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The Church in Brazil: Old Problems New Challenges
By Fred B. Morris

SEPTEMBER 1992 was a very significant month in Brazil. During the course of the month, the people of Brazil won a crucial struggle with their government and insisted that a corrupt congress stand for the dignity of the nation and impeach an even more corrupt president. For the first time in the history of Latin America, a government has effectively been overturned without the use of violence or military intervention. Following the letter of the constitution, the people demanded that the congress impeach President Fernando Collor de Mello, whose influence-peddling schemes had been exposed and publicly documented for all to see, and, after a month of manipulations and efforts by the president to buy votes in congress to avoid his impeachment, on September 29, the congress voted 441 to 38 in favor of the impeachment.

However, another event took place in September that, because of the political turmoil, received hardly any notice in the media, but will have, perhaps, as great an impact on the church in Brazil as the impeachment will have on the political process. This event was the Encounter of Base Ecclesial Communities, held in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.

I

One of the most significant events in the history of the Christian church in this century has been the emergence in Latin America of the Base Ecclesial Communities. These small communities, popularly called CEBs in Brazil, where they got their major start, began to appear in the period following Vatican II and became an important factor in the life of the churches in Latin America after the meeting of Latin American bishops in Medellin in 1968. They were both the cause of and the result of the Liberation Theology movement.

Fred B. Morris was a United Methodist missionary in Brazil from 1964 to 1974. As the result of his friendship with then Archbishop Dom He1der Camara, he was kidnapped in 1974 by the military government and spent seventeen days in the torture chambers of the Fourth Army in Recife before being declared by President General Ernesto Geisel a "person prejudicial to national interests." He was expelled from Brazil and threatened with jail if he ever returned. From 1976 to 1988, he lived in Costa Rica where he founded and directed the Institute for Central American Studies and published a monthly bulletin of news and analysis of Central America. In 1988, he returned to the U.S. and is currently pastor of the Broadway United Methodist Church in Chicago. The expulsion decree against him having been revoked, he was invited by the Brazilian Catholic Church to participate last September in the eighth Interecclesial Encounter of CEBs in Santa Maria.

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No one knows exactly how many CEBs there are in Brazil today, but serious estimates hover around the 100,000 mark. Part of the problem in determining the number of CEBs is that there is no clear consensus about how to define such communities. Most of the groups operate without benefit of clergy and range in size from a half dozen believers meeting in a shack somewhere on the slopes of a favela (shantytown) in Rio de Janeiro to a group of as many as one hundred persons who gather regularly to share their faith in a village in the Brazilian outback. The groups are normally made up of poor and marginalized people who have experienced a revitalization of their faith in a group experience usually focused on a study of the Bible in the light of their daily reality and their daily reality in the light of the Bible.

The post-Vatican II period, in which the Bible became available to the people and during which the Roman Catholic church began to promote, for the first time, the reading of the Bible by the laity, produced an explosion of these small groups all over Latin America. As the poor began to read the Bible, they quickly saw themselves mirrored in the stories of God's people and began to see themselves as the intended beneficiaries of God's gracious action in human history. The denunciations by the prophets of the exploitation of the widow and the orphan resonated throughout the hemisphere, as the poor laid their own hands on the Bible. The very event of the incarnation, God born in a stable to a soon-to-become refugee family, said very loudly to the poor of Latin America that the God of the Bible is on their side, that this God understands their plight and cares for them. And the very nature of these small mutual support groups in themselves quickly became a manifestation of God's care for them in their oppressive society.

But the CEBs are not just Bible study groups. In defining themselves, they emphasize the three words of their name: Base Ecclesial Communities. The base refers to their sociological reality. They are people from the "bases" of their society: the poor, the marginalized, the exploited. But they also see themselves as the bases of the church. For this reason they are ecclesial communities, which means to their participants that they are faith communities, people who have come together because of their common faith in Jesus Christ and their participation in the Body of Christ. It must be noted, however, that in Portuguese (and Spanish) the first word in their name is communidade (community). This is primordial to the participants. They are a community, not a special interest group nor a temporary grouping of people to deal with a particular problem. They are a deliberately pluralistic group, open to all who want to participate, and with a permanence of commitment both to the community and to the church that recognizes the pilgrim nature of their existence as God's people who will be always seeking ways of being faithful to their call.

The CEBs have developed a methodology in their life that combines dynamic with dialectic. Their search for God in the community impels

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them to "see, judge, and act." With the Bible in hand, they look at themselves and their world in order to understand their reality. Then, in the light of the biblical word, they judge. They evaluate and diagnose that reality, as well as their place in it, and then, with a commitment to discipleship, they act to transform their reality to bring it more into line with the reign of God that they have been discovering in the Bible. This leads them to a new situation, which requires that they see, judge, and act again and again.

Their action may involve something as practical as organizing the neighborhood to improve the water supply, so that fewer children will die of diarrhea. It may result in their taking a delegation to city hall to request or demand better schools for their children. Or it might result in their asking uncomfortable questions of their bishop about their status in the church. One thing is certain: It involves them in the world in an ever-deepening search for God in their history and for ways of fulfilling God's purpose in this world.

II

As the CEBs spread, some of the more progressive priests saw a need to do what is currently called "networking" in the U.S. They wisely did not try to "organize" the movement, but rather provided some mechanisms for the sharing of experience and wisdom. The liberation theologians came into being, or at least became visible, as they sought to distill something of the experiences of the CEBs and their people into stories and understandings that could be shared with others.

One of the networking mechanisms has been the Interecclesial Encounters. Since 1975, there have been eight Interecclesial Encounters of CEBs in Brazil. They first met in Vitoria in the state of Espirito Santo (Holy Spirit), and the most recent was the one held in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul. The first one had seventy participants representing eleven dioceses from seven states in Brazil, not counting the three bishops who were invited. The latest had 2,500 representatives from all over Brazil, and more than fifty bishops, most of whom invited themselves, plus nearly a hundred guests from other countries in Latin America, and more than a hundred representatives of Protestant churches (called "Evangelicals" in Latin America).

Each Encounter has had a special theme. Most of the chosen themes have had to do with some aspect of the oppression the people experience and the importance the church has for them in facing that oppression. The first was "A Church Born of the People by the Holy Spirit." Others were "The Church: People Freeing Themselves," "The Church: Oppressed People Who Organize for Liberation, "CEBs: People United, the Seed of a New Society," "CEBs: People of God Seeking the Promised Land," "The People of God in Latin America on the Road to Liberation, " and, finally, "The People of God Being Reborn From Oppressed Cultures."

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For the past two years, the CEBs all over Brazil have been discussing, in preparation for the Encounter in Santa Maria, the specific problems of five groups who were identified as oppressed cultures in Brazil: blacks, women, Indians, workers and migrants. Since the members of the CEBs throughout the nation are virtually all members of one or more of these groups, there was plenty of material for discussion and reflection.

During the same period, a group of advisors was formed to assist with the concrete organization and realization of the Encounter in Santa Maria. Among this group were some of the more noted theologians of Brazil, including Leonardo Boff (who recently resigned his orders as a Franciscan priest in protest against the Vatican's persistent efforts to silence him) and his brother Clodovis, Carlos Mesters, Joao Libanio, and Frei Betto.

A booklet of "basic texts" was prepared and circulated for study in preparation for the Encounter. All over Brazil, representatives were chosen in the dioceses to attend the Encounter and local groups began raising money to pay their travel expenses more than two years ago. Some persons traveled for five days by bus to get to Santa Maria.

The Encounter began officially at 3:00 p.m. on September 8 with a celebration in the cathedral of Santa Maria. All the pews had been removed from the church so that it would be able to handle the multitude. Nearly 3,000 persons were crowded into the church. They were grouped according to the region of Brazil from which they came. A separate group were the evangelicals, who were represented at this gathering principally by the Brazilian Lutheran church, the Brazilian Methodist church, and the Brazilian Anglican-Episcopal church.

The celebration began with singing-there was a specially prepared hymn book made up almost entirely of the popular choruses that the CEBs use in their regular meetings, with the addition of a number of new songs prepared for this Encounter. The people sang with vigor and enthusiasm.

The celebration was directed by two lay persons, one man and one woman. It started with a recognition and affirmation of the different regional groupings present, with cheers and hurrahs for the people who had come from each area of the country, plus the Evangelicals present. It then moved into a liturgical remembrance of the pilgrimage of the CEB project, (they call it a "project" rather than a movement, as the word "movement" is normally reserved for such things as the black-awareness movement, the women's movement, and the charismatic movement). The celebration then moved into a rehearsal of the days to come, with emphasis on the five special areas of concern, the five oppressed cultures to be affirmed in this Encounter. It was a joyous and exciting worship experience, lasting more than three hours.

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III

However, signs of some of the problems that would surface later in the week began to appear, even during this liturgical celebration. Two appeared immediately. The first was related to the presence and predominance of so many bishops. This "project" has been of the laity from the beginning, and so was the worship until it came time for the eucharist. The lay leaders had invited the bishops, who had automatically gathered up in front, sitting in some forty chairs that they had brought in for themselves (while the people were all standing), even though their presence in mass was not planned and not a part of the program. The exception to this was Dom Ivo Lorscheiter, the host bishop, who had been introduced at the very beginning and asked to sit behind the altar at the center of the east wall of the church. (The other bishops dribbled in on their own and sat on both sides of him as the program progressed.) When it was time for the eucharist, the lay leaders suggested that the bishops move down from the altar area and take their places among the people, but that request fell on deaf ears and they stayed in their positions of honor. This automatic and intuitive attitude was not missed by the 2,500 representatives of the people of the CEBs of Brazil, nor by the Protestants, who were instantly excluded from the event when the episcopally-dominated Mass got underway. Many of the Protestants, who have become accustomed to co-celebrating with their Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in the CEBs and in many Catholic and Protestant communities throughout the country, albeit unofficially, actually left the sanctuary and waited out in front of the church, sharing in the popsicles being sold by street vendors there, while their Catholic friends proceeded with the now very Roman Mass going on inside. This was clearly not what was intended by the laity and clergy who had planned the event, but no one seemed to know what to do about the bishops present.

The second element of tension that surfaced quickly was related to the blacks. At least one half of all the participants were "black" by U.S. standards, though in Brazil the categories are much more elastic and harder to enforce or identify. But at this gathering, the matter of the oppression of black culture was a principal agenda item (along with issues concerning women, Indians, workers, and migrants), so there was a much stronger identification on the part of all with "blackness." But in the celebration, many of the more sensitive blacks felt that the element of black culture in Brazil was not given sufficient recognition. None of the few black priests present was included, nor were elements of the black culture very visible in the liturgy, except for some of the choruses sung.

On Wednesday morning, the delegates met in five different locations in Santa Maria, ranging from a Methodist school to a sports club, to begin dealing directly with the five chosen oppressed cultures. In contrast to the usual organization of the CEBs, where Bible study is

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central to everything else, each of the five groups of slightly more than 500 persons each participated in opening worship, which focused in each case on the oppressed culture being dealt with, then divided into small groups of four to six persons, who proceeded to share their experiences as oppressed cultures. Since the oppressions are very concrete, so was the sharing. After ninety minutes of sharing, the small groups reunited in a mini-plenary session to present the results of their findings. One by one persons went to the microphone and shared the experiences of oppression that had come out of the small group in a powerful, sometimes overwhelming, experience of bearing witness to the reality of oppression in their world. This session ended with another liturgical celebration of affirmation and solidarity.

At the evening session of the advisers, those participating in the section dealing with the workers said that there had surfaced a great deal of tension over the bishops. Many of the workers made very outspoken complaints about their bishops, especially about the increasingly conservative and domineering stance many have been taking, and the bishops who were present were uncomfortable, even though, for the most part, they were not the ones being complained about. One of the bishops made a response, pointing out that the bishops had problems among themselves on the same issues that were being discussed. Since the death of Paul VI, the Vatican has apparently been choosing bishops for the specific purpose of regaining control of the church at every level, so the new bishops have come down fairly hard on CEBs that aren't totally obedient to traditional ecclesiastical positions, which most are not. Frei Betto, one of the most renowned Brazilian religious figures, observed that this matter needed to be dealt with in the session between the bishops and the advisers. He said very emphatically that the advisers had to help the bishops understand that this is not a peripheral issue, because the CEBs project is, in his opinion, probably the last chance the Roman Catholic church is going to have in Brazil to avoid becoming totally marginalized. If the laity in the church who cannot become priests and bishops and Pope (women), and all the others who do not have the power of making any important decisions in the life of the church, are not allowed even to talk, they may very well give up on the church and go to their labor unions or political parties or other social groups where they can at least talk, leaving the church to the handful of middle class people who find it comforting. Betto said the bishops need to be "helped" (forced) to understand the seriousness of the question. What seems to be clear to many is that the church is clearly at a crossroads and that the last, final hope is likely to be the CEBs. If the bishops and the Vatican don't take the opportunity, they will end up playing church by themselves, without the participation of the people.

At the same time, Father Toninho, a black theologian, observed that this gathering was the very first time in the history of Brazil that the problems of blacks in the church and Brazilian society has been

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addressed by the church in a way that permitted blacks to speak for themselves. He said the importance of this should not be underestimated.

