A Less and Less Catholic Colombia

Crowds of Bogotanos last night around the Christmas tree on Plaza Bolivar.

A Baptist Church in
central Bogotá.

Christmas is still a huge deal here in Colombia - but, according to a recent survey, it's no longer such a Catholic one.

According to the survey, by the Washington D.C.-based Pew Research Center, Colombia is still one of the region's most Catholic countries, with 79% of the population identifying themselves as Catholic. Paraguay, at 89%, was the most Catholic, and Uruguay, at 42%, the least.

But Colombian Catholics appear to be leaving the religion at the fastest rate. It is the nation with the largest proportion of non-Catholics who were raised as Catholics.

The fastest-growing evangelical churches are Pentecostals, who tend to be fundamentalists who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. As a result, the retreat of the generally conservative Catholic Church could mean that many people are becoming even more conservative in their values.

'As Catholics become more liberal on such questions (as gay rights and abortion), that points to looming American-style “culture wars”,' predicts an article in The Economist.

'Jesus Loves You,' say religious activists on Ave. Septima.

The Catholic Church could be losing adherents for various reasons, including scandals and a decreasing number of priests. (But while the Catholic Church has had headline-making scandals, Colombian evangelicals have as well.) In contrast to Catholicism, in many evangelical churches, almost anybody can become a minister, and celibacy is not required. As a result, Protestant churches can evangelize more actively and create a more personal relationship with members.

Protestant churches can be “family-like,” David Stoll, an anthropology professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, told The Economist.

Faith or materialism?
Christmas vendors
crowd Plaza San Victorino. 

The Pew study found a strong correlation between migration and conversion to Protestantism, probably because of the availability of Protestant ministers available to evangelize them. The evangelical churches are also growing most strongly amongst the poor.

The Catholic Church's slide in the region comes despite the popularity of Pope Francis, the church's first pope from Latin America.

Colombia has been officially secular since it created a new Constitution in 1991. However, its precise relationship to Catholicism is still being defined. Secular organizations recently protested the creation of a commemoration day for Madre Laura, a Catholic nun who evangelized indigenous people and in May of this year became Colombia's first Catholic saint. While a high court ruled in favor of creating a holiday honoring the Madre Laura, it stopped short of making her the patron saint of Colombia's teachers.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Mixing Religion, Politics and Money

Church of God March for Respect. 

The MIRA political party has long been a special case in Colombian politics. The nation's only explicitly religious political party - there is no Catholic party, for example.MIRA was created by the Church of the Ministerial God of Jesus Christ Inrternational, which is controlled by the Piraquive family and has some 800 churches in 45 countries.

Despite the party's extreme conservatism on many issues, it has been a respected participant in Colombian politics, particularly as an advocate for the rights of the underprivileged.

We demand freedom of religion. 

So it was a big surprise when a video leaked in which church leader María Luisa Piraquive said that a disabled person, such as a person missing a limb, should not be permitted to preach in the church.

"The Holy Spirit taught us that for reasons of conscience a preacher in the pulpit should be a person who has all of his members," Piraquive said in the video.

Even Pres. Santos and Vice Pres. Garzon criticized her comments.

Soon after, another video appeared in which Carlos Baena, president of MIRA, asserted that the party should buy votes, because allegedly their political competitors were doing it.

Then things only got worse. A prosecutor investigating suspicions of money laundering ordered searches of two MIRA offices. According to news reports, party employees may have hustled documents out of their office just before the search.

MIRA party activists (Photo: El Tiempo)

The Piraquive family's personal troubles only complicated things. El Tiempo reported that María Luisa Piraquive had expelled one son from the church for being gay, and that another one of her sons had had an illegitimate daughter whom he had refused to recognize until a court forced him to.

Then El Tiempo searched business records in Florida and found eight businesses, including a real estate company and a car wash, as well as a six-bedroom, six-bath mansion, belonging to the Piraquive family.

I ask respect for Dr. Maria Luisa Piraquive.

US officials are now investigating suspicions of money laundering.

