declared independence from Great Britain in 1776, to form the United States of America. One cannot understand Latin America without understanding the history of the Catholic Church in the region. When their existence was threatened by the incursions of Bandeirante slave traders, Indian militia were created that fought effectively against the colonists. "La Virgen de Guadalupe -- Mother of All Mexico. “The attempt failed; the church emerged stronger; it retained its political and financial privileges. Cuba, under atheist Fidel Castro, succeeded in reducing the Church's ability to work by deporting the archbishop and 150 Spanish priests, discriminating against Catholics in public life and education and refusing to accept them as members of the Communist Party. These were societies set up according to an idealized theocratic model. History of Latin America - History of Latin America - Religious trends: Roman Catholicism continued to be a powerful force in the second half of the 20th century. [26] In a challenge to Spanish and Portuguese policy, Pope Gregory XVI, began to appoint his own candidates as bishops in the colonies, condemned slavery and the slave trade in the 1839 papal bull In supremo apostolatus, and approved the ordination of native clergy in the face of government racism. This was the nation’s undoing. The Juárez Law, named after Benito Juárez, restricted clerical privileges, specifically the authority of Church courts,[46] by subverting their authority to civil law. [32] In his work, In Defense of the Indians, de Las Casas underscored the Amerindians’ advanced “political states” and “architecture” to demonstrate that the Amerindians were not barbaric and indicate that the indigenous people had the capacity for rational thought and were “very ready to accept” Christianity.[33]. This conference on progressive Catholicism in Latin America and Europe, organized on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, intends to investigate and cast new light on the transnational transfer of ideas and encounters between religious and secular progressive movements on both sides of the Atlantic during the period ranging from the 1950s to the 1980s. "'Undocumented Virgin.' The conquest was immediately accompanied by evangelization, and new, local forms of Catholicism appeared. [12] Although the missionaries focused on the “conversion,” the friars also worked to educate the Amerindians about Spanish cultural expectations, social customs, and about “political organization through the mission system. One of the driving forces of liberalism in the Roman Catholic Church was the council of bishops of Latin America, known by the acronym celam. [61] The movement is still alive in Latin America today, though the Church now faces the challenge of Pentecostal revival in much of the region. E-mail Citation » Historical and contemporary analysis of major trends in Latino Catholicism, including key leaders, organizations, and events in Hispanic ministry. In other cases, the appearance of the Virgin was reported by an indigenous person, for example, Virgen de los Angeles in Costa Rica. Initially, these ejidos were exempt from the law, but eventually these Indian communities suffered and extensive loss of land. 06/06/2016 12:11 pm ET Updated Dec 06, 2017 Cathedral in Mexico City via wikicommons. Temples were razed and idols were destroyed as … CNS Photo/Felipe Caicedo, Reuters. The confiscation of Church properties and changes in the scope of religious liberties (in general, increasing the rights of non-Catholics and non-observant Catholics, while licensing or prohibiting the institutes) generally accompanied secularist, and later, Marxist-leaning, governmental reforms.[44]. Article 5 outlawed monastic religious orders. As a result, Argentina saw extensive destruction of churches, denunciations of clergy and confiscation of Catholic schools as Perón attempted to extend state control over national institutions.[59]. [46], The next Reform Law was called the lerdo law, after Miguel Lerdo de Tejada. [46] This proved to be considerably more controversial than the Juárez Law. The Inquisition in Spain became a reign of terror in the New World. Overland routes were established from New Mexico that resulted in the colonization of San Francisco in 1776 and Los Angeles in 1781. Missionaries attempted with varied success to convert Amerindians and enslaved Africans from their belief systems and to make Catholicism the only religion practiced in colonial Ibero-America. Both Catholics and Protestants had suffered terribly during the European religious wars that occurred in the wake of the Reformation, with countless numbers imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The first Protestant colonists to settle in America brought with them a long history of animosity toward Catholics, stemming from the Protestant Reformation. "[40], One theory is that the Virgin of Guadalupe was presented to the Aztecs as a sort of "Christianized" Tonantzin, necessary for the clergymen to convert the indigenous people to their faith. [47] Lerdo de Tejada was the Minister of Finance and required that the Church sell much of its urban and rural land at reduced prices. Catholicism in the Americas Numbering some two billion in all, one of every three people in the world today is Christian, half of them Catholic. As a result, a number of these liberal regimes expropriated Church property and tried to bring education, marriage and burial under secular authority. or [64] The Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was twice ordered to cease publishing and teaching. 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. A year later, Juan Diego was canonized by Pope John Paul II. Comonfort and members of his administration were excommunicated, and a revolt was then declared. Follow Richard Palmer on Twitter, Copyright © As promised in the diplomatic resolution, the laws considered offensive to the Cristeros remained on the books, but no organized federal attempts to enforce them were put into action. The Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) represented a particular threat to the church, which … Liberal-controlled local, departmental and national governments ended contracts with religious communities who operated schools in government-owned buildings, and set up secular schools in their place. It was the clergy who drew up the first scheme for separation from Spain, in 1794, and provided most of the press propaganda. The slowness to embrace religious freedom in Latin America is related to its colonial heritage and to its post-colonial history. The doctrine called for the Amerindians who abided by these demands to be considered “loyal vassals,” but justified war against the Amerindians if they opposed the Spaniards’ power and allowed for an aggressive conquest, resulting in the Amerindians being “deprived of their liberty and property.”[3][4] The Requerimiento briefly alludes to the enslavement of the Amerindians as a result of the Spaniards' militaristic conquest of the region.[5]. Anti-clericalism was an integral feature of 19th-century liberalism in Latin America. Most of the missionary work was done by Catholic orders—the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits. Catholicism has been predominant in Latin America and it has played a definitive role in its development. Much has been made of the dramatic rise of Protestantism in Latin America. Under this new law, the government began to confiscate Church land. Religious celebrations outside churches was forbidden, use of church bells restricted and clerical dress was prohibited in public. One official wrote, “the ecclesiastics were the principal authors of this rebellion … one can count by the hundreds the generals, brigadiers, colonels and other officers, all clerics, in the bands of the traitors, and there is scarcely a military action of any importance in which priests are not leading the enemy.”, “Thus Spain forfeited the New World by reforming its colonial pillar, the church,” concludes Johnson. The Catholic Church in Latin America began with the Spanish colonization of the Americas and continues up to the present day. In Brazil, Our Lady of Aparecida was declared in 1929 official Patron Saint of the country by Pope Pius XI. In 2001 the Italian Movement of Love Saint Juan Diego was created, and launched evangelization projects in 32 states. In Cuba, the Virgin named Caridad del Cobre was allegedly seen in the beginning of the 16th century, a case consigned in the Archivo General de Indias. It was thought that such would encourage development and the government could raise revenue by taxing the process. Episcopal News Service. [17] Angelorum concludes that the Amerindians’ idols were a result of being “deceived by satanic wiles” and identifies preaching about the “Eternal Father” and spiritual “salvation” as the best means of evangelizing the Amerindians. In most of the region there emerged a“conservative” reaction against the dominant liberal tide.Though liberals and conservatives shared some political ground, theyheld opposing views regarding the pace of social change and the placeof Catholicism and of the Catholic Church in society. However, in 1955, overthrown by a military general who was a leading member of the Catholic Nationalist movement. The Catholic Church was one of the largest land owning groups in most of Latin America's countries. [49], One other significant Reform Law was the Law for the Nationalization of Ecclesiastical Properties, which would eventually secularize nearly all of the country's monasteries and convents. Ambassador. [34] The resistance by the Jesuit reductions to slave raids, as well as their high degree of autonomy and economic success, have been cited as contributing factors to the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Americas in 1767. "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior." Liberal anti-clericalists of the 1880s established a new pattern of church-state relations in which the official constitutional status of the Church was preserved while the state assumed control of many functions formerly the province of the Church. Roman Catholicism is the major religion of nearly every country in Latin America. [53] Calles was eventually deposed[53] and despite the persecution, the Church in Mexico continued to grow. Iberians introduced Roman Catholicism to “Latin America” when Spain and Portugal conquered and colonized their respective New World empires after 1500. The suppression of the Church included the closing of many churches and the killing and forced marriage of priests. [13] In his letter, de Gante specifically requests that the king provide annual funding to run a local school and diminish the Amerindians’ workload to provide them with a “spiritual instruction.”[14], Nevertheless, Amerindian populations suffered serious decline due to new diseases, inadvertently introduced through contact with Europeans, which created a labor vacuum in the New World. [2], The Requerimiento of 1512 served as a legal doctrine mandating that the Amerindians accept the Spanish monarch’s power over the region and Christianity. The Age of Discovery began with the voyage of Christopher Columbus c. 1492. Often, the missions served as convenient tools for the suppression of Most obnoxious to Catholics was Article 130, which deprived clergy members of basic political rights. In 1954, Perón reversed the fortunes of the church by threatening total disestablishment and retracting critical functions, including the teaching of religious education in public schools. At the start of the 19th century, Spain began an effort to assert control over the Catholic Church as a whole. Historical data suggest that for most of the 20th century, from 1900 through the 1960s, at least 90% of Latin America’s population was Catholic (See History … This issue was one of the bases for the lasting dispute between Conservatives, who represented primarily the interests of the Sierra and the church, and the Liberals, who represented those of the costa and anticlericalism. Discontent over the provisions had been simmering for years. Guadalupe Narrative Crosses Borders for New Understanding." Religious human rights, in the sense of freedom to exercise and practice one's religion, are almost universally guaranteed in the laws and constitutions of Latin America today, although they are not universally observed in practice. However, nearly a century before that, in 1528, a Spanish Franciscan priest, Fr. Using historical chronology, this essay reviews the growing body of literature produced by scholars who chose religion as a lens through which to view the history of Latin America. Nonetheless, in several localities, persecution of Catholic priests continued based on local officials' interpretations of the law. December 1999. The surveys show, for instance, that while Evangelicalism has made big inroads in some Latin American … Enforcement was lax, and while some blame the Church for not doing enough to liberate the Indians, others point to the Church as the only voice raised on behalf of indigenous peoples. The Aztec and the Inca both made substantial use of religion to support their authority and power. [35] The Jesuit reductions present a controversial chapter of the evangelisational history of the Americas, and are variously described as jungle utopias or as theocratic regimes of terror.[34]. The Law also stated that the Church could not gain possession of properties in the future. Over-generalizations about Latin American Catholicism should be avoided. The first of the Liberal Reform Laws were passed in 1855. The history of Mexican Catholicism between 1910 and 2010 was one of successive conflict and compromise with the state, latterly coupled with increased concern about religious pluralism, secularization, and divisions of both style and theological and ecclesiological substance within Catholicism. However, by bringing Western civilization to the area, these missions and the Spanish government have been held responsible for wiping out nearly a third of the native population, primarily through disease. The Age of Discovery began with the voyage of Christopher Columbus c. 1492. Moreover, it has taken Latin America much longer than other parts of the West to adopt religious freedom in theory and in practice, and the habit of respect for those rights is only gradually being developed. In Andean America, the expansion and formation of institutional religions first emerged alongside the foundation of Cuzco and the dawning of the Inca Empire. [27] Yet in spite of these advances, the Amerindian population continued to suffer decline from exposure to European diseases. The Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana was built in Bolivia, near the Isla del Sol where the Sun God was believed to be born, in the 16th century, to commemorate the apparition of the Virgin of Copacabana. “Priests persuaded their entire parishes to ‘pronounce’ for the revolution. The Mexican Constitution of 1824 had required the Republic to prohibit the exercise of any religion other the Roman Catholic and Apostolic faith. [6][7][8] King Ferdinand enacted the Laws of Burgos and Valladolid in response. Latin America in the 1960s was fertile soil for the seeds of the council. King, Judy. The Catholic Church was undoubtedly the single most important institution in colonial Latin America. It is partly because the Jesuits, such as Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, protected the natives (whom certain Spanish and Portuguese colonizers wanted to enslave) that the Society of Jesus was suppressed. Relations of the Roman Catholic Church with the … Conservative Catholics, asserting their role as definers of national values and morality, responded in part by joining in the rightist religio-political movement known as Catholic Nationalism which formed successive opposition parties. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed. [24] These missions brought grain, cattle and a new way of living to the Indian tribes of California. In later year Fidel Castro converted back to Catholicism and lifted the ban on the catholic church in Cuba [60]. Alfonsín's opposition to the church-military alliance, conjoined with his strongly secular emphasis contravening traditional Catholic positions, incited opposition that served to curtail his agenda. Many of these laws were resisted, leading to the Cristero Rebellion of 1927–1929. The conflict claimed the lives of some 90,000: 56,882 on the federal side, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were killed in anticlerical raids after the war's end. Starting in 1855, US-backed President Benito Juárez issued decrees nationalizing church property, separating church and state, and suppressing religious institutes. In a visit to the 1979 celam conference, John Paul ii challenged the liberation theology movement that had