Aljazeera: Pope Francis will be in Brazil starting on Monday, the start of an ambitious, week-long visit coinciding with World Youth Day events, expected to bring over a million Catholic pilgrims, mostly youth, to Brazil.
It will be historic for all the obvious reasons: The first Latin American Pope, the first trip as pope to South America, neighboring his native Argentina.
No doubt if you follow Pope Francis’ journey next week you will hear many times that Brazil is ‘the world’s largest Catholic country.’
True. But what exactly does that mean?
I dug through the latest census data to try to get a better sense on the most reliable figures on religion in Brazil.
I wanted to get a snapshot of some of the challenges Pope Francis faces, and some potential opportunities as well.
Here is some of what I found:
According to a study by the IBGE, the government statistics agency, the number of Brazilians who self identified themselves as Catholic in 1970 was 91percent. That dropped to 89 percent in 1980, 73 percent in 2000, and 64 percent in 2010.
Categories: Americas