Religion in Latin America

Done by: Manisha Saha and Krittika Barua

• The majority of Latin Americans are Christians mostly Roman Catholics.

• About 70% of the Latin American population consider themselves Catholic.

• Membership in Protestant are increasing, particularly in Brazil and Venezuela.

• Argentina hosts the largest communities of both Jews and Muslims in Latin America.

• Practices of the Judaism, Mormonism Buddhist, Islamic and Hinduism religions are also exercise in Latin America.

• Another recent phenomenon is the growth of secularism and those who claim no religion.

• In Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese came and spread Catholicism.

• The belief in and practice of Christianity gradually replaced the native belief systems.

• Roman Catholicism continued to be a powerful force in the second half of the 20th century.

• Relations of the Roman Catholic Church with the state and with society at large were meanwhile affected, however, by new currents within the church itself.

Roman Catholicism

• Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in

the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity.

• The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Over the course of centuries it developed a highly sophisticated theology and an elaborate organizational structure headed by the papacy, the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world.

• The number of Roman Catholics in the world (nearly 1.1 billion) is greater than that of nearly all other religious traditions. There are more Roman Catholics than all other Christians combined and more Roman Catholics than all Buddhists or Hindus. Although there are more Muslims than Roman Catholics, the number of Roman Catholics is greater than that of the individual traditions of Shīʿite and Sunni Islam.