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

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2001 by Ralph Della Cava

Nor has the Vatican been disappointed. It had long contended that the blame for the ebbing over the past decades of Catholicism's religious monopoly throughout Latin America lay squarely with the singular, capital excess of the progressives: they had substituted the people's "tried and true" faith and "down-home" religion with Marxism.

Checkmating Pentecostalism and internal dissidents is one thing. The restoration of one-time, territorially based, religious monopolies is another. Indeed, the latter -- like the ancien regime -- is just as unlikely ever again to come to pass -- be it in Brazil or Russia, political lobbying and special legislation notwithstanding.

Moreover, the European wing of world Catholicism is swiftly making itself over, cognizant as it is of its own minority status not only within Europe and around the globe, but also even within some agencies of the Roman Curia, the Vatican's administrative arm. No longer the hegemonic faith of a small, once triumphant Christian outpost of earth, West European Catholicism is fashioning a future role for the Church in world affairs more along moral rather than doctrinal lines. Thus, it presents itself as the ethical standard-bearer of a planetary civil society, a champion of social justice, and defender of human rights, regardless of confession, race, or nationality (Casanova 1997). Italy's renowned "Vatican-watcher," Marco Politi, considers this new direction "a card Catholicism cannot allow itself to lose...."(Politi 1999).

That, in part, is why the Brazilian church's progressives are still not entirely out of the picture. Their earlier yeoman's role in defining Brazil's civil society, their continuing (but ebbing) influence over the National Conference of Brazil's Bishops, and their retention of crucial positions within its permanent secretariat (roundly defeating the conservatives' bid for control in one election after another) in part explain their "staying power."

But, it is precisely their recent and resonating effort to restructure the church as the "Moral Watchdog" of Brazilian society -- as Kenneth Serbin (1998) has so perceptively pointed Out -- that is also entirely consistent with the "make-over" now in progress in Europe. Indeed, this "harmony of interests" has understandably won them support from progressive elements both within Brazil and the world church. In this regard, links to the "Universal Church," to its ongoing, clashing debates, to the forming (and reforming) of factions across the world order over the church's role in society, and a commitment (or resignation) to a pluralistic world do indeed stand progressives in good stead. In fact, they remain the direct heirs to the openness of Vatican Council II and to the continuing process of "aggiornamento" (i.e., "updating" the church to modern times) and they have successfully invoked these principles (however much they continue to be under attack) as justification for their pursuits.

Updating Orthodoxy: Constraints of Past and Present