Is it a watered-down gospel, do you think? Or is it more a matter of poor catechesis of born Catholics, such that, when they first really encounter the gospel presented with force and conviction, it’s from the hands of Protestant missionaries?
And how exactly is the gospel “more appealing” coming from Protestant missionaries?
Do Protestant missionaries focus on a “health and wealth” type gospel?
Because in the US, I don’t think that’s a particularly big factor with respect to Catholics leaving the Church, but there may be a different dynamic in place in Latin America.
I’m very curious – what is really going on down there?
Ok, I’m going to try and address this briefly since this is one of my actual areas of expertise. I’m a Latin American historian by profession. The issue is complex and it’s happening for a variety of reasons, but one that’s been overlooked is POVERTY. Now, this may seem strange, since the Catholic Church is generally good at addressing this issue through charity, but here’s what happens. A missionary church will come into a region as a charitable organization. "Hey! We’re here to bring electricity to your village! How about clean water? These missionary churches will focus on a particular area and greatly improve the quality of life in that region. These are areas usually that for one reason or another have failed to receive much in the way of Catholic charity assistance. Sometimes it’s due to war, sometimes politics, and sometimes, it’s just off the beaten path. But, they move in and actually do some legitimate good. They see the group actually helping their community, and many “convert”. Others in the region will then approach them, saying they’d like to convert too, if it means that they’ll get some of those great improvements for their communities too. Some of these conversions will be genuine, but in many cases, people who are nominal Catholics already will convert simply to win improvements. A few even revert back when they leave.
It is for this reason that the Maryknoll Catholic Missionaries have become a major presence in Latin America. They typically work in areas where there are few Catholics, esp. Asia, but in Latin America, their goal is RE-conversion. Often, they use the same techniques. They’ll go back into the same town that was improved, improve it more, and demonstrate the doctrinal errors in various public and private forums. Some people realize they were foolish to convert and revert back, sometimes more dedicated to the faith. In some very sad cases, however, there becomes a “charity” war, and the two groups keep battling it out over the same community.
In Guatemala, politics plays a very specific role in why people were converting. The elites (often corrupt) tend to go overseas to be educated and are often Protestant. The poor are Catholic. The split in Guatemala right now is something like 50/50 Catholic/Protestant, and it’s pretty politically charged with lots of violence.
In Mexico, the issue was land reform in the early 1900s. Due to the policy of mortmain (literally, “dead hand”), the Catholic Church was allowed to keep any land willed to it in perpetuity. In the 100 years since Mexico had earned its independence, that resulted in huge tracts of (often unutilized) land being possessed by the Church. Importantly, many rich Mexicans, in league with American foreign investors, owned huge tracts of land too. For example, the Terrazas-Creel family in northern Mexico once owned a ranch larger than the state of Connecticut! When they Mexican Revolution occurred, any large landholder was severly persecuted, and this included the Church, which was seen to have too much power. The resulting government was highly anticlerical, even going to the extent of arresting a priest for wearing clerical garb outside of a church.
I could go on, and on, and on. Suffice it to say that the issue is amazingly complex, and different for almost every country.
