Protestantism and Syncretism in Southern/Central America

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One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how pagan much of Central and Southern America seem to be. I went on a school mission trip to Tactic, Guatemala when I was in high school, and in that region many of the Catholic priests were also openly practicing Mayan priests, as evidenced by the corn sacrifices done in front of a stone cross behind one of the churches, in addition to many of the other distinctively Mayan witchcraft rituals that took place there and in other places. Compared to the heavily witchcraft-influenced and/or nominal brand of Catholicism that seemed to inhabit the region, admittedly the Protestant mission group going into the region seemed like a significant improvement. This also seems to be the case in other places, such as Mexico, which blends its Catholicism with ancient superstition through celebrations like El Dia Los Muertos. These hybrid cultures of Catholicism and witchcraft are, of course, a mess, and inevitably these are the regions that Protestant ministries often target for mission work.

I guess what I’m wondering is this: Why are so many ostensibly Catholic countries such a mess, compared to the traditionally Protestant northern hemisphere? Is the presence of devout Protestantism in these areas technically an improvement over the nominal quasi-Catholic paganism that inhabit these regions? Perhaps most importantly, are there any Catholic efforts to bring these regions back to orthodoxy, perhaps even sometimes in spite of the corrupt or heretical clergy in those regions?

I know of the brother of a friend who is a seminarian in a priestly religious order operating out of Southern America, and if I remember correctly their big focus is to reach more remote people groups that don’t have access to the Gospel; outside of that, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Catholics doing mission work in so-called Catholic countries.

Basically, I know nothing about this issue, except that Protestants keep going to ****** Catholic countries and tidying things up down there, and I’m hoping the Catholic Church is also making efforts to “reform” these regions the correct way instead.
 
Hmmm… Interesting.

As I protestant, it should come as no surprise that I would say “yes, it is good.” Anything that draws people closer to Christ is good, however, and if faithful Catholicism were to displace unfaithful mainstream Protestant in, say, Europe (or for that matter, some parts of the US), I wouldn’t have a problem. The point to me is Christ and to grow the church in faithfulness towards Him. Though I am also curious to see if there are any reform elements going on in this region. If not, hopefully our incursion shall trigger a reform, right? 😃 😉
 
Caname said:
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how pagan much of Central and Southern America seem to be. I went on a school mission trip to Tactic, Guatemala when I was in high school, and in that region many of the Catholic priests were also openly practicing Mayan priests, as evidenced by the corn sacrifices done in front of a stone cross behind one of the churches, in addition to many of the other distinctively Mayan witchcraft rituals that took place there and in other places. Compared to the heavily witchcraft-influenced and/or nominal brand of Catholicism that seemed to inhabit the region, admittedly the Protestant mission group going into the region seemed like a significant improvement. This also seems to be the case in other places, such as Mexico, which blends its Catholicism with ancient superstition through celebrations like El Dia Los Muertos. These hybrid cultures of Catholicism and witchcraft are, of course, a mess, and inevitably these are the regions that Protestant ministries often target for mission work.

I guess what I’m wondering is this: Why are so many ostensibly Catholic countries such a mess, compared to the traditionally Protestant northern hemisphere? Is the presence of devout Protestantism in these areas technically an improvement over the nominal quasi-Catholic paganism that inhabit these regions? Perhaps most importantly, are there any Catholic efforts to bring these regions back to orthodoxy, perhaps even sometimes in spite of the corrupt or heretical clergy in those regions?

I know of the brother of a friend who is a seminarian in a priestly religious order operating out of Southern America, and if I remember correctly their big focus is to reach more remote people groups that don’t have access to the Gospel; outside of that, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Catholics doing mission work in so-called Catholic countries.

Basically, I know nothing about this issue, except that Protestants keep going to ****** Catholic countries and tidying things up down there, and I’m hoping the Catholic Church is also making efforts to “reform” these regions the correct way instead.
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Get out the fishing poles…
 
Caname said:
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how pagan much of Central and Southern America seem to be. I went on a school mission trip to Tactic, Guatemala when I was in high school, and in that region many of the Catholic priests were also openly practicing Mayan priests, as evidenced by the corn sacrifices done in front of a stone cross behind one of the churches, in addition to many of the other distinctively Mayan witchcraft rituals that took place there and in other places. Compared to the heavily witchcraft-influenced and/or nominal brand of Catholicism that seemed to inhabit the region, admittedly the Protestant mission group going into the region seemed like a significant improvement. This also seems to be the case in other places, such as Mexico, which blends its Catholicism with ancient superstition through celebrations like El Dia Los Muertos. These hybrid cultures of Catholicism and witchcraft are, of course, a mess, and inevitably these are the regions that Protestant ministries often target for mission work.
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One thing to consider is the Spanish colonization of the Americas, that the Spanish forced the Mayans, Incans and Aztecs to convert to Catholicism. Since it was basically forced mass conversion and the alternative is the sword, or perhaps the Spanish authorities were simply not that successful and effective in evangelizing Catholicism to the natives, perhaps their strategy is to tolerate some aspects and remnants of the ancient native religions in the hope that the natives will soon gradually accept Catholicism. This was not restricted to the Americas as well, this is also what happened in the Philippines where the ancient native religion co-existed with Catholicism and where the Spanish also ruled as well. You can search for more of these info on history on other sources to clear things up.
Caname said:
I guess what I’m wondering is this: Why are so many ostensibly Catholic countries such a mess, compared to the traditionally Protestant northern hemisphere?
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What’s happening in Latin America is not an anomaly, this is the case in all regions if you introduce a new religion to a locale with a pre-existing established older religion, elements of the old and the new religion syncretize such as the syncretization of the Norse mythos with Catholicism and Protestantism in Scandinavia.
Caname said:
Is the presence of devout Protestantism in these areas technically an improvement over the nominal quasi-Catholic paganism that inhabit these regions? Perhaps most importantly, are there any Catholic efforts to bring these regions back to orthodoxy, perhaps even sometimes in spite of the corrupt or heretical clergy in those regions?
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Though we can admit that Protestants rooting out remnants of pagan practices is good, Catholics rooting out remnants of pagan practices is better. No one told us that the Church tolerates pagan practices and syncretic religion and as far as I know, the Church has been generally opposed to pseudo-Catholic folk religious practices such as the Vatican condemning the cult of Santa Muerte death god in Mexico and its refusal to canonize dubious saints such as the drug pusher Mexican saint. Protestants and Catholics are united in rooting out and opposing folk religious, pagan and syncretic practices since it is not the matter of Christians to mess with non-Christian religious beliefs
Caname said:
I know of the brother of a friend who is a seminarian in a priestly religious order operating out of Southern America, and if I remember correctly their big focus is to reach more remote people groups that don’t have access to the Gospel; outside of that, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Catholics doing mission work in so-called Catholic countries.

Basically, I know nothing about this issue, except that Protestants keep going to ****** Catholic countries and tidying things up down there, and I’m hoping the Catholic Church is also making efforts to “reform” these regions the correct way instead.
Click to expand...
Perhaps there are lapses in evangelization and reach-out efforts to communities to be dealt with and we should pray that the Church make solutions to this issue. However, basically based on my observation, these pagan practices generally vanish when the Church is more active and interacting with the community as catechists go on to do education and when laymen’s understanding of doctrine and theology develop, they leave pagan practices. It’s just an observation since even I don’t understand how the phenomenon works.

Note that I am not speaking in a Latin American perspective since I do not know what the Latin Americans are up to or what the Church there is doing. Since our Pope came from there, things can’t be that bad there ~.

However, regarding the priests doing Mayan rituals, I have no authority and do not know of procedures that will be done in such issue, but is there news of it reaching out to the higher authorities? There is something fishy there.
 
CrucisLucia said:
One thing to consider is the Spanish colonization of the Americas, that the Spanish forced the Mayans, Incans and Aztecs to convert to Catholicism. Since it was basically forced mass conversion and the alternative is the sword, or perhaps the Spanish authorities were simply not that successful and effective in evangelizing Catholicism to the natives, perhaps their strategy is to tolerate some aspects and remnants of the ancient native religions in the hope that the natives will soon gradually accept Catholicism. This was not restricted to the Americas as well, this is also what happened in the Philippines where the ancient native religion co-existed with Catholicism and where the Spanish also ruled as well. You can search for more of these info on history on other sources to clear things up.

.
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You are very wrong. The Spanish were not “unsuccessful” in evangelizing the natives.

The “syncretism”, or rather the **inculturation **of Christianity into the local society were conscious policy by the first missionaries of Mexico. They intentionally learned the native language and the indigenous religion in order find the analogies and intersections. Read about Pedro de Grante, for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_de_Gante .
There is nothing wrong with inculturation. Every religion has particles of truth in it. There is nothing wrong in believing that local mythology and religion were a prefiguration of the coming of Christ.
 
Caname said:
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how pagan much of Central and Southern America seem to be. I went on a school mission trip to Tactic, Guatemala when I was in high school, and in that region many of the Catholic priests were also openly practicing Mayan priests, as evidenced by the corn sacrifices done in front of a stone cross behind one of the churches, in addition to many of the other distinctively Mayan witchcraft rituals that took place there and in other places. Compared to the heavily witchcraft-influenced and/or nominal brand of Catholicism that seemed to inhabit the region, admittedly the Protestant mission group going into the region seemed like a significant improvement. This also seems to be the case in other places, such as Mexico, which blends its Catholicism with ancient superstition through celebrations like El Dia Los Muertos. These hybrid cultures of Catholicism and witchcraft are, of course, a mess, and inevitably these are the regions that Protestant ministries often target for mission work.

I guess what I’m wondering is this: Why are so many ostensibly Catholic countries such a mess, compared to the traditionally Protestant northern hemisphere? Is the presence of devout Protestantism in these areas technically an improvement over the nominal quasi-Catholic paganism that inhabit these regions? Perhaps most importantly, are there any Catholic efforts to bring these regions back to orthodoxy, perhaps even sometimes in spite of the corrupt or heretical clergy in those regions?

I know of the brother of a friend who is a seminarian in a priestly religious order operating out of Southern America, and if I remember correctly their big focus is to reach more remote people groups that don’t have access to the Gospel; outside of that, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Catholics doing mission work in so-called Catholic countries.

Basically, I know nothing about this issue, except that Protestants keep going to ****** Catholic countries and tidying things up down there, and I’m hoping the Catholic Church is also making efforts to “reform” these regions the correct way instead.
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In my opinion, every country (society, culture) passes the stage where it wants to “cleanse”, “purify” its religion of “superstitions”. The Protestant Reformation was one of them. Now the Latin American societies are passing through the same stage.
This is not a bad intention by itself. However, this “purification” always creates a risk of cutting off the spiritual roots of the civilisation, which connect it to the Truth.

The Protestant countries may be not a “mess” in respect of their cleansing themselves of all traditions and “superstitions”. However, they are the real mess nowadays, if you look at the decline of religion and faith in them. The Catholic countries are doing better in preserving the faith, because our faith is truly traditional, retaining the ages long natural spirituality. The Protestant countries have cut the wild forest of tradition and have set up an artificial “park” of trees, with no history and no life in it. Now they are reaping the fruits of that.
 
JurisPrudens said:
You are very wrong. The Spanish were not “unsuccessful” in evangelizing the natives.

The “syncretism”, or rather the **inculturation **of Christianity into the local society were conscious policy by the first missionaries of Mexico. They intentionally learned the native language and the indigenous religion in order find the analogies and intersections. Read about Pedro de Grante, for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_de_Gante .
There is nothing wrong with inculturation. Every religion has particles of truth in it. There is nothing wrong in believing that local mythology and religion were a prefiguration of the coming of Christ.
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Note that I am not a historian on the topic, merely someone offering possible explanations.

So, it was a conscious policy of the Spanish clergy to inculturate the old pantheon to the natives. That is probably why it persisted.

Yes, indeed, there is nothing wrong with inculturation but it certainly becomes wrong when local practices and folk religion contradict with orthodox Christian theology and the teachings of the Church.
 
JurisPrudens said:
The Protestant countries may be not a “mess” in respect of their cleansing themselves of all traditions and “superstitions”. However, they are the real mess nowadays, if you look at the decline of religion and faith in them. The Catholic countries are doing better in preserving the faith, because our faith is truly traditional, retaining the ages long natural spirituality.
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“Preserving the faith”? What faith? Some Protestant countries are more religious than traditionally Catholic countries, and some traditionally Catholic countries have become more secular than other Protestant nations.
 
CrucisLucia said:
“Preserving the faith”? What faith? Some Protestant countries are more religious than traditionally Catholic countries, and some traditionally Catholic countries have become more secular than other Protestant nations.
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Example?
The traditionally Protestant Northern Europe is much more secular than the Southern Europe. The U.S. is much more secular than the Latin American countries. And so on.
 
Caname said:
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how pagan much of Central and Southern America seem to be. I went on a school mission trip to Tactic, Guatemala when I was in high school, and in that region many of the Catholic priests were also openly practicing Mayan priests, as evidenced by the corn sacrifices done in front of a stone cross behind one of the churches, in addition to many of the other distinctively Mayan witchcraft rituals that took place there and in other places. Compared to the heavily witchcraft-influenced and/or nominal brand of Catholicism that seemed to inhabit the region, admittedly the Protestant mission group going into the region seemed like a significant improvement. This also seems to be the case in other places, such as Mexico, which blends its Catholicism with ancient superstition through celebrations like El Dia Los Muertos. These hybrid cultures of Catholicism and witchcraft are, of course, a mess, and inevitably these are the regions that Protestant ministries often target for mission work.

I guess what I’m wondering is this: Why are so many ostensibly Catholic countries such a mess, compared to the traditionally Protestant northern hemisphere? Is the presence of devout Protestantism in these areas technically an improvement over the nominal quasi-Catholic paganism that inhabit these regions? Perhaps most importantly, are there any Catholic efforts to bring these regions back to orthodoxy, perhaps even sometimes in spite of the corrupt or heretical clergy in those regions?

I know of the brother of a friend who is a seminarian in a priestly religious order operating out of Southern America, and if I remember correctly their big focus is to reach more remote people groups that don’t have access to the Gospel; outside of that, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Catholics doing mission work in so-called Catholic countries.

Basically, I know nothing about this issue, except that Protestants keep going to ****** Catholic countries and tidying things up down there, and I’m hoping the Catholic Church is also making efforts to “reform” these regions the correct way instead.
Click to expand...
My personal opinion is that there are a lot of factors in play:
  1. Protestant missions are more orthodox primarily because they are (relatively) a novelty to the heavily-Catholic Central and South American countries. They don’t have a long and historical presence as extensive as the Catholic Church in the area. The Catholic Church has been there for centuries now, so while it’s not acceptable, I’m not entirely surprised that syncretic practices have arisen over the centuries.
  2. The reason why it hasn’t occurred in countries like Canada and the United States is because these countries are primarily European in culture, history, and demographics. The British presence in North America was more “settler” than anything else. And by this I mean is that Europeans throughout most of the historical period have constituted the absolute demographic majority with respective to the American Indians (whose population fell dramatically for various reasons). Meanwhile, the Spanish didn’t have such an overwhelming demographic presence, and there was much racial and cultural intermarriages so the native populations didn’t quite disappear, so they ended up with a lot of syncretic practices.
  3. When the Church was beginning to expand in Europe, it had to fight against pagan practices that were still residual even after Christianity became the dominant European faith. The fact that the early Church fought so many early heresies is probably due to pagan influences spreading among some of the faithful.
  4. We’ll also have to see how embedded syncretism is in Central and South America, whether it is something that’s eating up the Church or not. It could also be simply that the Church is facing a crisis in these countries as it has been facing in the First World.
 
Caname said:
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how pagan much of Central and Southern America seem to be. I went on a school mission trip to Tactic, Guatemala when I was in high school, and in that region many of the Catholic priests were also openly practicing Mayan priests, as evidenced by the corn sacrifices done in front of a stone cross behind one of the churches, in addition to many of the other distinctively Mayan witchcraft rituals that took place there and in other places. Compared to the heavily witchcraft-influenced and/or nominal brand of Catholicism that seemed to inhabit the region, admittedly the Protestant mission group going into the region seemed like a significant improvement. This also seems to be the case in other places, such as Mexico, which blends its Catholicism with ancient superstition through celebrations like El Dia Los Muertos. These hybrid cultures of Catholicism and witchcraft are, of course, a mess, and inevitably these are the regions that Protestant ministries often target for mission work.

I guess what I’m wondering is this: Why are so many ostensibly Catholic countries such a mess, compared to the traditionally Protestant northern hemisphere? Is the presence of devout Protestantism in these areas technically an improvement over the nominal quasi-Catholic paganism that inhabit these regions? Perhaps most importantly, are there any Catholic efforts to bring these regions back to orthodoxy, perhaps even sometimes in spite of the corrupt or heretical clergy in those regions?

