Latin America

Latin America covers approximately 21 million square kilometers, has a population of more than 570 million people, and consists of more than 30 countries and assorted territorial units. It is also home to some of the fastest growing and most innovative religious movements of modern times. An inheritance of Iberian conquest, Latin America's main languages are Spanish and Portuguese, while the presence of French, English, and Dutch likewise has colonial origins. The most widely spoken of the continent's numerous preconquest languages and dialects are Aymara, Guaraní, and Quechua. A relative mixture of colonial, indigenous, and African ingredients, Creole languages serve various inhabitants of the Latin Caribbean. As is to be expected from a continent born of social-cultural miscegenation, mixed-race inhabitants form the largest racial constituency, with almost half of the total population. Black Latin Americans represent the smallest racial unit (5.4%), with assorted indigenous groups (10%) and the remaining White population (35%) completing the picture. The racial topography of Latin America is, of course, by no means even. Whereas the population of Argentina is almost completely White (90%), that of Haiti is virtually all Black (94%), that of Brazil is nearly all mixed race (92%), and that of Bolivia is predominantly indigenous (65%). Allowing for national variations, the pattern of wealth distribution across the continent is of a more uniform character. The overwhelming majority of Latin America's wealth is held by a small minority of its population. As a result, the gap between rich and poor is a stark one, and social-economic security is a scarce and precarious phenomenon for those not among the affluent elite.

In contrast to its geographic, linguistic, and ethnic diversity, Latin America's religious profile appears relatively homogeneous. With more than 92% of the continent's population acknowledging some form of adherence, Christianity is by far the largest religion in the region. Indeed, the next biggest quantitative unit of religious adherence is the 3.3% of the population who are either nonreligious (2.8%) or atheist (0.5%). Of the remaining categories, Spiritism enjoys 2.7% adherence, traditional [Page 689]non-Christian religions (i.e., Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism) amount to no more than 0.8%, indigenous religiosity records 0.6% of religious adherents, new religious phenomena total less than 0.5%, and other religions (e.g., African derived) constitute 0.2%. Although, as aggregated statistics, these figures mask a degree of both national and regional variation, their overall profile is fairly representative of conditions on the ground. What they do not show, however, is that cities tend to have higher rates of nonreligiosity than rural areas. In some of the most urbanized parts of Brazil, for example, census returns of nonreligious (sem religião) have been recorded at more than 25%. At the same time, the historical association of Catholicism with national identity, traditional stigmatization of non-Christian religious expression, and refusal by some to identify with the established category of “religion” combine to influence statistical representations of religious adherence. As a result, the numbers of those engaged in religious activity beyond traditional mainstream arenas tend to be underrepresented, while the figures for Christian adherence (especially for Catholicism) are grossly overrepresentative of those who actually participate in formal ritual practices.

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