MIRA, meanwhile, is fighting for political survival. Unless it obtains 450,000 votes in the next election it will be decertified as a party. On its website, the party says that it's appealing to the United Nations and Organization of American States. The website also contains an article alleging a 'Political Religious Judicial Plot to Eliminate Us.'

Today, thousands of church members (many bused in from outside of Bogotá), marched down Ave. Septima during La Ciclovia.

The evangelicals carried signs demanding religious liberty - a deception, since the issue is the chuch leaders' alleged misbehavior - and asserting their allegiance to church leader Piraquive - which seems worrisomely like personality worship.

The faithful will never doubt.

'In Colombia everybody has the right to freely express their religion.'

Thousands of church members march down Ave. Septima.

'I support Dr. Maria Luisa Piraquive.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Not Always a Saintly Mission

Madre Laura and native Colombias
(Photo: Radio Super Popayan)

The national celebration over the canonization of Madre Laura, Colombia's first saint, should be tempered with reflection on the tragedy of America's indigenous people's since the continent's 'discovery' by Christopher Columbus.

Madre Laura worked tirelessly and selflessly to defend and evangelicize Colombia's native peoples and should be admired and honored for her efforts. I have no doubt that she meant the best and aided many native people.

But evangelization, one of the central themes of Europeans' interaction with Native Americans, has also produced great tragedy. Spreading the Catholic faith was one of Spain's justifications for colonizing the Americas (Spain had just driven the last Arab armies from its territory - and expelled its Jews and Moslems). But spreading Catholicism often became a cover for the exploitation, enslavement and even mass murder of native peoples.

Even in its most benevolent and well-intentioned forms, like Madre Laura's efforts, evangelization permanently changed indigenous people's values and ways of living. In southern Bolivia I saw the results of United States evangelicals' efforts to convince the Ayoreos, a hunter-gatherer people, to switch their faith from an owl to Jesus Christ and settle down around evangelical missions. But after the hunter-gatherers abandonded their traditional lifestyle, they discovered junk food, alcoholism, prostitution, crime and Western diseases such as measles, diabetes and obesity. When I visited them, they were inhabiting plastic and cardboard shacks in slums on the outskirts of the city of Santa Cruz. The slum did have a ramshackle Christian church, tho. I met a daughter of one of the missionaries, who expressed only pride in her parents' accomplishments.

In May 2007 indigenous leaders responded angrily to Pope Benedict's claim that Catholicism was 'not imposed' on native peoples.

"While we are believers" in Christianity, said Luis Andrade, director of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), "we cannot accept that the church tries to deny its responsibility in the aniquilation of our identity and culture."

Of course, Christian evangelicals have not been the only Westerners to impact native cultures. Hunters, miners, soldiers, guerrillas, farmers and slave hunters have all done so, and without the evangelicals benevolent goals. And, evangelicals such as Madre Laura have often defended indigenous peoples and what remains of their culture from such hostile outside forces.

Still, it's hard to think of anything more fundamental to a people's culture and way of life than their religion. So, by replacing that religion with a foreign one, western evangelicals permanently change - and perhaps destroy - native people's ways of life.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Faith and Passion on Plaza Bolivar

An impassioned believer raises her arms. 

'Bogotá, city of God - Halleluya!' Perhaps not everybody would agree. 

The preacher had a real talent for moving the crowd. Of course, they came to be moved. 

Flags waving in front of Plaza Bolívar's Christmas tree. The event mixed faith and patriotism. 

As if there was too little noise, a man hawks colorful horns on the Cathedral's stairs.

The event was organized by the Bethesda Missionary Center, which advertised on this pay phone. So, yes, pay phones are still good for something. 

This man appears all over selling Bibles on CD.

Capitalism and faith do mix. This man was selling flags to believers. 

Pigeons scared by the yelling fly in front of the Justice palace. 

Arms raised on the Cathedral's steps. 

A woman wheels away an old man in a wheelchair. 

A vendor arrives carrying cobs of corn on her head. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours