Brasil, 20 July 2013: The organizers of World Youth Day expect more than a million
young pilgrims from 170 countries in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil is a land with approximately
123 million Catholics and more than 400 bishops: the country with the largest number
of Catholics in the world.
Despite these numbers, according to a Report of
the "Pew Research Center", published this week and sent to Fides Agency, the Catholic
percentage of the population of Brazil has decreased in recent decades. On the other
hand - noted the text of the study center based in USA - the percentage of Brazilians
belonging to Protestant churches is increasing, as is the percentage of Brazilians
who identify themselves with other religions or with no creed.
The report
of the "Pew Research Center" sent to Fides reports that between 1970 and 2000, the
percentage of the population that identifies itself as Catholics has declined, although
the number of Catholics in the country has increased. The Catholic population of Brazil
has decreased slightly, from 125 million in 2000 to 123 million a decade later, going
from 74% to 65% of the total population of the country. In contrast, during the same
period, the number of Brazilian Protestants continued to grow from 26 million in 2000
to 42 million in 2010, a particularly relevant increase among the Pentecostals.
According
to a census carried out in Brazil in 1991, about 6% of the population belonged to
Pentecostal or neo-Pentecostal churches. In 2010, this proportion had grown to 13%.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Brazilians who identify themselves with historical Protestant
denominations, such as Baptists and Presbyterians, has remained fairly constant over
the past two decades, from 3% to 4% of the population.
More worryingly, according
to the report, is that the growth of Protestantism seems to be a consequence of the
"religious switching", ie the passage of the faithful from the Catholic Church to
other communities. For the Catholic Church the tendency to "lose popularity among
younger Brazilians and among the inhabitants of the city" seems to be accelerating
in recent years: the organizers of World Youth Day are hoping that a charismatic and
Latin American Pope, who will express himself in Portuguese and Spanish, is able to
make a contribution in order to revitalize the Brazilian church. Source: Fides