The largest Catholic country in the world
The Roman Catholic Apostolic religion, the state religion until the advent of the republic in 1889, remains the country's main religion. 64% of Brazilians still profess to be Roman Catholic. Introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese in the early days of colonization, it covered the country with a mantle of churches. In the name of the King of Portugal and the Church, Jesuit missionaries evangelized the natives and slaves. The various orders contributed to the social control of the faithful, in close collaboration with the temporal authorities. Religious art, and Baroque art in particular, also conquered minds. The Catholic Church has long been on the side of the powerful - emperors in the past, political and economic elites today. However, in breaking with the papacy and the high clergy, certain religious groups and clerics took the message of the Gospels literally and sided with the weak and oppressed. The episode of the Canudos War (1883-1887), which put a bloody end to a mystical utopia in the Bahian Sertão, is a good illustration of this rupture between the Church above and the Church below. In the 1970s, liberation theology priests helped to set up the Basic Ecclesiastical Councils that assisted in the creation of the Landless Movement (MST), among others.
The process of secularization would affect Brazilian society in the 20th century, but despite the separation of Church and State, the weight of religion and the Catholic Church remained inescapable in Brazil. However, the omnipotence of the original Catholic Church has been replaced by Protestant and Evangelical churches, which are increasingly powerful and influential both socially and politically.
A rise in the power of evangelical churches
One of the other components is the evangelical churches, a complex nebula to which 22% of Brazilians now ascribe. While their presence is clearly visible in urban and rural Brazilian society, their important social, economic and political role is often less so. The links between evangelical "lobbies" and certain influential members of society (politicians, footballers) are now visible. Established between 1910 and 1980 in Brazil, evangelical churches can be divided into 3 categories: Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal, Mission Evangelical and Other Evangelical. All these churches rest on the same basic precept: the Bible is the Word of God. It must therefore be referred to in all circumstances. Unlike the Catholic Church, they do not believe in saints.
Pentecostal churches preach baptism by the Holy Spirit. It's an almost mystical experience, which often leads to a form of worship that's festive or highly emotional... and very televisual. Neo-Pentecostal churches developed from the 1970s onwards, and advocate the search for spiritual as well as physical and economic well-being. They attract the underprivileged. Mission Evangelicals are those who join "classic" Protestant churches, as in Europe and North America. A very small minority, they represent 4% of Brazilians. Lutherans, Baptists, Anglicans and Presbyterians are the best-known churches.
Another church, little known in France despite the fact that its founder, Allan Kardec, a Breton, came from there, is the Spiritist Church. 2% of Brazilians claim to be followers. Allan Kardec sought to unite philosophy, science and religion to better understand the material and metaphysical worlds.
10%of Brazilians are atheists or claim to follow no particular religion. Despite the secularization of Brazilian society, atheism remains minimal. Even in the most left-leaning political parties, religion remains a sensitive subject, as it permeates hearts and minds beyond ideologies.
Afro-Brazilian cults very present
Finally, Afro-Brazilian cults are African heritages in Brazil. Just under 2% of Brazilians claim to be official followers. It is possible that some practice this cult in parallel with the Catholic religion. Some slaves were Muslims, but many others were animists or polytheists. Afro-Brazilian cults were formed through the syncretism of different religious practices originating in Africa. Communities born of slavery had to hide from their "masters" and the dreaded Catholic Church in order to practice their cults. To avoid extinction, Afro-Brazilian cults merged with the Christian cult of saints and Christ (with the Orixas). These cults are usually grouped into two main branches, candomblé and umbanda, but there are many more. Candomblé is originally a Bahian cult, while umbanda is thought to have developed in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Brazil's Sudeste region, particularly in Rio and São Paulo. Common features include the worship of orixás (African gods likened to Christian saints), trances during which members of the terreiro (place of worship) are "visited" or ridden by the spirit of their orixás, who is in fact their patron saint, and syncretism with the Catholic religion. It was two Frenchmen, sociologist Roger Bastide and photographer-ethnologist Pierre "Fatumbi" Vergé, who enabled Brazil to reclaim its African memory by presenting Brazil and the world with remarkable studies and exhibitions on Afro-Brazilian cults and places of worship in Brazil, at a time (the 1950s-60s) when any manifestation of the country's African origins was shunned.
