Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a country in Central America located between Nicaragua and Panama. It is a confessional state of the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion; however, professing other religions is not prohibited, and among the other predominant ones are Protestant, Orthodox, Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.

In 1519 and 1522, the Spanish conquistadors arrived and thus began the Catholic evangelization of aboriginals, whose traditions were animist. The first church was built in 1544.

The creation of the diocese in 1850 (archdiocese in 1921) and the Concordato of 1851 gave the Bishop control over education to the detriment of liberal policies. Bishop Bernardo Thiel and the Jesuits were expelled in 1884 because of their opposition to secularization laws, which had been passed by the National Assembly. The church became institutionalized as a political party: Unión Católica (Catholic Union). Hence, the liberals authorized the return of Bishop Thiel, catechism to be taught in public schools, and the creation of a Catholic newspaper. The Bishop defended social justice and achieved the support of the rural proletariat.

Between 1870 and 1890, the railroad that would join the Central Valley with the Caribbean was built. Workers from the Antilles entered the country, bringing their beliefs in Myalism, Obeah, and Protestantism.

The following also settled in Costa Rica: the British and Foreign Biblical Society (1845), the Baptist Missionary Society of Jamaica (1887), the American Biblical Society (1890), the Seventh-Day Adventists (1903), the Episcopal Methodist Church (1917), Assemblies of God (1944), and the American Baptist Association (1946).

In the 1940s, Social Guarantees, the Labor Code, and Social Security were approved due to an agreement among the Archbishop Victor Manuel Sanabria; the Secretary of the Communist Party, Manuel Mora; and the President, Rafael A. Calderón Guardia. Also, Vanguardia Popular was born, a communist party that is a strong promoter of the Church's social doctrine, and a Catholic union—Rerum Novarum. After the civil war in 1948, Vanguardia Popular was proscribed, and the Church ended its period of social Catholicism.

The influence of Liberation Theology can be seen in the establishment of the Department of Ecumenical Research and the Ecumenical School of Religious Sciences at the National University.

In the 1990s, a neoconservative tendency emerged in the church, which along with the Catholic organization Opus Dei opposed sexual and reproductive freedom. The consequences were withdrawal of the government-provided sexual education guides, the discontinuation of the government program “Young Love,” and an agreement with the ministry of education to maintain subsidies to Catholic schools.

According to a 2007 survey by the University of Costa Rica, among the population of 3,921,108, estimated in 2000, 68.6% declared themselves Catholic, 16.8% Protestant, and 5.6% as belonging [Page 263]to other religions; 9.1% said that they had no religion or did not answer.