I know of the brother of a friend who is a seminarian in a priestly religious order operating out of Southern America, and if I remember correctly their big focus is to reach more remote people groups that don’t have access to the Gospel; outside of that, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Catholics doing mission work in so-called Catholic countries.

Basically, I know nothing about this issue, except that Protestants keep going to ****** Catholic countries and tidying things up down there, and I’m hoping the Catholic Church is also making efforts to “reform” these regions the correct way instead.
Click to expand...
Turning a pagan sacrifice ritual into an offering of praise to God or respect to Mary, is correction. No need to strip the people of their culture. The reason why Catholicism is much more popular in China and the ‘FarEast’, is because the missionaries don’t come across as culturally arrogant. As opposed to old protestant missions, the Catholic one’s lived there, learned the language, and actually loved the people.
 
I met a man whom I’m pretty sure has a mestizo background, and I believe one of his parents is from Guatemala. He said something about his church and I asked what it was he said Christian and I said be more specific and he said Pentecostal. I was even more confused because one of his parents is Italian this is how I asked him if he was Italian. I noticed he had an Italian name. I don’t necessarily believe it has anything to do with the indigenous groups and by the way not everyone in Latin America that has indigenous ancestry is descended from Incas Aztecs or Mayans. Those were empires not tribes. Just a little pet peeve of mine especially since most immigration to the United States from Mexico comes from places as Aztecs never lived. Guatemala though they seem to have a disproportionate amount of Protestants I would say most of the mestizos are still probably Catholic but a lot more of the Indians are becoming Protestant and like I just mentioned some of the mestizos do become Protestant like the guy I just mentioned. I know also that both mestizos and Indians in Mexico are becoming Protestant not at the right Guatemalans are thank goodness but they are pretty quick right and the Church needs to step up on the evangelization game and when I say the Church I mean us. I’m someone who is a big supporter of rural missions in the United States, so I would have no problem with pushing evangelization in Latin America.
 
SyroMalankara said:
Turning a pagan sacrifice ritual into an offering of praise to God or respect to Mary, is correction. No need to strip the people of their culture. The reason why Catholicism is much more popular in China and the ‘FarEast’, is because the missionaries don’t come across as culturally arrogant. As opposed to old protestant missions, the Catholic one’s lived there, learned the language, and actually loved the people.
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Protestantism is quickly growing in China, Korea and the Philippines as well.
JurisPrudens said:
Example?
The traditionally Protestant Northern Europe is much more secular than the Southern Europe. The U.S. is much more secular than the Latin American countries. And so on.
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I really would not call the US “secular” as America is undeniably the most religious industrialized country with its religiosity only in par or sometimes even greater than developing nations.

Though the demographic rule is indeed traditionally Protestant countries are much more secular and traditionally Catholic countries are much more religious, there are a few anomalies, such as France which was a former Catholic nation now distinctly secular, and Czech Republic, a traditionally Catholic country is the least religious nation in Europe, tied with Estonia.

In fact, America’s religiosity is a demographic anomaly since religiosity mostly declines in industrialized countries yet in the USA, religion continues to be a vibrant part of public and private life.
 
SyroMalankara said:
Turning a pagan sacrifice ritual into an offering of praise to God or respect to Mary, is correction. No need to strip the people of their culture. The reason why Catholicism is much more popular in China and the ‘FarEast’, is because the missionaries don’t come across as culturally arrogant. As opposed to old protestant missions, the Catholic one’s lived there, learned the language, and actually loved the people.
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Just as clarification, I recognize that there is room for the appropriate incorporation of cultural practices, but believe me when I say that the practices I observed and was told about by the missionaries went beyond Protestant misunderstanding and fell directly into the witchcraft department. The Catholics in the area, including the clergy apparently, were actively participating in Mayan witchcraft rituals that were in direct conflict with orthodox Christianity.

Also, as a slight point of contention, while I don’t know the history of Protestant mission work by any means, there are and have been many, many Protestant missionaries who have devoted their lives to living among other cultures and learning the local language so that they could translate the Bible for them, even at risk of their own peril. If Protestants had saints, it would be among some of their missionaries.
 
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