Transnational Religions: The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil & the Orthodox Church in Russia

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2001 by Ralph Della Cava

Ralph Della Cava (*)

This essay examines several current issues facing the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil and the Russian Orthodox Church in the post-Soviet, multi-ethnic republic that is today called the Russian Federation. To the extent possible, I shall treat both the issues and institutions comparatively, even if selectively and almost solely out of a concern for contemporary "transnational" religions, a subject I have explored since the mid-nineteen eighties and do so again here.

This essay examines several current issues facing the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil and the Russian Orthodox Church in the post-Soviet, multiethnic republic that is today called the Russian Federation. To the extent possible, I shall treat both the issues and institutions comparatively, even if selectively and almost solely out of a concern for contemporary "transnational" religions, a subject I have explored since the mid-nineteen eighties and do so again here.

By way of prologue, it should suffice to say that for whatever their differences both the Catholic and Orthodox churches under discussion are the dominant religious organizations in their countries. Each contends that better than eighty percent of their citizenry "belongs" to one and the other faith (even though less than five percent of their ascribed membership actually attends Sunday worship).

Moreover, despite their claims to numbers, the top leadership of each confession is currently engaged in working out new sets of arrangements with both the state-system and the civil societies in which they operate. For a variety of reasons, earlier modi operandi have ceased to be effective. In fact, they fell into disuse quite abruptly (although for very different reasons) as regime changes took place over the last decade. The "return to democracy" in Brazil and the collapse of communist rule in Russia respectively proved in some ways to be more of an impediment than a boon to each church. As a result, both have been left with the heavy burden of "re-inventing" themselves and of finding their place in significantly altered social orders.

Perhaps even more significantly, as the third Christian millennium commences, such seemingly different churches acknowledge that they now face a common threat. Call it "the new secularism." Relentless in its onslaught, it is characterized by worldwide "commodification" at a hitherto unimagined speed and is driven forward by a now truly global system of mass communication.

In the face of this advance, churches grapple with a number of challenges. Just what kind of religious and ethical message could, should and must they work out for men and women of today? How, too, can they best get that message across in a highly competitive marketplace of ideas and cultural goods dominated by global media over which neither confession has much influence and even less control? Those are the questions which make up the order of the day for the intellectuals and administrators of both institutions, notwithstanding the greater disadvantage Russian Orthodoxy faces compared to Brazilian Catholicism when it comes to access to local and transnational resources.

Transnational Religions

In fact, we might begin our discussion by considering the "transnational" character of both institutions. By "transnational," I refer to the structures and capacity of organized religions to move and circulate ideas, manpower and finances across the state-system and the capitalist-world economy. To some extent the Roman Catholic Church is the prototype of a "transnational," the historical development of which we have no time to go into now (Della Cava 1993a and 1993b).

Often, but not always, it is in the core area countries of the world-system -- to employ Immanuel Wallerstein's framework here heuristically -- that the more dynamic and wealthy units of a world church are situated. Such units might even reflect the policies and interests of core area states towards those in the periphery and semi-periphery, but not always, nor necessarily. For the most part, churches in the several, core countries act now separately from, now in concert with, both states and one another in providing resources to less welt-off sister churches, usually found in the periphery.

As a unit within world Catholicism, the Brazilian church has drawn substantially on the diverse "outside" resources typically made available by transnational religions. First, there is a large body of ideas, continually being generated and updated (in this instance, by Catholic universities, seminaries and research centers, etc.) on a wide range of public and religious issues. Second, there are highly mobile and well-trained manpower reserves in the form of missionaries, clerical and lay, male and female. Last, funding, channeled through a wide variety of related international relief and charitable agencies, is quite often made available for what might be considered strictly "national" needs and policies of a local church. Additionally, Catholicism is in the unique position among all contemporary world religions of also having a centralized administration, the Stato della Citta del Vaticano, that is universally recognized as part of the current state-system. As a result, it may at times derive benefits for it s ecclesiastical interests by invoking its role as a state (and vice versa). Since the end of World War II, the Brazilian church has been one of the principal beneficiaries of this global structure.