Brazilia, Brazil - The Umbanda, an indigenous religion that emerged in 1920 is suffering because of the impact of Pentecostal Evangelical Churches and tending toward disappearance, said sociologist and professor from the University of Sao Paulo (USP) Antonio Flavio Pierucci.
"The disappearance will not be total, because it is not possible to put end to cultural forms like a biological species," said Pierucci, when he commented on "Religious Density al la Brazilian," in an event promoted by the Humanitas Institute, of the Vale do Rio dos Sinos University (UNISINOS).
Pierucci, graduate in philosophy, master in Social Sciences and doctor in Sociology compared data from the 1980, 1991 and 2000 census and concluded that Afro religions are a "species in extinction."
The data shows two descending curves: Catholicism and Afro religions.
Of 169.7 million Brazilians in 2000 barely 0.34 percent or 571,300 said they followed an Afro religion (in 1980 that number was 0.6 percent). Of that total, 139,300 said they followed Candomble, and 432,000 Umbanda.
Regarding Brazilian Catholicism, Pierucci said that in 1980 nearly 90 percent of the population said they were Catholic and in 2000 that number had fallen to 73.8 percent.
In the past 30 years the Churches that have grown the most are Evangelical Pentecostal Churches that have practically doubled each decade. In the 2000 census the Evangelicals, including the "historic" and Pentecostal numbered 26 million, which represented 15.4 percent of the population.
This census data, however, warned Pierucci is based on "self-fraudulent" numbers that both Evangelical and Muslims and followers of other religious currents tend to register in Brazil. "To date, Spiritualists and followers of Candomble do not accept the 2000 census data," he said.
Among other reasons, the different religions have more followers registered than those mentioned in the study by the Brazilian Geographic and Statistical Institute (IBGE).
The 2000 census demonstrated that Brazil is a Christian country as the combination of those who declare themselves to be Catholic and Evangelical in Brazil adds up to nearly 90 percent.
"If yesterday, we said that Brazil was a Catholic country, today we must say it is a Christian country," said the USP professor.
If that 90 percent is added to the 7.3 who declared themselves to have no religion in 2000 then less than 3 percent of the Brazilian population of 169.7 millions are spiritualists, Afro, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other religious expressions. This percentage is very low for a nation considered multifaceted in the religious aspect.
If there are religious families that grow in Brazil is it because their followers come from other currents. "The religious world is a competitive world," said the sociologist. He recognized that the census did not capture the religious diversity that could be present as the questionnaire only contained one definition for the "religion" section.
Source: Latin American and Caribbean News Agency