Catholicism,religious diversity,and syncretism in the Latin American religious field and the immigrant religion contribution

Abstract

French

This article seeks to recognise the role of immigrant religion in the current Chilean religious scenario. The analysis considers two approaches in the study of Latin American religion: (1) the monopoly that Catholicism has had since the colonial period to the recent increase of religious pluralism (i.e. the spread of Protestantism – Pentecostalism – and other religious expressions) and (2) the religious syncretism and heterodox religious practices outside the official religion. In addition, the research identifies a third trend: the role of immigrant religion in the revitalisation and cultural diversification of national parishes. This latter approach has been understood as a current phenomenon that produces national parishes integrated by Chileans and immigrants in the Chilean context.

Keywords

Catholicism Latin America religion and immigration religious pluralism syncretism

Introduction

The Latin American religious context has experienced some critical changes in recent decades. Since the beginning of 1990, a growth in cultural diversity and religious pluralism can be perceived (De la Torre, 2018a; Hagiopan, 2009a, 2009b; Inglehart, 2009; Parker, 2016; Ramírez, 2008). Two factors have influenced such a process of diversity and pluralism: an influx of immigration within the region (Cerrutti and Parrado, 2015; Odgers, 2018) and the proliferation of Pentecostal groups (Bastian, 2010; De la Torre, 2018a).

For its part, most non-Catholic minorities expanding in Latin America have been Protestants in their historical or emergent forms (Zavala-Pelayo and Góngora-Mera, 2016). Pentecostalism has had an enduring presence throughout the twentieth century, becoming a key religious movement in the region (Somma et al., 2017). Nevertheless, immigration influxes within Latin America are underpinned by cultural and social diversity. In conjunction, both phenomena produce a new scenario in churches and parishes where the participation of immigrants among the regular parishioners can be seen. In the case of Chile, nowadays, national parishes are composed of Chileans and immigrants within their communities. For instance, the presence of a Haitian community in a Chilean parish has meant a cultural diversification in parish life (Aguirre, 2017; Orellana, 2021b). Thus, immigration in Chile can be associated with the involvement of new communities in the parishes and, at the same time, with new religious expressions such as Haitian Pentecostalism or Catholicism.

Concerning religious pluralism in Latin America, literature stresses a change from Catholicism monopoly to a new scenario. Since the colonial period, the Catholic Church has remained a solid religious institution with a significant influence in Latin American countries. However, with the irruption of Pentecostalism and Afro-Caribbean religions, this monopoly has shifted to a pluralistic scenario (Bastian, 2010; Chesnut, 2018). So, even though there is a strong tendency to identify the monopolistic presence of Catholicism, after several centuries, there has been an increasing religious pluralism throughout the region (Hagiopan, 2009a, 2009b; Levine, 2012; Mallimaci and Giménez Béliveau, 2007; Parker, 2009, 2016). Therefore, some research criticises the idea of Catholic monopoly by considering that there is no direct nexus between religious practices and the Catholic Church exclusively (Frigerio, 2018). In other words, Latin American religious individuals have experienced religious life in syncretic terms in the past and the present. Hence, they have mixed established religious traditions (such as Catholicism) with heterodox beliefs and practices since the beginning of the colonial period.

Based on the above discussion, there seem to be two pathways concerning religious dynamics: a monopoly of the Catholic Church and a syncretic religious life. While the former emphasises unity in the religious context, the latter stresses that diversity and religious mixing have existed for a long time in Latin America’s religious life. In this article, I suggest a third trend highlighted by the role of immigrants in the religious diversity of countries such as Chile. For instance, there is evidence of a new life in Chilean parishes with the presence and participation of immigrants in the worship and its social and cultural activities (Aguirre, 2017; Cubides and Bortolotto, 2013; Orellana, 2021a, 2021b). Therefore, as an alternative to the dichotomy between monopoly or syncretism, the study stresses that the current religious landscape regarding immigrants’ role in diversifying national parishes can be understood. Hence, the religious scenario can be pluralised by immigrants from different cultural or national backgrounds, even if they share the same religious traditions with the host society.

From Catholic monopoly to religious pluralism in Latin America

A common trend about religion in Latin America has highlighted Catholicism in ubiquitous terms and its vital role in the conformation of Latin American identity (Morandé, 2017; Paz, 2015). Nevertheless, even if the basis of the religious identity has been established through Catholicism and its relationship with native religions, we need to consider that the sociocultural context was very different from the European colonisers. Before the conquest, Latin American epistemology was mainly based on oral tradition. So, instead of the European centrality of the book, Latin American people were minded of orality and native wisdom (Morandé, 2017). For baroque Catholicism, native people’s sapiency, oral tradition, and the socio-economic model of Hacienda were a fundamental part of Latin America’s path towards modernity. Meanwhile, Western modernity had the Reformation and Enlightenment as its base.

In this sense, the coexistence of these two different modern models shows that Western modernity did not spread homogeneously throughout the world. Indeed, Latin American modernity is an example of the diversity and multiplicity of modernities in different world regions (Eisenstadt, 2013; Hervieu-Léger, 2005; Mallimaci, 2017; Parker, 2019). However, there are still other paths towards modernity besides the already exemplified. With the development of modernity, there was a change from a Catholic monopoly towards a Catholic hegemony (Mallimaci, 2017). This significant shift can be identified in the churches’ control of the educational system, its unequal rules in the logic of the religious market, its traditional values on personal autonomy, its legitimation of homophobia, sexism, and stigmatisation of women, as well as in its criminalisation of abortion (Zavala-Pelayo and Góngora-Mera, 2016).

Moreover, it is worth reckoning that the Catholic Church imposed its presence over native religions, being the crucial religious actor in Latin America for centuries. In fact, Catholicism became a key agent in developing a hegemonic Latin American identity differing from the Anglo-Saxon world in North America and Europe (De la Torre and Martín, 2016). Hence, despite some secularisation processes, Catholicism still had a strong presence in Latin America. In 1910, 95% of the population believed in God and belonged to a church. In 2010, this percentage dropped only to 92% (Morello et al., 2017), and even ‘more than nine out of every ten Latin Americans called themselves Catholic’ (Hagiopan, 2009a: 1). Likewise, until 1950, the Catholic hegemony was not threatened despite anticlerical or laicisation politics in Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay (Bastian, 2010). Therefore, pluralisation began throughout the twentieth century with the proliferation of Pentecostal groups. These religious groups were built around a charismatic leader, a pastor, who can meet and influence people through his speech and persuasion.

Another relevant point concerning multiple modernities is that Western and Latin American models of modernity have focused on spirituality from different trends. While Europeans have stressed the individual experience of spirituality, Latin American religious practice has emphasised a communal experience of belonging and believing. As an illustration, esoteric syncretism is reproduced in small groups or communities in the same spiritual searching. Hence, no individual approach to spirituality exists like in the European case (Gaytán, 2018a). Moreover, religious groups that emphasise a strong community sense (such as Pentecostals, Adventists, Methodists, and Evangelicals) have increased their religious affiliations (Gaytán, 2018a).

Concerning modernity in Latin America, from the beginning of the twentieth century, modernisation processes have delimited the social presence of the Catholic Church (Gaytán, 2018b; Morello, 2019). Such delimitation has resulted from separating social systems from the institution’s influence. In other words, functional domains such as science, economy, education, or art have increasingly become separated from the Catholic Church. In addition, secularity in Latin America mainly refers to the state’s protection of religious minorities and the breakdown of the Catholic Church’s privileges: ‘rather than to the decline of religiosity or the retreat of religion from public space’ (Zavala-Pelayo and Góngora-Mera, 2016: 72). This can be seen in the fact that the Catholic Church still influences human rights and ecological issues, as well as maintaining a solid opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage. Therefore, instead of eradicating religious institutions, the modernisation processes have changed them (Morello, 2019; Morello et al., 2017).

Simultaneously, there is an erosion of the Catholic monopoly associated with the church no longer being the exclusive institution regarding the authorised beliefs. Nowadays, religious beliefs with a long presence in the region (such as native religions) are gaining incidence and competing with the Catholic Church (Mallimaci and Giménez Béliveau, 2007). Hence, religious pluralism strengthens competition among religious groups by recruiting members, while in a monopoly, the mainstream religion reaches the population in a nominal identification but with a lazy commitment.

The presence of religious minorities is part of the pluralisation of the religious field. It has led to the conversion of people from Catholicism to other religious expressions, such as Protestantism. This conversion looks for more assertive teachings on moral issues, commitment and conservative positions on hot-button issues (Zavala-Pelayo and Góngora-Mera, 2016), reflecting a sense of disappointment with Catholicism among some social sectors. Another critical point is that Latin America’s pluralisation is due to conversion and internal changes in the region. Indeed, in the diversification of the religious sphere, there is a range of Evangelical and Pentecostal groups and a diversity of African Diasporic religions (Thornton, 2018). Similarly, ‘diversification’ is ‘a pluralisation from within, not like in Europe, where the “religious other” is usually a migrant from a different ethnic background’ (Morello et al., 2017: 318).

In addition, since the end of the twentieth century, the monopoly viewpoint has been placed alongside the narrative of religious pluralism. This narrative identifies that Latin America is experiencing a religious pluralism that jeopardises the omnipresence of the Catholic Church to the presence of religious competitors (Hagiopan, 2009a; Levine, 2012). Moreover, some of these competitors could match the necessities of Latin Americans in a straighter way than the Catholic Church. For example, religious movements in Chile, such as Pentecostalism, provide healing, encourage the end of alcohol abuse (Hagiopan, 2009a), and use a particular outreach style through street preaching (Guerrero, 2012).

Furthermore, the growth of Protestantism in the region has created a competitive pluralist environment (Hagiopan, 2009a; Levine, 2012; Offutt, 2014; Stark and Smith, 2012): ‘since old religious identities cannot provide the tools for thriving in this new context, people are more prone to adopt new religious identities (Evangelical religion in our case)’ (Somma et al., 2017: 126). In addition, Pentecostalism is not characterised by the hybridity or syncretism practised within Catholicism in Latin America (Walsh-Dilley, 2019). In other words, while the former breaks with the cultural features or the sinful pre-conversion life, syncretism has an interrelationship between official and indigenous religious elements among its practices. Pentecostalism adapts to the local context, but, at the same time, it takes distance from some cultural practices. For example, Vodou in Haiti or Spiritism in Africa has been rejected by Pentecostal communities (Casanova, 2001). This is because one can find both the teaching of the Bible and the bodily and ecstatic experience of the doctrine of Jesus at the core of the Pentecostal worldview. The religious practices outside those elements or the mediators between God and the believer (such as the Saints) are not considered in Pentecostal communities.

Under the current interconnectedness due to the globalisation processes, Christendom is placed mainly outside the West (in the Global South). For instance, Pentecostalism has spread in Latin American city suburbs and peripheral areas, reaching the lower social sectors in Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala. I understand that the vital element in the conversion to Pentecostalism is that Latin American cities’ poorest sectors can find spiritual and social support in this movement. For example, the healing practices performed in Pentecostal churches can be used for those who cannot afford access to the health system. At the same time, social problems such as drug abuse or violence are diminished through involvement in Pentecostalism. Some attitudes, such as machismo – the superiority of men and their domination towards women – alcoholism or violence against women are eradicated, to a significant degree, through conversion.

In the same way, and to this date, Latin America is the heartland of Christianity. It has more Catholics and Pentecostals than other regions (Freston, 2007). Moreover, I believe that there is an essential comparison between current Pentecostalism and syncretism in the colonial period. Such a comparison is warranted because the initial missionary activity at the beginning of the twentieth century can explain the growth of the former. However, after that, the movement increased within the home population. At the same time, syncretism was produced through the imposition of a foreign religion over the natives, which implied recognising the Christians’ God, the cross, and Catholicism as the official religion. Still, this was practised alongside native religions. In this sense, both religious worldviews intermingled in a new synthesis where ‘the assimilation of powerful and victorious gods reinforces the pantheon and makes access to the ideological goods of the invader possible’ (Benavides, 2004: 202). In summary, while the former has grown from within and has adapted to the Latin American societies, syncretism was the imposition of the conqueror’s religion, practised together with native religious traditions.

Syncretism and religious practice

In the relationship between Catholicism and native religions, it is crucial to identify elements provided by both religions and the role of developments in syncretism and religious practice. On the Catholic side, the evangelisation from the conquest period produced religious practices with some key features: a religiosity of pilgrimage and devotions, vows and promises, the reception of the sacraments – the baptism and first communion mainly – having more social repercussion than a true impact in the practice of Christian life (Prien, 2013). On the native side, the worldviews of these populations provide cultural features to foreign Catholicism. Let us consider the unity of human beings (the complementarity between body and soul), the dimension of ecology (the sacralisation of ‘Mother Earth’ and mountains in the Aymará and Quechua cultures), the importance of the senses in the religious experience, and the images of saints and hierophanies (as the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe three times to Juan Diego). Also, it provides diverse ways for approaching divinity (such as certain forms of fasting or dance) and the role of the bodily and the sensual (Prien, 2013). Since pre-Hispanic religiosity, the above identification was the framework for the new Christian elements. From the sixteenth century onwards, ‘the attributes of indigenous gods were transferred to Mary and the saints (...) a functional folk polytheism of sorts emerged, which was capable of satisfactorily assimilating the numerous divinities of the Americas’ (Prien, 2013: 229).

In addition, Martín (2017) pointed out that ‘two canopies’ exist in Latin America. One of these is the standard view on the monopolist presence of Catholicism and its influence on culture and social identity. The other corresponds to the folk religion (together with popular religion) practised under a popular cosmological view that intermingles relations between nature, heaven, and human beings in a cosmic and harmonic whole. In the same fashion and within everyday life practices, popular religion designates the religious expressions of ordinary people and their relationships with the divine in an individual or communitarian way. This means that the religiosity of the less privileged social classes focuses on bodily and iconic expressions instead of intellectual or dogmatic approaches. Therefore, the lower classes practise popular cults and rituals while the privileged, the higher-educated, or the upper-middle classes have been secularised (Parker, 2018).

Popular religion is an expression that diversifies the religious scenario. This type of religion is usually understood in a broad and general sense. However, it can be identified as the ‘religion of the people’, as a response to privation, or as a ‘different logic’ (Martín, 2009). The critical point is that popular religion is practised beyond the institutional or official religion because it represents the syncretic practices of the people. These practices combine official religion with local or native devotions or the ‘different logic’ that reacts to the intellectual and hierarchical institutional form of religion. Hence, it shows the diverse religious practices among the different sectors of society and, together with religious syncretism, are expressions of a rich religious life. In the same way, popular beliefs – spiritual forces, the influence of the stars, folk healers, energetic waves, or the evil eye – are widespread in popular and even educated middle classes (De la Torre and Martín, 2016). Moreover, where support for the Catholic monopoly has ended, a religious market in which ‘individual[s] can mix and match a wide range of alternatives to create their own systems of belief’ has emerged (De la Torre and Martín, 2016: 479).

Despite this popular religious expression, the Catholic Church’s monopoly viewpoint still considers that religious practices must be framed within the institutions (Frigerio, 2018). Within this framework, religious practice is equated with the church, but religious beliefs and patterns are not placed within the religious institutions. This second trend shows that religious practice exists beyond or outside the church since it has been intertwined by mixing attitudes between established and heterodox religious beliefs. In other words, ‘there was always greater diversity than we believe but regulated and repressed to varying degrees since the State and certain social sectors’ (Frigerio, 2018: 86). The emphasis on the institution and the (legitimate) identification as Catholic does not recognise that individual believers can practise and worship different spiritual entities daily.

Furthermore, classic authors in the sociological study of religion have emphasised a church-centred view of religion. That is to say, the Church-sect typology in Weber and Troeltsch, the Durkheimian definition of religion as a social phenomenon with a moral community labelled as the church, and the identification of magic as a subordinate religion to the established church-oriented official religion (in Mauss’ theory) are all postulating a view on religion that is focused on the institutional church (Parker, 2010). I detect that this emphasis has made more difficult the identification and recognition of the religious expressions outside this institution. In the Latin American case, the official religion was identified with the Catholic Church, while other religious expressions were placed out of that former status.

Moreover, Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Mauss, and Troeltsch wrote the classics of sociological thinking on religion in a Western context. Therefore, many religious controversies were framed around the Western pattern of an ‘evolutionary’ framework. So, secularisation will reach modern societies, and modernisation will be brought about by secularisation (Parker, 2018). However, this influential theoretical framework can be viewed as Eurocentric. That is not applicable without criticism of the reality of Latin America. There was no secularisation process in Latin America, such as in Europe. Instead, there is a strong position and influence of the institutional religion (the Catholic Church) or a vibrant religious practice outside the church. However, the classics’ emphasis on secularisation in the modern world is a framework that is alien to the Latin American reality. Equally important is recognising that multiple modernities’ theses are in a very early stage. Until the second half of the twentieth century, the modernisation of a unique modernity trajectory had ample sociological thinking space. Therefore, criticism of the Eurocentric view on religion and modernisation has recently developed.

In the traditional sociological study of religion, this emphasis on religious institutions (mainly the church) has meant that other themes, such as the interrelationships inside the groups and their relation towards spirituality, have been less researched (Gutiérrez, 2016). Furthermore, Durkheim’s influential theory on social facts could explain this institutional emphasis. In his view, the social phenomena should be analysed as external and coercive to the individuals. Social life must be approached from institutions and social structures instead of individuals. In this sense, this Durkheimian methodology has strongly influenced the classics of the sociological study of religion (Gutiérrez, 2016). The study of this phenomenon has highlighted the institutional side and, to a lesser degree, the individual(s) aspect of religion. Religious phenomena outside religious institutions have been less researched. For example, magic is studied within anthropology rather than the sociology of religion. This phenomenon is placed in the religious field but out of religious institutions. The anthropological tradition has researched magic from armchair anthropology. However, the sociological classics have focused on this topic to a lesser degree.

In the same way, it has been identified that religious phenomena are not only limited to institutional or individual religion. On one hand, secularisation and the market theory of religion are both paradigms that have analysed religious groups or communities. Conversely, the spirituality approach highlights individual religious involvement (Frigerio, 2020). Nevertheless, there is a religious space where individuals interact in small religious groups that are neither placed in religious organisations nor isolated individuals. As an illustration, religious expressions are associated with the New Age or Pentecostal groups established in houses in poor sectors in Latin American cities. Here, the religious experience is realised through the interactions of believers in small groups and at a distance from the religious institutions (Frigerio, 2020). For example, in the lived religion approach, religious practice ‘is not inherently either “public” or “private”, a distinction that is itself misleading (...) the reality of everyday life is that practices travel across those boundaries’ (Ammerman, 2020: 13). Coupled with this, Spica (2018) has pinpointed the syncretism of religious context in Latin America and the phenomenon of dual belongings. The former means that individuals can participate in Afro religions and Catholicism to mix religious worldviews in everyday life.

In the same way, it is essential to specify that religious syncretism produces a process unlike conversion, where Catholics continue with identification inside Catholicism. However, they search for religious alternatives outside this religious identification. In other words, they explore and incorporate heterodox beliefs that allow them to deal with their daily necessities. For example, a Catholic can assist the worshipping of his parish and, afterwards, cleanse his energies through quartz crystals in his meditation practices. This phenomenon of religious mixing has been identified as a ‘believer in his own way’ (Gaytán, 2018a).

The mentioned elements highlight a view on religiosity, providing an additional dimension in studying religious life. In like manner, the space beyond the religious organisations/individual, the lived religion or the dual belongings show that the religious phenomena are broader than the analysis regarding institutions or individuals. In the current religious field in Latin America, mixing traditions and expressions of religiosity in the private realm produces a challenging area of study.

