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This article discusses how many indigenous peoples throughout Latin America are experiencing a loss of cultural tradition, along with conflict and violence because of religion. Of the 40 million indigenous people who live in Latin America today, the most prevalent religion is still Roman Catholicism; however, over the years, other religions have surfaced such as Protestantism and Evangelicalism. The emergence of different religions have changed the collective behavior of indigenous people, along with breaking away their traditional nature.

Throughout Latin America, indigenous communities are losing their sense of tradition, stemmed from large established religious denominations and lesser known groups. While some churches focus on social concerns, others focus on spiritual concerns, creating a division between communities and families. The "sects" have taken on the role of dividing the people and lowering them to interests of the dominant powers. Anthropologists and religious leaders blame the sects for employing indigenous peoples with money and advertising beliefs that go against their way of life.

This article discusses the dramatic change that has taken place in Latin America regarding the conversion from Catholicism to Evangelical Christianity. There has been a great rise of Pentecostal Christianity in Guatemala and Brazil, but Venezuela is quick to catch up. Some people believe that Evangelical Christianity is going to save Venezuela from the economic dismay the country is in, as well as the high crime rates. People believe that Evangelical Christianity brings people in touch with their natural emotions "through Jesus" and therefore enables people to help others in need, especially the poor. Some also believe that the rise is Pentecostal Christians is due to their new leftist president, Chavez.

This article talks about the religious changes in Latin America and especially the situation in Venezuela. With the rise of the evangelical Christian population, the article examines the affect that the political influence and in particular Hugo Chavez has had on this religious shift. As well, the article talks about the main demographic behind the religion and who choses to believe and why.

Here it is argued that evangelical Christianity is the "religion of the poor". Saying this, it explains why many people join the relgion: as a way to overcome hardships in life. This religion brings not only spiritual but also social renewal. We also are now aware that the majority of people converting are coming from the Catholic church.

Religion is and has been an important aspect of life in Latin America for many reasons. This site discusses the differences between each religion practiced and besides the general background, there are many statistics to serve as a timeline, an extensive bibliography, scholarly discussions, and more.

This article discusses how in 2008, Chile declared October 31st to be a public holiday in honor of "the evangelical and Protestant churches," even though Chile is the only country in Latin America that still has a significant Christian Democratic party. The article also provides statistics for several countries and their religious affiliation. For example, 15% of Chileans said they were evangelicals, along with Brazilians and Guatemalans claiming to be 15% and 20% respectively. Furthermore, most Latin America Protestants are Pentecostals.

Though it is not focused on Latin America, this source examines how involvement in religion inhibits criminal activity.

This article discusses how Latin America has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, and how women's organizations continue to fight for the right to safe and legal abortion. It is believed that to a certain extent, religion has influenced the criminalization of abortion. However, the women's movement in the region has made progress towards attaining the right to legal abortion.

I thought this website would be helpful in better understanding Venezuela through current events. There are many sub-topics within the website that make specific searches easier, including those related to crime, culture, religion, and violence, all of which are new subjects of interest while reading Milde's book, Reasons to Believe.

This article explores the full range of religious changes in Latin America while it experienced a profound pluralization of faith. This article gives an overview of the religious economies theory and the subcultural identity theory to use them and reanalyze the process of pluralization in Latin America.

An overview of the social roles of Venezuelan citizens, highlighting themes of urbanization and religion in a nation with rich supplies of natural oil reserves.

An audio clip of a woman telling her story of her illegal abortion and the repercussions it had on her body and her presence within her society. Again, we see the struggle between the religion of Mexico and the push for women's rights.

Uruguay passed a trailblazing law on September 9th of this year, allowing homosexual couples to adopt children. Uruguay is a predominately catholic country, and same-sex adoption goes directly against some principles of catholicism. Uruguay was also the first Latin American country to allow divorce, and recently allowed homosexual individuals into military schools, as noted in the article.

This article addresses the issue of HIV/AIDS in Latin America is becoming feminized due to socio-economic and gender inequalities. The concept of machismo increases the vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS when combined with other factors such as poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy. There are roughly 1.8 million people in Latin America with HIV/AIDS, with women representing 25% of the infected population. The strong tradition of Catholicism stands in the way of education on sex and sexuality intended to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

This blog describes a Pentecostal movement called Charismatic, headed by the bishops in Guatemala. The movement is about deepening the spirituality in the lives of the church members and the priests. The blog also describes the dangers of the movement going beyond the control of the Church, and into "peculiar kinds of prayers, exclusive attitudes... and overemphasis on emotions".

This article is about the Church in Bogotá, Colombia heading an interfaith dialogue on domestic violence with delegates from 16 countries and 13 religious denominations. The basic idea of the conference was that religious leaders should join together to fight domestic violence from their pulpits.

This article was published in 2001. Serrano Elias was elected President of Guatemala and he was a converted Protestant. Thirty percent of the Guatemalan population are Evangelical Protestants. The article discusses how the rise of Evangelicalism is weakening the Catholic Church in Latin American countries. Many have converted because Evangelicalism has assisted people who are in need better than the Catholic Church has.

This article discusses the large decrease in attendants for the Catholic Church and the huge increase of people joing the Protestant faith. It discusses the reasons that many are choosing to go Evangelical Protestant and the fears that a lot of the Catholics have about the newfound change in religion. Latin America being a predominately Catholic put Catholics in a akward position and makes them fear the changes that are to come as a result.

This article from the Time Magazine discusses the Protestant resurgence taking place in Latin America. For example, the Vatican is especially concerned about Brazil, supposedly the world's No. 1 Roman Catholic nation, with 126 million on church rolls. Protestants boast a minimum of 20 million churchgoers and are expanding twice as fast as the overall population.

Recently in Guatemala, many Catholics and Christians were involved in a Peace Walk protesting the excessive amount of violence, murders, abductions, rapes, drug addiction, and violence stemming from drugs. The walk was aimed to represent the extreme necessity of security that needs to be brought into Guatemala. During the protest, people used religion to preach for peace by holding signs that read "through Jesus and Mary we can have peace." Gangs such as maras are causing an overall insecurity throughout Guatemala (a recent study stated that 78 percent of Guatemalans are afraid to go out in the street and 90 percent are afraid of kidnapping). Everyday the people of Guatemala are threatened not knowing if either themselves or a loved one will be harmed in some way. Until changes are made and there is more security, the people of Guatemala call upon God and protest.

over 10,000 Catholic and Christian Guatemalans protested their frustration over violence and drug abuse. Crime has increased drastically over the past year in Guatemala, with 6292 murders. Cardinal Quezada Toruno spoke to the protesters in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Guatemala and turned to god and social activism to help decrease violence and crime in Guatemala.

This article discusses the views and reality of abortions happening in the hospitals and behind the scenes in Latin America. Many different issues are brought up on abortion, such as that of religious and health, showing various opinions. The article also talks about possible solutions through sex education and birth control and also the cultural reality of these solutions.

Continuing our discussion of sexual education in the US and Latin America, this research study is the start to continued knowledge and use of contraception methods and the role of HIV AIDS in Latin America. With this knowledge integrated into the school curriculum, there is greater awareness of AIDS and prevention methods will increase. If more schools were to create a dialogue with students about sexual awareness and AIDS in particular since it is affecting so much of the young population, than attitudes and efforts to prevent the disease would certainly change and increase. Catholic schools refused to partake in the study. Similar to our discussion in which Catholic schools only preached abstinence while others focused on being safe, the Catholic schools continued to disregard preventative measures in order to follow their beliefs. They also mention that gender roles and machismo may also be precursors to risky sexual behavior because of hierarchies that are established in Belize.

This article is from 2008, one year after Mexico City legalized abortions. It talks about the continuing difficulties for poor women to receive safe abortions, even though they had been legalized. Women complained about long lines at understaffed public clinics, hostile treatment from hospital workers who opposed abortion, and unfair bureaucratic hurdles which made it difficult or impossible for them to get the procedure done. At the time this article was written, the abortion law was being challenged in the Supreme Court by the conservative government.

In many Latino cultures masculinity is defined by the heroics of sport. Mexico is no exception; their most sacred and national masculine symbol could very well be their national soccer team. I chose this web page for its vivid imagery documenting the "idols of the Tricolor."