A preferential option for the spirit: The Catholic charismatic renewal in Latin America's new religious economy

Latin American Politics and Society, Spring 2003 by Chesnut, R Andrew

ABSTRACT

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), the Latin American church's largest and most dynamic lay movement, demands scholarly attention for its extraordinary appeal among Catholic laity and its unanimous approval by national episcopacies. If the church is finally using mass media and other Protestant techniques for evangelization, it is because of the Charismatics, whose missionary zeal rivals that of their chief competitors, the Pentecostals. This study uses the tools of religious economy to analyze the reasons for the Renewal's rapid growth and acceptance. In attempting to explicate the CCR's success, the study also examines the major ecclesial trends during the movement's three decades in Latin America.

While Base Christian Communities (CEBs) struggle to maintain a presence throughout Latin America, a contemporaneous Catholic movement easily fills soccer stadiums in the major cities of the region with tens of thousands of fervent believers. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) stands as the largest and most dynamic movement in the Latin American church. Even leaders of the liberationist wing of the Catholic church, who often view Charismatics as alienated middle-class reactionaries, admit that no other ecclesial movement has the CCR's power to congregate and mobilize the faithful.

In Brazil the CCR's popular appeal is not limited to the realm of the sacred. In 1999 the latest CD of samba-inspired religious music sung by the young star of the Brazilian CCR, Padre Marcelo Rossi, sold more copies than any other recording artist, including So Pra Contrariar, an immensely popular pagode band.1

The region's most vibrant Catholic lay movement nevertheless has received precious little academic attention. If the CCR's popular appeal has yet to register among students of Latin American religion, it is because liberation theology and CEBs have captured the hearts and minds of many North and Latin American social scientists during the past quarter-century. The notion of a "preferential option for the poor" and the attempts to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Latin American soil through political and social transformation proved far more appealing to many scholars than a socially disengaged movement dedicated to transforming individual lives through conversion. As Brazilian sociologist Maria das Dores Machado (1996) has pointed out, moreover, many scholars of Latin American religion are more interested in the progressive sectors of the Catholic Church or ecumenical movements in the region and less in religious groups that tend to be sectarian and politically conservative.

Academic sympathies aside, however, the Charismatic Renewal demands scholarly attention because of its extraordinary appeal among Catholic laity and its unanimous approval by national episcopacies. If the perennial shortage of priests has eased somewhat in the last two decades and if the Catholic church is finally employing mass media, especially television, as a tool for evangelization, it is because of the Charismatics, whose missionary zeal rivals that of their chief competitors in the religious marketplace, the Pentecostals. This article therefore will employ the tools of religious economy to analyze the reasons for the Renewal's rapid growth in Iberoamerica among Catholic laity and its approval and promotion among the episcopacy. In attempting to explicate the CCR's success, the major historical trends during the movement's three-decade existence will also be examined.

LATIN AMERICA's NEW RELIGIOUS ECONOMY

Of even greater social, political, and religious significance than the rapid growth of the CCR and the Pentecostal movement is Latin America's historic transformation from a monopolistic religious economy to an unregulated one, in which faith-based organizations, like commercial firms, compete for religious consumers.' In the new free market of faith, Latin Americans are free to choose among the hundreds of religious products that best suit their spiritual and material needs. After four centuries of religious monopoly in which the only choice for the popular classes was either to consume the Catholic product or not consume at all, impoverished believers, and indeed all Latin Americans, can now select from a dizzying array of religious options, ranging from the African-Brazilian religion Umbanda to the New Age group known as the Vegetable Union (Uniao do Vegetal in Portuguese).

In a competitive religious economy, such as the one that has developed in Latin America over the past half-century, there is no place for the type of questionable product that indolent religious monopolists produce for a market guaranteed by state coercion. The invisible hand of the free market is as unforgiving with religious firms as it is with their commercial counterparts (Finke and Stark 1992, 17). If, for example, religious consumers demonstrate a strong taste for more participatory types of faith (as they actually have), those religions that restrict lay participation will either have to modify their products or face marginalization, even extinction. In order to thrive in the new religious economy, Latin American spiritual firms must develop an attractive product and know how to market it to popular consumers. If Charismatic Catholicism, Pentecostalism, and African diasporan religions are thriving at the turn of the century, it is because they have learned to compete effectively in a pluralistic environment. On the other hand, if Catholic Base Christian Communities (CEBs) and mainline Protestantism are stagnating, it is primarily because they lack competitive products of mass appeal, as well as marketing skill.