The Catholic Church in Latin America began with the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of the Americas and continues up to the present day. The vast majority of Latin Americans are Christians (90%), mostly Catholics belonging to the Latin Church. In 2012 Latin America constitutes, in absolute terms, the world's second largest Christian population; after Europe.
In comparison to Europe and some other Western nations, the Catholic Church still holds major influence over Latin American society. However, since the 21st century, Evangelicalism, backed by growing political influence, has expanded considerably across the region and is currently threatening the Catholic foothold.
History Spanish colonization of the Americas
The Spanish colonization of the Americas began with the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. It is characterized by European colonization of missionary activity throughout the new world. Pope Alexander VI, in the papal bull Inter caetera, in an arbitration to avoid war over newly discovered lands, awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal.Koschorke, A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (2007), pp. 13, 283 The expansion of the Catholic Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire with a significant role played by the Roman Catholic Church led to the Christianization of the indigenous populations of the Americas such as the Aztecs and Incas. Under the patronato system, state authorities controlled clerical appointments and no direct contact was allowed with the Vatican.Dussel, Enrique, A History of the Church in Latin America, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1981, pp. 39, 59
Catholic missions
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 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.” The Requerimiento briefly alludes to the enslavement of the Amerindians as a result of the Spaniards' militaristic conquest of the region.
Slavery was part of the local population's culture before the arrival of the conquistadors. Christian missionaries provided existing slaves with an opportunity to escape their situation by seeking out the protection of the missions.
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".Woods, How the Church Built Western Civilization (2005), p. 135Johansen, Bruce, The Native Peoples of North America, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2006, pp. 109, 110, quote: "In the Americas, the Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas avidly encouraged enquiries into the Spanish conquest's many cruelties. Las Casas chronicled Spanish brutality against the Native peoples in excruciating detail."Koschorke, A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (2007), p. 287 King Ferdinand enacted the Laws of Burgos and Valladolid in response. 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.Dussel, Enrique, A History of the Church in Latin America, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1981, pp. 45, 52, 53 quote: "The missionary Church opposed this state of affairs from the beginning, and nearly everything positive that was done for the benefit of the indigenous peoples resulted from the call and clamor of the missionaries. The fact remained, however, that widespread injustice was extremely difficult to uproot ... Even more important than Bartolome de Las Casas was the Bishop of Nicaragua, Antonio de Valdeviso, who ultimately suffered martyrdom for his defense of the Indian."
Francisco de Vitoria, an acclaimed professor of theology during 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. 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.
During the colonial period, the Catholic missions also included efforts by the friars to educate the Amerindians. 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". Pedro de Gante, one of the first missionaries to arrive in Latin America during the colonial era, underscores in his letter to King Charles V of Spain the Spanish missionaries’ efforts to educate the Amerindians. In the letter, he argued that the Amerindians' workload under the Spanish colonists did not allow them to properly “provide for their families and the opportunity to become good Christians. 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.”
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.Noble, pp. 450–451.
Franciscans In 1522, the first Franciscan missionaries arrived in Mexico, establishing schools, model farms and hospitals. The ‘apostolic twelve’ were one of the first groups of friars to arrive in Mexico during the colonial period. The group initiated the “organized effort to evangelize the native people of Mexico.” 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. 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.
When some Europeans questioned whether the Indians were truly human and worthy of baptism, Pope Paul III in the 1537 bull Sublimis Deus confirmed that "their souls were as immortal as those of Europeans" and they should neither be robbed nor turned into slaves.Chadwick, Owen, The Reformation, p. 190.Johansen, p. 110, quote: "In the Papal bull Sublimis deus (1537), Pope Paul III declared that Indians were to be regarded as fully human, and that their souls were as immortal as those of Europeans. This edict also outlawed slavery of Indians in any form ..."Koschorke, p. 290. Over the next 150 years, missions expanded into southwestern North America.Jackson, p. 14. Native people were often legally defined as children, and priests took on a paternalistic role, sometimes enforced with corporal punishment.Jackson, p. 13.
Junípero Serra, the Franciscan priest in charge of this effort, founded a series of missions which became important economic, political, and religious institutions.Norman, The Roman Catholic Church an Illustrated History (2007), pp. 111–2 These missions brought grain, cattle and a new way of living to the Indian tribes of California. Overland routes were established from New Mexico that resulted in the colonization of San Francisco in 1776 and Los Angeles in 1781. 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.King, Mission to Paradise (1975), p. 169
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.Franzen 362 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.Duffy, p. 221. Yet in spite of these advances, the Amerindian population continued to suffer decline from exposure to European diseases.Noble, p. 453.
Dominicans Missionaries of the Dominican Order favored "doctrinal preaching and philosophical argument with religious opponents" as their specific method of evangelization. The Dominican friars gained immense fame as the Amerindians' advocates against "the Spaniards' abuse" and "exploitation of the Indians".
Pedro de Gante was one of the first Dominican friars to arrive in Latin America, and in his letter to King Charles V of Spain, he advocated for the Amerindians' rights. 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.”
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. 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.
Jesuits 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. The Jesuits were often the only force standing between the Native Americans and slavery. 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). These were societies set up according to an idealized theocratic model. 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.
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.
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 reductions were created by the Catholic order of the Jesuits in South America, in areas inhabited by the Tupi-Guarani peoples, which generally corresponds to modern day Paraguay. Later reductions were extended into the areas that correspond to Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay.