Brasilia, Brazil - Pope Benedict XVI's five-day trip to Brazil seems unlikely to stem a two-decade slide in Roman Catholic membership as different groups, including indigenous activists, criticized his visit.
"Many peoples adopted Christianity, but it was imposed by force," said Marcio Meira, president of the National Foundation of the Indigenous, a Brazilian government organization.
"The pope was very arrogant," said Gesinaldo Satere Mawe, director of an umbrella group of Amazonian native groups.
Benedict's statement during his first trip to Latin America as pope that "Christianity was not imposed by a foreign culture" drew a sharp reaction from the native leaders.
"Christ was the Savior (America's natives) silently yearned for," the pope said. Benedict also called the resurgence of pre-Columbian religions "a step backward," offending native peoples as far away as Mexico.
"His statements are ridiculous," said Roberto Olivares, president of Ojo de Agua, a group that promotes indigenous values in Oaxaca, Mexico.
"The Catholic religion was imposed despite our beliefs and our religion," said Mauricio Arias, a native people's leader in Bolivia.
The pope returned to Rome on Monday after a five-day tour of Brazil to galvanize the Roman Catholic church in Latin America.
However, Benedict's pronouncements in favor of sexual abstinence, birth control and abortion fell on deaf ears in Brazil, whose government hands out free condoms to schoolboys to curb
AIDS and teenage pregnancy.
Benedict blasted "media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage."
However, Brazilian Secretary for Women's Rights Nilcea Freire called chastity "an absolutely individual decision" but an ineffective bulwark against AIDS.
"I have nothing for or against someone who wants to be chaste or someone who doesn't want to be, but we cannot base our program of prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS by advocating chastity," she told AFP.
Meanwhile, homosexuals and Catholic women favoring abortion rights protested in major Brazilian cities the Vatican's influence on government policies.
"Catholics have sex for pleasure, use condoms, support sexual diversity and don't condemn women for having abortions. When will the Church hierarchy change?" asks a poster brandished by women's groups outside cathedrals in Brazil's main cities.
The Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals published an open letter Wednesday saying religious convictions "cannot influence government policies, much less be used to discriminate."
The conservative Benedict also took fire from Brazilian Health Minister Jose Gomes Temperao, over abortion.
"You can't impose the precepts and dogma of a particular religion on an entire society," Temperao said, adding: "Church and state have been separate in Brazil for centuries."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva opposes abortion personally, but as president views it as a public health issue, because "otherwise it leads to the death of many girls in this country."
Opening a key conference of Latin American bishops Sunday, Benedict warned capitalist and Marxist governments in the region, and pointed to the continent's growing wealth gap.
Despite "notable progress toward democracy ... there are grounds for concern in the face of authoritarian forms of government and regimes wedded to certain ideologies that we thought had been superseded," he said.
Some analysts said it was a reference to Venezuela and its ally, communist Cuba.
However, Venezuela's Information Minister William Lara said the comment should not be interpreted as a jab at President Hugo Chavez.
"That would be playing into the hands of certain right-wing propagandists who want to use the pope's visit to Brazil as propaganda against the progressive forces of the continent," Lara told state-owned VTV television.
Representatives of pentecostal churches said they were stung by Benedict's charge that they are using "aggressive" tactics to recruit people to their faith.
On Friday, Benedict said people who are "insufficiently evangelized (are) most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of (evangelical) sects -- a just cause for concern."
Robson Rodovalho, a deputy of the right-wing opposition Democratic Party, said the pope's characterization made common ground harder to find.
"This opinion makes dialogue difficult, especially when we must make a big effort to build a Christian faith in order to fight together for values and the defense of the family."