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The majority of Latin Americans are Catholics. About 84% of the people would say that they were raised Catholic, though only 69% of the population are Catholic today. The 15% decline is mostly due to the spread of Pentecostalism in Latin America. [1] Like Pentecostalism, the Catholic charismatic renewal began in the United States.
Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population. The history of the Catholic Church in Brazil begins with the region's colonization by the Portuguese. Jesuits played an important role in the early colonies before eventually being expelled. The Catholic Church supported Brazilian independence and worked to secure its place within the country.
During the colonial period, the Catholic missions also included efforts by the friars to educate the Amerindians. [15] 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."
Although Mexico is the second largest Catholic country in the world in terms of members, Catholicism has been declining over the past 30 years, from 89.7% of the population in 1990 to 77.7% in 2020. The number of Catholics in Mexico have decreased by 20.5% since 1950. [92] [93] In 2020, 8.1% of Mexicans did not identify with any religion. [94]
In the late 19th century, the Catholic population of Iberian origin was reinforced by a large number of Italian Catholics who immigrated to Brazil, as well as some Polish and German Catholic immigrants. In 1889 Brazil became a republic and approved a constitution separating the Church from the State, a trend followed by all of the country's ...
Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing Christian denomination in Brazil. Pentecostalism has surged since the 1990s while the largest denomination, Roman Catholicism, has undergone a decline. [1] [2] At some points, churches were appearing as rapidly as one church per day. [3]
The relations between the Catholic Church and the state have been constantly evolving with various forms of government, some of them controversial in retrospect. In its history, the Church has had to deal with various concepts and systems of governance, from the Roman Empire to the medieval divine right of kings, from nineteenth- and twentieth-century concepts of democracy and pluralism to the ...
Prior to World War II, numerous Catholic thinkers advanced the idea of a Catholic political regime; Jacques Maritain argued that democracy was a "fruit of the Gospel itself and its unfolding in history", writing that political Catholicism in its essence promotes democracy based on "justice, charity, and the realization of a fraternal community ...