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

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2001 by Catalina Romero

Beyond the traditional social structure, civil society in Latin America incorporates various interest groups such as voluntary organizations, base community organizations, non-governmental organizations, churches and denominations, business organizations, and professional groups. These are all heterogenous groups of people with particular interests, sharing common traditions and goals within a national community. The globalization process expands the lines of communication for these groups from the local to the global, allowing common interests to begin appearing at the international level.

Religion and Cultural Change

People around the world experience the processes of globalization simultaneously. When there is an economic crisis in Asia, prices at supermarkets increase. When there is a foreign debt crisis, credit becomes more expensive.

Post-modern ideas and critical analysis of universal reason are well received in newly modern societies. However, amongst Latin Americans with nonmodern beliefs, these ideas appear to stimulate a return to "pre-modern" trends and movements. Indicators of this encounter between modern and non-modern cultures can be found in the revival of indigenous cultures and fascination with non-Christian religions. Globalization and postmodernism have produced a new divide, a pattern which seems to repeat regularly in Latin American history. This divide has interrupted a process of self-awareness and of historical practice, limiting possibilities to regain control over economic and political conditions. A sequence of advance and divide, change with no accumulation of previous experience, or a dynamic of crisis following crisis, all sometimes overlapping each other, do not leave time for reflection and evaluation -- time to learn from past mistakes and regain a local dynamic history.

Around the continent, Catholic personnel -- nuns, laypersons and clergy -- have participated in different processes of social integration leading to nation building and modernization of state and society. They have shared joy and suffering with people and have accompanied them in their successful struggles and their defeats, along the way discovering a new form of relating to each other. Hierarchical relations of authority and teaching were replaced with more horizontal relations of friendship, freedom of expression, joint action and common learning, all the while reflecting on the faith experience (Romero 1979, 1993). As part of local history, religion became a space for self-awareness and reflection.

But today the global dimension of the church again has an ambiguous role. On one side, the church functions as a religious institution within a central government structure which makes global decisions as a central state within a hierarchical political regime. On the other side, global networks of Catholics within local churches, both lay and religious, function at the level of everyday life, engaging in praxis and reflection, transforming the lives of individual people and building new social relations at both the local and the global level.