Religion and immigration

In this section, I will analyse the role of immigrants in religious life. First, it is crucial to study religion and immigration from the central regions (the United States and Western Europe) that focus on receiving immigration flows. In fact, ‘scholarship too has tended to focus on migration flows from the global South to the global North (South-North migration), even when migration within and across the global South (South-South migration) is arguably more significant numerically speaking’ (Saunders et al., 2016: 8). For this reason, research in other regions – such as Latin America or Chile – is justified from an exploratory approach. Latin America has recently experienced a flow of immigrants from within the same area and the Caribbean. During the first decades of the twenty-first century, more than three million Latin Americans live in another country that is not their home country (Cerrutti and Parrado, 2015; Nieto, 2014). In this sense, De la Torre and Martín (2016) emphasise that one key area of research in Religious Studies in Latin America is the role of religion in the ethnicisation or de-ethnicisation processes and the displacements and flows produced by globalisation. In this context, Chile has become a country that receives immigration flows (Cerrutti and Parrado, 2015; Yáñez, 2017). Within Chile, it is possible to find migration from neighbouring countries such as Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Moreover, immigration from the Dominican Republic and Haiti has grown enormously (Cubides and Bortolotto, 2013; Rojas and Koechlin, 2017). In fact, in 2020, 1,462,103 foreigners will be living in Chile. This immigration is distributed as follows: Venezuela (30.7%), Peru (16.3%), Haiti (12.5%), Colombia (11.4%), Bolivia (8.5%); Argentina (5.2%), and Ecuador (2,7%) (Departamento de Extranjeríay Migración and Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, 2021).

Concerning attitudes towards immigrant incorporation, the Catholics stress their biblical worldviews and teachings. For instance, the principle that ‘all persons are created in the image of God’ means that the Catholic Church aims its assistance towards different migrants. Some biblical passages, such as Matthew 25: 35 – ‘For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me’ –, the gospel, and religious revelation of the concepts of human rights are at the basis of incorporation of immigrants (Mooney, 2007). These doctrines teach the Catholic faithful that they are responsible to a higher authority than the political power: ‘their duties as Christians may often go beyond their responsibilities as citizens. Even if a person is undocumented and thus has no political rights, Christians should welcome that person as if they were Christ’ (Mooney, 2007: 163).

On the other hand, Evangelical-Pentecostal incorporation is based on Christian universalism. In other words, through the born-again conversion, the person is linked to global religious discourse and a set of practices that can be analysed in the religious belief system, spiritual practices, cultural identities, and organisational and individual networks (Glick Schiller, 2009; Glick Schiller et al., 2006; Karagiannis and Glick Schiller, 2006). An essential element is no national identities for the born-again conversion worldview (such as Chilean, Brazilian, or Mexican). Instead, there is a global community of followers of Christ.

Immigrants reproduce religious expressions of their home countries in receiving societies. This practice can be understood as religious transnationalism (Caba and Rojas, 2014; Chávez, 2015; Cubides and Bortolotto, 2013; Ebaugh and Chafetz, 2002; Mallimaci, 2016; Orellana, 2021a; Saldívar, 2019; Sheringham, 2013). Religious processions, celebrations of Marian devotions, and elements of the local home culture in the worship of their new destinations are examples of religious transnationalism. This phenomenon comprises three processes: de-territorialisation, trans-territorialisation, and re-territorialisation (De la Torre, 2018b). On one hand, the de-territorialisation implies separating the immigrants from their local cultural and ethnic contexts. This distance is due to the journey that immigrants must endure and the immigration process related to settling within a new place. Trans-territorialisation is a process of revitalising cultural goods using technology and communications. Finally, re-territorialisation is the settlement of local cultural practices in new countries. However, these are adapted to the sociocultural patterns of the new place (De la Torre, 2018b).

In the Chilean case, there are expressions of religious transnationalism in the Peruvian community that celebrate the Marian devotion of Our Lady of Miracles in Santiago (Caba and Rojas, 2014; Chávez, 2015; Hurtado, 2015). This celebration takes place on the last Sunday of October. There is a journey from Santiago’s Cathedral towards the Latin American parish, placed in the neighbourhood of Providencia, where the Marian image and statue are transported. Many Peruvian Catholics participate in the celebration, making meeting with other Peruvian immigrants possible. This religious celebration has a clear division of roles: men carry the religious figure, and women pray around it (Orellana, 2022). In other regions of the country, in Patagonia, for example, Chilean communities celebrate religious devotions in Chile and Argentina (Saldívar, 2019). Immigrants must change their home country’s religious celebrations within transnational contexts to adapt to their new setting (Ammerman, 2020). Furthermore, the interrelationship between sending and receiving countries that immigrants reproduce through their social links and remittances allows their members to overlap different societies or even multiple modernities. Transnational lifestyle can be understood as a model of modernity (Offutt, 2014).

Concerning Chilean parishes with an immigrant population, there is evidence that shows two demographical models: (1) intercultural parishes, such as the Latin American parish placed in Providencia, Santiago, with immigrants from different countries from Latin America and the Caribbean and (2) national parishes with both Chileans and immigrants in their communities. In the first model, participation is viewed as a way of continuity with the religious life of the home country among the immigrant parishioners. In this model, different national communities participate in religious and social activities every Sunday (there are no restrictions to their involvement). In this way, parishioners from different national backgrounds interact among themselves. In the religious processions, there is participation by the national community (i.e. being celebrated). In the Latin American parish, it is possible to celebrate Marian devotions from different countries of Latin America. There is a recognition of the vital process of reproducing immigrants’ original religious or cultural roots in a new society. Therefore, this parish encourages religious celebrations among immigrant parishioners by bringing assistance and support for the organisation and development of the religious festivities (Chávez, 2015; Cubides and Bortolotto, 2013; Orellana, 2021a).

Regarding the second type, the Santa Cruz parish has Chilean and Haitian parishioners, and participation in the Haitian community does not mean isolation from the Chilean community. In this case, the parishioners were religious persons in Haiti and Santiago, searching for a parish where they could continue their religious life. Moreover, in this parish, the Mass is celebrated in French by a Chilean priest, and the chorus sings in Haitian Creole. There is a Haitian pastoral composed of the chorus and parishioners, all Haitians. Catholic Haitians from different places across Santiago come to this particular Haitian pastoral every Sunday because they feel more comfortable with the mass and religious music celebrated in their home language. There are different activities where the Haitian community can interact and establish relations with Chilean society. For example, there are Spanish and digital skill courses, lotteries, activities for making money for the needy and Integration Masses. In these Masses, both Haitian and Chilean communities participate. The priests from both communities preach a standard message, first in Spanish and then in Haitian Creole. The choirs sing in both languages; sometimes, both congregations sing in Haitian Creole and Spanish in a cheerful and overlapping way (Aguirre, 2017; Orellana, 2021b).

In addition, there is an emergent trend with the presence of Afro-Caribbean religions in Chile due to contemporary flows of immigrants from Haiti and the Caribbean. For example, the Santeria religion is present in Santiago (Saldívar, 2015, 2023) and the Vodou in Puerto Montt (Saldívar et al., 2022). The key aspect is that those religions were hitherto unknown in Chile. The core of the Chilean religious scenario is composed mainly of Catholicism and Pentecostalism (Somma et al., 2017). Those religions share some beliefs, such as the centrality of the Holy Spirit. Conversely, worshipping the ancestor’s spirits has a key role in Santeria or Vodou but is completely forbidden in Catholicism and Pentecostalism. The presence of Santeria and Vodou means an increasing religious diversity and religious worldviews with beliefs and practices different from Catholicism and Pentecostalism are established in the country. It can be seen that some Chilean Catholics or Pentecostals are intermingling those traditions with Vodou due to the contact and acquaintances with Vodou practitioners that testify to this religion’s effectiveness in overcoming problems and difficulties. In the case of Santeria, economic, health, or labour problems motivate initial contact with this religion among Chilean religious seekers (Saldívar, 2023; Saldívar et al., 2022).

Furthermore, a recent survey has identified as a new trend in Chilean religion the loss of adherence to Catholicism among young people. As the survey states, this loss:

[. . .] is very pronounced, and Catholicism is equated with those who do not profess no religion (or declare themselves non-believers) in this age group. [Together with] several beliefs typical of the Christian world have been resented (resurrection of the dead and divinity of Jesus Christ). Still, the beliefs in miracles and indicators of popular piety remain intact (...) [In addition] many heterodox or unconventional beliefs enjoy adherence. [For example], the belief in karma has increased dramatically in recent years. (Centro Políticas Públicas UC, 2022: 3)

On one hand, the discussion on immigrant religion and the Afro-Caribbean religion allows us to identify the trend towards increasing cultural diversity in the Chilean religious context. Thus, on the other hand, the survey findings show a tendency to take distance from official religion among the youth, which – adding to the above – provides a better understanding of the Chilean religious scenario.

Finally, immigrant religions are usually placed in inferior positions of marginality concerning the mainstream socio-religious context (Kong and Woods, 2018). This is the case of foreign religious groups, which differ from the host societies’ main religions. For example, Haitian Vodou is viewed by the diaspora as a backward and magical religion, and its followers are discriminated against. There are attempts by Haitian immigrants to distance themselves from the practice of Vodou, which stimulates the religious conversion to Protestantism in the Bahamas (Louis, 2015). In reality, it is difficult to obtain equal treatment for the immigrant religions because ‘religious parity – the treatment of all religious groups on equal terms – is rare, even under pluralism’ (Kong and Woods, 2018: 159). Nevertheless, if the immigrant religions are part of the mainstream religious groups, it can be identified that the trend is to reinvigorate these groups instead of suffering marginality or discrimination. Through the participation and commitment of immigrants – Haitians and Latin American Catholics – it is possible to evidence how these new parishioners are reinforcing the religious, cultural, and social life of national parishes (Aguirre, 2017; Cubides and Bortolotto, 2013; Orellana, 2021a, 2021b).

Conclusion

The research on religion and immigration in the Chilean context is worthy of study. Latin American immigration makes the Chilean churches increasingly intercultural, where it is possible to find inculturation within religious practices from different places across Latin America. At the same time, there is Haitian immigration that diversifies the national religious context with the inclusion of new religious beliefs. Indeed, research on religion and immigration is at the basis of the pluralisation and diversification of the religious field in Chile.

The above analysis tried to show two approaches in the study of Latin American religion: (1) the religious monopoly through the imposition and presence of Catholicism since the conquest period and religious pluralism with the irruption of Protestantism (Pentecostalism) and other religious expressions in recent decades and (2) the religious syncretism and heterodox religious practices outside the official religion and the influence of the sociological classics that have analysed the institutional religion overwhelmingly but in a lesser degree other religious expressions. In this scenario, the contribution to the discussion is recognising renewed vitality through the immigrants’ religious practices.

In other words, in the discussion on monopolies or syncretism, there is evidence of a renewed religious vitality through the presence of immigrants in national parishes. As an illustration, there are national parishes integrated by immigrant parishioners in the Chilean case. This flow of immigrants is a key aspect of cultural diversification and the increasing interculturality of Chilean parishes. This phenomenon adds a dimension to the analysis of Latin American religion because the immigrants are part of the rising religious pluralism of the region. Foreign parishioners take part in the life of national parishes. In addition, the analysis of the religious context in Latin America should consider the presence of immigrants due to their importance in diversifying religious life.

Finally, the study of religion and immigration in the Chilean case is the basis of further research. For example, diversifying the religious scenario is worthy of research for the next months or years. This can be seen in the presence of different religious expressions of the same faith (as Latin American Catholics) or the arrival of religions hitherto unknown in Chile (as Vodou exemplifies). Immigration in its religious forms diversifies and revitalises traditional expressions or celebrations in Chilean Catholicism because churches are not only composed of a Chilean flock. The same Chilean churches now receive an immigrant flock with new religious expressions, Marian devotions, and processions. In conclusion, Chilean churches are increasingly becoming intercultural churches.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Felipe ORELLANA

Author biography

Felipe ORELLANA is researcher at the Institute of Theology and Religious Studies (ITER), Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Santiago, Chile). He holds a PhD in sociology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, a master’s degree in sociology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, an MA in religion in contemporary society at King’s College London (UK) and a BA in sociology at Universidad Alberto Hurtado. His research interests span sociology of religion, social theory and religion, immigration, and globalisation. His publications have been on intercultural churches in Santiago, religious market, Jewish fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, the devil and social theory, and religion and immigration.

Address: Instituto de Teología y Estudios Religiosos, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile.

Email: forellana@uahurtado.cl

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