Word: brazile
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Wednesday, as he flew toward his much anticipated five-day trip in Brazil, the Pope addressed the question of the "good standing" of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights - a delicate issue that has come up in the U.S., Europe and, most recently, Mexico. During an unprecedented 25-minute on-flight press conference, Benedict left little room for interpretation: pro-choice politicians not only should be denied communion, but face outright excommunication from the Church for supporting "the killing of a human child." The Pope's declaration came in response to recent comments from the spokesman of the Mexican bishops...
...Still, on the eve of his successor's first trip to Brazil - Benedict XVI touches down in Sao Paulo on Wednesday for a five-day visit - there is some encouraging news for the Holy See. New figures show that the exodus of worshipers to Protestantism has stopped. Government census data show that in 2003 73.8% of Brazilians declared themselves Catholics, almost exactly the same number (73.9%) as three years earlier. The number of Protestants did rise to 17.9% from 16.2%, but those joining Protestant denominations, rather than disaffected Catholics, were unhappy followers of other religions or people who had previously...
...Neri identified two factors behind the slowdown: The stabilization of Brazil's economy after decades of boom and bust; and the adoption by local Catholic diocese of some of the methods that brought success to the Protestant denominations...
...past, the Vatican frowned upon such figures and anything resembling a commercial show of faith, but the success of these methods in fighting the Protestant encroachment has prompted Rome to adopt a more convenient silence on the issue, both in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. The question now is whether that high-energy devotion to Jesus, Mary and Benedict can prevent further erosion of Roman Catholicism in a region that boasts almost half the world's devotees...
...numbers between 33% and 40%, according to Dr. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Interim Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Texas. Every nation in this once homogenously Catholic continent has a bedrock of Catholic support that will never be eroded, and the numbers presented in Brazil last week may be a sign that those willing to choose an alternative have already done so. "It doesn't surprise me," Garrard-Burnett said of the study's findings. "You just see Protestant growth plateau and I think that may be true in Brazil...