A closely related question came up in the plenary session the next day, as several people said the church should recognize "pais e maes de santo" (Fathers and Mothers of Saints) as ministers of the church. These pais e maes are leaders in the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomble', which is a combination of the religion the African slaves brought with them in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries with folk Catholicism, and is, today, a major religious phenomenon in Brazil. Most of its practitioners consider themselves good Catholics and see Candomble' as one expression of their faith, similar, perhaps, to the claims of Christian charismatics, who are currently much in vogue in Brazil and are receiving the open support of a large number of bishops in a clear (if opportunistic) effort to staunch the tremendous flow of nominal Catholics to the Pentecostal churches. Anything short of recognizing these leaders, some of whom are active members of CEBs and were present in Santa Maria, will, it was said, be another rejection of their African cultural heritage.

The bishops, however, were firm in their refusal to make any compromises on this issue, and the Candomble' leaders were not to be recognized, no matter what the advisers recommended and the people demanded. For the bishops the matter is a question of syncretism, and the purity of the faith must be maintained.

However, the bishops underestimated the importance of the issue to the people, and it became a full-fledged crisis. At the plenary session on Thursday, the bishops decided to introduce themselves. This was not part of the program, but, at an interval, Dom Ivo went up on the stage and said he wanted to present all of the bishops, as well as other visiting clergy. All of the bishops and the Protestant clergy began moving up onto the stage, when a militant black woman took one of the microphones and asked, "Dom Ivo, don't you think this would be a good time to introduce the pais e maes de santo who are with us?" There was a cheer from the crowd followed by a moment of collective breath holding during which Dom Ivo pointedly turned his back on her and began presenting the bishops. A major mistake. The rudeness and concrete arrogance of the gesture was a shock to everyone. A tumult began at the entrance to the platform as a group of blacks were agitatedly talking together about what to do, while Dom Ivo droned on with his introductions. Jose' Maria Pires, the only black archbishop in Brazil, left the platform in protest and was not visible when his name was read, though he received the most enthusiastic ovation of all the bishops. After the bishops and clergy were all presented, the same militant black woman got the microphone again, and she introduced one of the pais de santo, who was received with a thundering ovation and proceeded to make a speech protesting the lack of respect he was being shown by the bishops. He was followed by a "paje," an Indian

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religious leader, who made another impassioned protest against being marginalized by the Roman Catholic church, of which he insisted he is a faithful servant and then led the group in an Indian song to the a Aparecida, the Black Virgin who appeared in 1717 to a group of poor fishermen and who is now the patron saint of Brazil. The entire group joined him in singing. It was a major confrontation by the blacks and women against the Catholic hierarchy, and the people won. In the face of ecclelsiatical arrogance and insensitivity, their action was to take control and do what seemed right to them. It is significant that they did not even mention walking out, an action that might have been expected. They were very clear in saying that they are the church and they are not going to be intimidated nor abused by bishops.

That evening, at the meeting of the advisers, there was another confrontation. The women and blacks (there were seven women and two blacks among the forty advisers) were very clear in pointing out to the white men present that their racism and sexism were wrong and had to be changed. One of the women, a university professor from Sao Paulo, said that last year she led a feminist congress on theology that was a wonderful success because there were absolutely no men present, but that they did have blacks and maes de santo included in their celebrations.

In later plenary sessions, the women present, most of whom were also black, were totally and bluntly outspoken in their inconformity to their status in the Brazilian church. The CEBs are made up by as much as eighty percent women, as is the life of most parishes. But, as one women said, addressing the 2,500 delegates, "I'm tired of being asked to do the cooking in the church, to do the cleaning, to have the babies, but not be allowed to speak up on issues or to make any decisions in the life of the church." She was greeted with a standing ovation from the enthusiastic crowd.

Professor Zeca said that the issues of family planning and abortion are not major issues in the church in Brazil, because the women simply ignore the patriarchal statements from Rome and their bishops. They have long since been making up their own mind on these issues. (It is estimated that there are at least two million illegal abortions in Brazil each year and that one hospital bed in every three is occupied by a women recovering from some complication resulting from a clandestine abortion.) She said that the issue isn't even really ordination. It is the same issue as the one raised by the African-Brazilian culture: respect.

But along with respect, the women, blacks, Indians, workers, and migrants of the CEBs of Brazil are also demanding justice, both from society as a whole and, very especially, from their church.

At the end of the Encounter, the bishops expressed some concern over the results of the week. Some were very sorry they had "allowed" the event to take place, confirming by their lament the fact that they

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really do not understand what is going on, both in the world and in the church.

The process of liberation that has been going on in the church in Latin America since Vatican II, and Medellin, where the Bible has become a central factor in shaping the direction the people of God are taking, is not going to be reversed, either by the bishops or by Rome. The people of God in Brazil said very clearly that they are the church.