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Notes
Brazilian Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) with its Temple of Solomon in São Paulo; Mexican (Iglesia de la Luz del Mundo) Church of the Light of the World in the Hermosa Provincia neighbourhood in Guadalajara, Jalisco, the so called “Beautiful Province.”.
The Instituto Patria, the progressive Jesuits’ college in Mexico City, which had trained for generations, at high cost, only the children of the local elites, perpetuated in such a way social inequalities. Only recently the order got rid of the school and used its resources to launch a wide variety of social integration and development projects in grassroots areas. It is just an example that the book gives of some contradictions within liberal Latin American, post-liberation theology Church.
In spite of the statistics saying that 94.1% of Haitians are Christians, it is common to hear that 100% are Voodoo, which brings us to the problem with methodology of collecting religious data discussed in the final chapter of the book.
It is important to cite here that only in 2019 the Catholic Church inaugurated the first new church constructions since 1959, in spite of the fact that Catholicism remained a potent agent in Cuban civil society, providing services unavailable on the island, advocating with the Cuban government on the conditions and the release of political prisoners, the economy, inequality in Cuban society, access to mass media and public religious education.
There are many repetitions throughout the book. Just a few examples: a case of the so-called “Pope’s Cross” in Uruguay; the examples of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God; the mentions of the local religious leaders political involvement (the last name of pastor Silas Malafaia appears a few times, however, unfortunately also with serious spelling mistakes, for instance as “Lalafaia”). In some chapters there are unnecessary general introductions (making the book have several “beginnings” and several “ends”), or some authorial definitions of the same phenomena, of which (Neo)Pentecostal/Independent churches are chief examples.
Some examples: “In the mid-twentieth century in Latin America, capitalism was used as a force to combat communism following the revolution in Cuba. That is when the USA and the Vatican forged an attack on Central and South American countries to prevent this part of the Americas from becoming communist. The USA, via the CIA and the School of the Americas, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, along with the Vatican crushed many forms of revolutionary movements throughout Latin America. The stories are known; military coups and killings were everywhere. The history of the mid-twentieth century continued the history of the preceding 500 years, a history of genocide and the crushing of the people. To this day, Latin America has been uprooted, pillaged, stolen, murdered, destroyed, extracted, devastated, ruined, kidnapped, raped and devastated.”.
“Carlos Mugica, 11 May 1974, Argentina: reference priest of the movement of the “villeros priests” of Argentina. • Mártires Palotinos, 4 July 1976, Argentina: priests Alfredo Leaden, Alfredo Kelly and Pedro Duffau, and seminarians Salvador Barbeito and Emilio Barletti, who were developing their pastoral mission in the deprived villages of Bajo Belgrano. • Mártires de la Rioja, 1976, Argentina: Enrique Angelelli, 4 August 1976, Argentinian Catholic bishop, assassinated by the Argentinian dictatorship; Wenceslao Pedernera, 27 July 1976, Catholic lay person, assassinated by the Argentinian dictatorship; Gabriel Longueville and Carlos Murias, 18 July 1976, protagonists of the grassroots pastoral engagement of the La Rioja Diocese, assassinated by the Argentinian dictatorship. • Mauricio López, 1 January 1977, Argentina: Protestant lay person, first provost of the Universidad Nacional San Luis, active with the World Council of Churches. • Alice Dumont and Leonie Duquet, 8 December 1977, Argentina: French nuns who boosted the Agrarian Leagues in Corrientes. They accompanied the beginning of the struggle of the mothers and grandmothers in Plaza de Mayo. When they helped make the first list of detainees and those who had “disappeared,” both nuns were detained and went missing. • Mauricio Lefevre, 21 August 1971, Bolivia: Canadian missionary, cofounder of the Sociology track at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (Higher University of San Andrés) and human rights defender. • Luis Espinal, 22 March 1980, Bolivia: Jesuit communications specialist and co-founder of the Human Rights Assembly. • Enrique Pereira Neto, 26 May 1969, Brazil: priest, educator and coordinator of the youth programme of the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife. • Tito de Alencar, 10 August 1974, Brazil: Dominican friar, militant of the National Students Union. • João Bosco Penido Burnier, 12 October 1976, Brazil: Jesuit missionary.”.
Perhaps it would be good to provide at least one example: of a very popular, especially in Brazilian Northeastern arid inlands, Father Cícero from Juazeiro, mentioned in the book shortly in the excerpt on Millenarism. He is, nevertheless, worth many more words as someone, who, more than a century after his excommunication by Vatican, but canonization in 1973 by the Brazilian Apostolic Catholic Church, was finally reconciled with the Church (2015) and in 2022 the beginning of his beatification process was announced.
As Authors explain by themselves: “Unless otherwise designated, the demographic figures in this book, both in the color section and in the tables throughout, are from the World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill). This essay offers a concise explanation of methods and sources related to the database. It is adapted from longer treatments in Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim, The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) and Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo, World Christian Encyclopedia, 3rd edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019).”.
“Virgin was assimilated to Yemanja, the pre-Columbian Indian goddess” – Yemanjá is in fact an African origin, Yoruba goddess, which would need clarifying.
Let us make, to show the point, a close-up on HDI data included in the chapter on Ecuador: it would be useful if all the Authors included the same basic information on their countries for comparison. Otherwise, data on HDI in just one case is not meaningful as any determining factor of the regional religious panorama and it does not let the reader put Ecuador on the HDI regional and global map.
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Siuda-Ambroziak, R. Kenneth R. Ross, Ana María Bidegain and Todd M. Johnson (eds.): Christianity in Latin America and the Caribbean. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. ISBN: 978 1 4744 9214 0 (hardback); 978 1 4744 9216 4 (webready PDF); 978 1 4744 9217 1 (epub), 554 p. Int J Lat Am Relig (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-023-00205-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-023-00205-w