According to some experts, Brazilian Evangelicals could become a majority in the country as soon as 2032.

This phenomenon is particularly strong in the Amazon, where some states have the biggest percentage of Evangelicals in the country.

Four of the six Brazilian States with the biggest proportion of Evangelicals are located in the Amazon, in the northern part of the country.

In Rondônia, which is at the top of the list, there were 734,000 Catholics in 2010 - when the last data were released by the government - and 528,000 Evangelicals.

Ten years before, in 2000, the number of Catholics was 793,000 and there were only 375,000 Evangelicals.

That is one of the many issues the Amazonian bishops will have to discuss at the upcoming Synod for the Amazon region taking place Oct. 6-27 in Rome.

"Until the 1970s, when I arrived in the Amazon, Brazil was almost completely Catholic. But the expansion of the farmlands in the cleared rainforest changed everything," said Italian-born Bishop Flavio Giovenale of Cruzeiro do Sul, in the Amazonian State of Acre.

"It's almost like the Evangelicals had the project of transforming the Amazon into a non-Catholic territory, following the gigantic changes in the region," he said.

Most people avoid selecting one single reason for the increasing presence of Pentecostal and Neo-pentecostal Christians in the Amazon.

"It's a complex phenomenon. But the Evangelicals certainly filled up the spaces we had left open," saod Giovenale.

In major urban areas of the rainforest, such as Belém and Manaus - cities with populations of 1.5 million and 2.1 million, respectively - the process followed the same model as the rest of the country. In the opinion of Giovenale, rural migrants without roots in the city could find a community and a sense of Christianity only with the available pastors.

"The historical districts of most cities in Brazil are full of Catholic churches, while the poor, distant neighborhoods count only Evangelical churches," the bishop said.

In the cities, the so-called Prosperity Gospel theology quickly seduced many poor migrants who had to adapt to their new reality, according to the Italian-born priest Luigi Ceppi, who has lived in the Amazon since the 1980s.

"The poor were put aside. Then appeared a kind of religiousness which promised to satisfy their material needs," Ceppi argued. Continue reading

• Image: Vatican News

The philosophy "is used as a theological justification for economic neo-liberalism" and is "a far cry from the positive and enlightening prophecy of the American dream that has inspired many," said the article in La Civilta Cattolica, a journal reviewed at the Vatican before publication.

The article was written by the journal's editor, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, and by Marcelo Figueroa, an evangelical pastor, who is director of the Argentine edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

In an email, Father Spadaro described the article as "what I consider the second part of our article on the relationship between politics and fundamentalism in the United States."

The first article, published in July last year, was titled "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism: A Surprising Ecumenism" and examined what the authors saw as growing similarities in the rhetoric and world views adopted by some evangelical fundamentalists and some "militant" Catholic hardliners.

They decried what they saw as an "ecumenism of hate" resulting from the political alliance in the United States of Christian fundamentalists and Catholic "integralists."

The article set off widespread debate, ranging from criticism that it was a superficial reading of the U.S. reality from the outside to praise for shining a light on ways that some tenets of the Christian faith have been manipulated for political gain.

The new article describes the "prosperity gospel" as a theological current that emerged from neo-Pentecostal evangelical communities in the United States and is thriving now in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, South Korea, China, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

"At its heart is the belief that God wants his followers to have a prosperous life, that is, to be rich, healthy and happy," Father Spadaro and Figueroa wrote. In such a view, opulence and well-being are "the true signs of divine delight."

The modern "prosperity gospel" owes much, they said, to E.W. Kenyon, a U.S. pastor who lived 1867-1948, and "maintained that through the power of faith you can change what is concrete and real," the Civilta article said. "A direct conclusion of this belief is that faith can lead to riches, health and well-being, while lack of faith leads to poverty, sickness and unhappiness."

"In the United States millions of people regularly go to the megachurches that spread the prosperity gospel," the article said. Preachers including "Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, Robert Tilton, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer and others have increased their popularity and wealth thanks to their focus on knowing this gospel, emphasizing it and pushing it to its limits."

They see the purpose of faith as being to win God's favor, which is demonstrated in material wealth and physical health. Continue reading

• Image: What in the World

Writing of his recent visit to Pope Francis with other leaders, World Evangelical Alliance global ambassador Brian Stiller said he asked the Pontiff what he felt about evangelism.

Stiller said the Pope's comment was: "I'm not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. I want people to find Jesus in their own community."

"There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let's be about showing the love of Jesus," the Pope reportedly told him.

Stiller referenced the Swiss Protestant theologian Oscar Cullman to Pope Francis: "We reflected how ‘reconciled diversity' allows us to stand within our own understandings of how Christ effects salvation."

"And then we press on to deal with global issues like religious freedom and justice and other matters, which affect our wellbeing," Stiller said.

The probability that Rome is losing spiritual influence worldwide worries the Protestant leader.

"Given that 50 percent of those who call themselves Christian affiliate with Rome, when its spiritual and ethical authority is diminished it affects the entire world," he said.

He praised Pope Francis for his "prophetic vision", which is "cutting open hypocrisy of religious self-interest".

The Pope also met Texas televangelists Kenneth Copeland and James Robison, just weeks after he met with another televangelist Joel Osteen.

Pope Francis reportedly gave Copeland a "high five".

Copeland and Osteen have been criticised for preaching the "health and wealth" prosperity gospel, the belief that faith can increase one's wealth.

"The prosperity gospel seems to be fundamentally opposed to the message that Francis has been spreading. But he has shown that he's willing to meet with just about anyone," said Michael Peppard, a professor of theology at Fordham University.

Ecumenical commentator Rev Wesley Granberg-Michaelson said Pentecostalism is growing in the global south at three times the rate of Catholicism, especially among the poor.

"My guess is that Francis knows this community can't be ignored," he said.

Sources

• Brian Stiller blog
• Catholic World News
• Religion News Service
• Image: Kenneth Copeland ministries