permeated the church in Latin America and rippled around the world since Vatican ii. A Guide for the New Millennium." Church properties were confiscated and basic civil and political rights were denied to religious institutes and the clergy. Finally, Article 130 took away basic civil rights of members of the clergy: priests and religious leaders were prevented from wearing their habits, were denied the right to vote, and were not permitted to comment on public affairs in the press. [48] Marriage became a civil contract, although no provision for divorce was authorized. Perón claimed that Peronism was the "true embodiment of Catholic social teaching" - indeed, more the embodiment of Catholicism than the Catholic Church itself. Following the revolution of 1910, the new Mexican Constitution of 1917 contained further anti-clerical provisions. The Church became the single largest landowner within the colony, developing commercial agriculture to support many of its activities. Although Colombia enacted anticlerical legislation and its enforcement during more than three decades (1849–84), it soon restored “full liberty and independence from the civil power” to the Catholic Church. The first missionaries arrived shortly after the fall of the Aztecs. The event which today marks in the minds of most Americans the beginning of their history was the landing in 1620 of the so-called Pilgrim Fathers at a place they named Plymouth on the coast of what is now Massachusetts. Everyone who lived in the region was nominally a member of the Church. However, the Lerdo Law did not apply only to the Church. [43] Some members of these liberal regimes sought to imitate the Spain of the 1830s (and revolutionary France of a half-century earlier) in expropriating the wealth of the Catholic Church, and in imitating the 18th-century benevolent despots in restricting or prohibiting the religious institutes. [28], The Dominican missionaries were part of the Catholic Church's Dominican Order. It was conceived of as a moderate measure, rather than abolish church courts altogether. In comparison to Europe and other Western nations, the Catholic Church still has a major influence in Latin American society. [60] The subsequent flight of 300,000 people from the island also helped to diminish the Church there. As the empire expanded, conquered cultures were permitted to keep their own beliefs and local gods provided they pay homage to the Inc… It helped to spur the conquest of the New World with its emphasis on missions to the indigenous peoples, controlled many aspects of the colonial economy, and played key roles in the struggles for Independence. It is characterised by European colonization of missionary activity. These actions were sometimes violent, and were met by a strong opposition from clerics, Conservatives, and even a good number of more moderate Liberals. In Argentina, there is Our Lady of Luján. The government had hoped that this law would bring in enough revenue to secure a loan from the United States but sales would prove disappointing from the time it was passed all the way to the early 20th century.[49]. He argued that the Spanish colonists’ should avoid continuing to make harsh labor demands of Amerindians by noting how the native people did “not even have time to look after their subsistence” and would “die of hunger.”[31], Bartolome de Las Casas, another famed Dominican friar, also defended the Amerindians' rights and opposed the Spaniards’ view of the indigenous people as “barbarians” as an acceptable justification to massacre the indigenous population. Religious practices during the Ancient Period in Latin America were spread orally within tribes and between civilizations through conquest. By 1767, the Portuguese, Spanish and French had grown distrustful of the power of the Jesuits. 2021 [45] The Constitution of 1857 retained many of the Roman Catholic Church's Colonial era privileges and revenues, but, unlike the earlier constitution, did not mandate that the Catholic Church be the nation's exclusive religion, and strongly restricted the Church's right to own property. Iberians introduced Roman Catholicism to “Latin America” when Spain and Portugal conquered and colonized their respective New World empires after 1500. W hen Christopher Columbus arrived in America, the Catholic Church moved quickly to establish its control in the newly discovered territory. However, this history – of Roman Catholicism in the United States – also includes the French and Spanish colonies, because they later became the greater … Thirty-five years after the first dozen Franciscans arrived, there were 800 missionaries in Mexico alone. As a result, the Church tended to be rather conservative politically. [25], Only in the 19th century, after the breakdown of most Spanish and Portuguese colonies, was the Vatican able to take charge of Catholic missionary activities through its Propaganda Fide organization. This pre-existing role of religion in pre-Columbian culture made it relatively easy for the Spanish conquistadors to replace native religious structures with those of a Catholicism that was closely linked to the Spanish throne.[42]. In 1493, just one year after Columbus’s famous voyage, Pope Alexander VI published a bull dividing the new territory between Spain and Portugal—provided the natives were converted to Catholicism. However, the move opened latent divisions in the country. [50][55] It appears that ten states were left without any priests.