Tatiana Aparecida de Jesus used to walk the city\u2019s streets as a sex worker, high on crack cocaine. Last year, the mother of five joined a small Pentecostal congregation in downtown Rio called Sanctification in the Lord and left her old life behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pastor hugged me without asking anything,\u201d said Ms. de Jesus, 41, who was raised a Catholic and is one of more than a million Brazilians who have joined an evangelical or Pentecostal church since the beginning of the pandemic, according to researchers. \u201cWhen you are poor, it makes so much of a difference when someone just says \u2018good morning\u2019 to you, \u2018good afternoon,\u2019 or shakes your hand,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For centuries, to be Latin American was to be Catholic; the religion faced virtually no competition. Today, Catholicism has lost adherents to other faiths in the region, especially Pentecostalism, and more recently to the ranks of the unchurched. The shift has continued under the first Latin American pope.<\/p>\n
Seven countries in the region\u2014Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and five in Central America\u2014had a majority of non-Catholics in 2018, according to a survey by Latinobar\u00f3metro, a Chilean-based pollster. In a symbolic milestone, Brazil, which has the most Catholics of any country in the world, is expected to become minority-Catholic as soon as this year, according to estimates by academics that track religious affiliation.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Brazil is poised to lose majority-Catholic status, part of the Church\u2019s litany of setbacks in Latin America under the region\u2019s first pope https:\/\/t.co\/9uS4MpbVXE<\/a><\/p>\n — The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 12, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n