Globalization, civil society and religion from a Latin American standpoint - Statistical Data Included

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2001 by Catalina Romero

The Pope's support for Lech Walessa and the union workers of Solidarity in Poland offers a second example of a local response. In Peru, at the same time, the Pope offered unexpected support for a wave of national strikes against Liberal reforms. This Papal outreach offered reinforcement to Catholics whose religious beliefs led them to become involved in social issues, but who felt they were being restrained by the local Catholic hierarchy. Convergence of time in different contexts can produce very different outcomes.

Finally, the Jubilee and the Millenium -- a time of celebration in the Catholic church -- has a main theme of liberation and justice and a central message of solidarity with the poor. In Peru, this celebration of the Jubilee, with its theme and message, has become a clear sign of the acceptance of liberation theology -- an occasion for celebration by its followers. As well, even in the face of opposition from the Archdiocese of Lima, whose bishop belongs to the conservative and traditional movement of Opus Dei, Peru gathered the largest number of signatures in support of the Pope's international ecumenical initiative requesting that rich countries forgive the debt of poor countries as a gesture of liberating people from slavery.

Liberation Theology: A Contribution to Religious Non-modern Modernity

A final introductory note focuses attention on the persistent vitality of religion in Latin America as a dynamic social system, embedded in the life world as a sphere of social action. Sociological analysis of modernity and its institutions has relegated religion as well as Catholicism to a back row position in comparison to other religions which are considered pivotal in the process of secularization. Yet this could change. Using a globalization perspective, Catholicism could become a social system embedded in global civil society or begin forming alliances with local states in need of new sources of legitimacy because of political and economic crises produced by globalization.

Religion has been a dynamic factor in Latin America (Mariategui 1968), but the reason for its current prestige and recognition in social life lies in the elaboration of a rational and critical social discourse on the process of modernization that started in the 1960s. Casanova (this issue) explains this shift:

The inner worldly historicist reorientation has led Catholicism to embrace a progressive view of history to such an extent that Catholicism may be today the most post-millennialist of all major Christian denominations. Considering that traditional Catholicism has been characterized by a negative philosophy of history which viewed the modern age as a concatenation of related heresies from Protestantism to atheist communism, the reversal is quite remarkable.

Vatican II not only promoted new theological reflection, but revived previously censored theology. A new generation of European-trained Latin American theologists, together with European missionaries arriving in Latin America, began to link global and local thinking in an effort to produce a universal theology which incorporates social justice issues such as poverty and the rights of indigenous peoples and women.