05-04-2007, 07:06 PM
x-posted from Laks in BR
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070503/lf_nm/...ope_religion_dc
<b>Rising Protestant tide sweeps Catholic Brazil</b>
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Conversions like da Silva's are increasingly common all over Brazil, where a boom in evangelical Protestantism is steadily chipping away at the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
The trend, which is playing out all across Latin America, poses a major challenge for
Pope Benedict, who arrives in Brazil on May 9 for a five-day visit largely aimed at blunting the decline of Catholicism in this continent-sized nation.
Although Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, with about 125 million, the percentage of believers that practice the Vatican's brand of Christianity has been dropping rapidly in the last three decades.
When the late
Pope John Paul II visited Brazil in 1980, 89 percent of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. By 2000, when the last census was taken, <b>the share of Catholics in the population had fallen to 74 percent.</b>
The number of evangelical Protestants nearly tripled in the same period to 26 million, or about 15 percent of the population. <b>That growth, which is expected to continue, is dramatically altering the religious landscape of a country where the national identity has been intertwined with Catholicism since the Portuguese landed 500 years ago.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read this with respect to the above book review. US is on a plan to become the Second Roman Empire without the baggage of the the Pope and Roman Catholicism.
All these Jesus denigrating stories are US originated.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070503/lf_nm/...ope_religion_dc
<b>Rising Protestant tide sweeps Catholic Brazil</b>
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Conversions like da Silva's are increasingly common all over Brazil, where a boom in evangelical Protestantism is steadily chipping away at the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
The trend, which is playing out all across Latin America, poses a major challenge for
Pope Benedict, who arrives in Brazil on May 9 for a five-day visit largely aimed at blunting the decline of Catholicism in this continent-sized nation.
Although Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, with about 125 million, the percentage of believers that practice the Vatican's brand of Christianity has been dropping rapidly in the last three decades.
When the late
Pope John Paul II visited Brazil in 1980, 89 percent of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. By 2000, when the last census was taken, <b>the share of Catholics in the population had fallen to 74 percent.</b>
The number of evangelical Protestants nearly tripled in the same period to 26 million, or about 15 percent of the population. <b>That growth, which is expected to continue, is dramatically altering the religious landscape of a country where the national identity has been intertwined with Catholicism since the Portuguese landed 500 years ago.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read this with respect to the above book review. US is on a plan to become the Second Roman Empire without the baggage of the the Pope and Roman Catholicism.
All these Jesus denigrating stories are US originated.