[55]. [65] While Pope John Paul II was criticized for his severity in dealing with proponents of the movement, he maintained that the Church, in its efforts to champion the poor, should not do so by resorting to violence or partisan politics. On December 1511, the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos openly rebuked the Spanish authorities governing Hispaniola for their mistreatment of the American natives, telling them "... you are in mortal sin ... for the cruelty and tyranny you use in dealing with these innocent people". The Spanish Inquisition also altered the indigenous people's lifestyle which seemed to blend their religion with that of catholicism. [62] Archbishop Óscar Romero, a supporter of the movement, became the region's most famous contemporary martyr in 1980, when he was murdered while saying mass by forces allied with the government. Together throughout South America but especially in present-day Brazil and Paraguay they formed Christian Native American city-states, called "reductions" (Spanish Reducciones, Portuguese Reduções). One cannot understand Latin America without understanding the history of the Catholic Church in the region. A long history of anti-Catholicism Although Catholicism was an influential factor in the French settlements of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and later in the Spanish regions of Florida, the Southwest and California, Catholics were a decided minority in the original 13 English colonies. "A View From the North." [39] Mary O'Connor writes that Guadalupe "bring[s] together people of distinct cultural heritages, while at the same time affirming their distinctness. Overlooked by journalists and scholars has been the parallel growth of Charismatic, or Pentecostal, Catholicism in the region. The Jesuit Reductions were a particular version of the general Catholic strategy used in the 17th and 18th centuries of building reductions (reducciones de indios), in order to Christianize the indigenous populations of the Americas more efficiently. The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America offers a concise yet far-reaching … On the recommendation of the Inquisition, thousands of “heretics” throughout the continent were tortured until they died or confessed to charges they faced. [34] Under the Jesuit leadership of the Indians through native "puppet" caciques, the reductions achieved a high degree of autonomy within the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires. Having been ruled by the Spanish and Portuguese starting in the 1500s, both nations emphasized religiosity and incorporated the Church into government decisions and policies, from land distribution, to conversion and education. Jesuit priests such as Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded several towns in Brazil in the 16th century, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and were very influential in the pacification, religious conversion and education of Indian nations. If the Church did not comply, the government would hold public auctions. The Church supported the regime of Juárez's successor, Porfirio Diaz, who was opposed to land reform. Pope Alexander VI, in the papal bull Inter caetera, awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal. Later reductions were extended into the areas that correspond to Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay. The persecution was most severe in Tabasco under the atheist governor Tomás Garrido Canabal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. [10] However, in contrast with de Montesinos’ views, de Vitoria reasoned that if the Amerindians were to oppose the Catholic faith with “blasphemies,” war against them would be justified. This can be attributed in large part to the lingering effects of Spanish and Portuguese colonization of the region and the Roman Catholic missions that accompanied those endeavours. The Jesuits took this to an even higher level in South America, where hundreds of thousands lived in Jesuit-run autonomous colonies, complete with their own Jesuit armies. “The clergy provided many of the political and military leaders of the insurrection,” writes historian Paul Johnson. In the 1960s, growing social awareness and politicization in the Latin American Church gave birth to liberation theology which openly supported anti-imperialist movements. December 1999. St. Anthony Messenger Magazine Online. [9], Francisco de Vitoria, an acclaimed Theology Professor of the colonial era, opposed the idea of the Amerindians being “forcibly converted” to Catholicism on the premise that they would not truly accept the religion. Matovina, Timothy M. Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church. Catholicism has been predominant in Latin America and it has played a definitive role in its development. It helped to spur the conquest of the New World with its emphasis on missions to the indigenous peoples, controlled many aspects of the colonial economy, and played key roles in the … [16] The group initiated the “organized effort to evangelize the native people of Mexico.”[16] The Franciscans’ views of Amerindians religious beliefs and evangelization strategies are highlighted letter by Friar Francisco Angelorum, providing instructions on their evangelization tasks in Mexico. As Jacques Lafaye wrote in Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe, "...as the Christians built their first churches with the rubble and the columns of the ancient pagan temples, so they often borrowed pagan customs for their own cult purposes.[41]. Jesuit missions in Latin America were very controversial in Europe, especially in Spain and Portugal where they were seen as interfering with the proper colonial enterprises of the royal governments. 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