Pope Francis gets his inaugural overseas trip under way today when he returns to his home continent for the first time since the former cardinal of Buenos Aires was elected pontiff in March.
The week-long trip is loaded with historical and symbolic significance.
Latin American Catholics will have a first chance to show their huge pride in having their own pope, who nevertheless visits the region at a time when Rome is losing millions of the region’s poorer believers to evangelical Protestant churches, while many in the middle class are embracing a more secular lifestyle in violation of the Vatican’s teachings on sexuality.
The visit also comes at a time of social tension in Brazil following a recent wave of street protests by millions of young people against entrenched inequalities and endemic corruption. Though the demonstrations have diminished since last month, there was rioting in Rio de Janeiro last week outside the residence of the state’s governor Sergio Cabral, whose corrupt and increasingly authoritarian administration has been singled out by a hard core of protesters.
This has raised fears that renewed trouble could mar the Pope’s stay in Rio. Brazil’s political leadership will also be listening closely to see whether Latin America’s first pope mentions the protest movement, following his recent expression of support for Brazil’s demonstrators and a history as cardinal of making thinly veiled criticisms of Argentina’s political class.
That record, allied to the pope’s trenchant criticisms of capitalism and moves to reform the Vatican Curia, has left some within the Latin American church asking whether Pope Francis seeks to lead a transformative papacy and whether he will reach out to the region’s progressive liberation theology movement.
But others remain cautious. “I hope he denounces the causes of the misery that afflicts 1.3 billion people, the poverty of another four billion and the destruction of nature,” says Frei Betto, a Dominican theologian identified with the progressive wing of the Brazilian church.
An indication of the tone the pope seeks to set for his papacy might be gleaned from observing who he meets from within the Latin church’s hierarchy while in Brazil, says Julia Young, a Latin American historian at the Catholic University of America.
In that context perhaps the most significant change since Pope Benedict’s visit to Brazil in 2007 will be the inclusion of members of Brazil’s Charismatic Catholic movement in this week’s ceremonies.
The fastest growing group within the Brazilian church, the charismatics have responded to the challenge of the evangelicals by incorporating many of their more exuberant rituals into their religious practice.
