Brazil is a Catholic country, but Brazil is also a country of religious openness, of a variety of faiths, of syncretism. This is what gives a sort of bitter – sweet character to Brazilian religiosity.
The country was officially Catholic for four centuries, from the Portuguese discovery in 1500 to the end of the Empire in 1889, and the law officially proscribed other religions as illegal. In its status as “Patron”, the Church formed an alliance with the kings of Portugal, and later with the Emperors of Brazil.
However, many official institutions did not penetrate into the society that was being formed in Brazil to any great extent. The Church, as well as the State, was a centralized organization in the capital, and became less and less influential the further afield it spread in the colonial territories. This institutional fragility is a feature of Latin-American Catholicism to this day.
About 80% of the present parishes of Brazil were organized in the twentieth century, and 50% since the 1950s. The parishes cover very extensive areas and serve large populations. While a parish in France has an average area of 15 km2 and serves around 1,283 of the faithful, in South America these numbers jump to 1,000 km2 and 14,036 people.
In consequence, “Dispensation” became the predominant characteristic. The priest would journey through the vast area for which he was responsible, “dispensing” the faithful from performance of their canonical obligations: he baptised, performed marriages, preached and “regularized situations”, before moving on to the next village. The faithful remained behind and the priest passed through. This resulted in a kind of Catholicism which, in the popular saying, was characterized by “few priests, few masses and a lot of festivals”.
Few priests and few masses meant little control in matters of doctrine. The majority of Brazilian Catholics take the official teachings of the Church with a considerable dose of salt. The notion of orthodoxy itself is almost absent. Nowhere in Brazilian religion is there the assumption that, for the sake of doctrinal coherence, people must believe in a single version of the sacred teachings.
In practice, the devotions of Brazilian Catholics are guided by the liturgical calendar. With or without a priest, every day is a saint’s day, presenting itself as an opportunity for festivities and every kind of private devotion. Shrines in the home, chapels by the roadside, processions, pilgrimages, vows, recitations of the rosary, sisterhoods, all these customs could be practised under lay leadership and led by local revellers.
The cult of the saints was, therefore, held in high regard, while the Eucharist was relegated to second place. The “protection” given by patron saints in the face of the uncertainties of life became a central part of many beliefs and practices. Masses were undoubtedly important, but only in special circumstances or extraordinary situations. According to the figures issued by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE – PNAD, 1988), only 17% of Catholics go to mass regularly once a week.
Since it is hardly regulated by the official Church, the cult of the saints has opened itself up to a series of syncretic links. In Amazonia, where indigenous traditions are stronger, Catholic saints of transatlantic origin form a counterpoint with spirits who inhabit “the depths” of forests and rivers. Pajelança, practised by lay priests, guides the Catholic faithful in the use of sacred herbs and in the rituals involving “enchanted” beings who live in the depths of the waters.
Even in the Colonial era, the Inquisition had warned of African influences on the beliefs of the Portuguese in Brazil. Combining saints of medieval origin, whose feast days involved everyone, and spirits venerated by the slaves, who were sometimes taken up by the slave owners, Brazilian society weaved an intricate web of religious practices.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Nago traditions combined with ancestral memories of Africa and resulted in cults which spread throughout Brazil. Candomblé in Bahia, Xangô in Recife, Mina in Maranhão, are all varieties of a common set of beliefs and practices. In each case, the Afro-Brazilian cult merged with the calendar of the Catholic Church, adopted the observances of Lent and Easter as a sign of respect for the great drama of Christ’s death and resurrection, and combined the feasts of the orixás with the feasts of the saints.
The original differences between European and African religion were marked, but participation in each other’s beliefs crossed the boundaries of race and class. In Brazil, religion does not imply an exclusive cultural identity. Blacks and whites share rituals by day and by night, and the beliefs handed down by the slaves are widely held today among the middle classes.
A third current of belief was introduced by Kardecist Spiritualism, which has grown in Brazil since the nineteenth century. Although it is based on Christianity, the distinguishing feature of spiritualism is communication with souls. This helps the individual soul to find and follow the right path in the vast process of evolution, which it does through successive reincarnations.
Contact with the souls of the dead was already an important practice in the Iberian tradition, associated with the medieval doctrine of purgatory. Even today, every Monday is devoted to the souls of the dead, and candles are lit throughout the country, illuminating the prayers for the dead. Spiritualism has developed this aspect of Portuguese religiosity, lending it ritual solemnity and a new theoretical basis.
Saints, orixás and souls made up such a rich tapestry of spiritual beings that a new religion came into being, with decidedly Brazilian characteristics. This was Umbanda, a creation of the twentieth century. Umbanda venerates the Catholic saints and the African orixás, but there is also room for spiritual guides of another kind, namely disembodied spirits of purely local significance who do not form part of the hierarchies of conventional religions.
Examples of such spirits are the ‘caboclo’, a free and daring figure from the forest; the ‘preto velho’ (old black man), a slave worn out by a lifetime of work, but full of wisdom; the ‘exus’ and the ‘povo das ruas’ (mischievous little spirits), such as the rascal Zé Pilintra, the dancing prostitutes, the gypsies or the cattleman, and the naughty children. Umbanda demonstrated by its success that Brazilian Catholics love to listen to voices from the margins of society.
This readiness to assimilate new beliefs has shown its potential with advances in communications. Japanese immigrants brought with them beliefs like Perfect Liberty or the Messianic Church, which have attracted significant numbers of Brazilians from different backgrounds. Oriental meditation systems, Bhuddism, Sufism, esoteric mysticism, ufology, all have found fertile territory for expansion, particularly among the middle classes.
In the midst of this profusion of spiritual beliefs, there have been some important reactions in recent decades. Two in particular stand out: Liberation Theology and the evangelical and pentecostal movements. Both focus their attention on the central thesis of Christian tradition, ignoring, or even condemning, communications with souls, guides, orixás, avatars and saints. Their message is one of reform and is likely to influence the modernization of Brazilian religious culture.
Liberation Theology reached its height in the 1970s and 1980s. It advocated a historical interpretation of the death and resurrection of Christ, in a return to the messianic tradition of Judaism. organized in small communities for the purpose of Bible reading (the Basic Church Communities – Comunidades Eclesiais de Base – CEBs) or in pastoral groups devoted to social movements (land, indigenous peoples, children etc), it developed a social vision of the Christian promise of salvation.
The evangelicals and pentecostals are also organized in local congregations, with a high rate of participation by members, where the message of salvation is particularly directed to individuals and their interpersonal relationships. Illness, family conflicts, money and job problems, are all the object of prayer with a view to cure and redemption. Inspired by the presence of the Holy Spirit, evangelical and pentecostal religions have shown impressive growth. They constitute the major religious phenomenon of the end of the twentieth century. Their message is that it is necessary to be “born again”, to turn one’s back on the past, and open oneself to radical changes in one’s way of life, inspired solely and exclusively by Jesus Christ.
Catholicism is a wide ranging religion, which seeks to embrace all the varieties of human experience. Brazilian Catholicism has fulfilled this mission by opening itself up to various syncretist combinations. The result is a religious culture which is capable of harbouring as many views as are presented to it in the history of communication between peoples. It has not been free of conflicts, but it has dealt with them, at the level of religious belief, with a remarkable degree of tolerance and a veritable curiosity as to truths which are yet to be revealed.