Latin America

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Soccer and God-talk: Lionel Messi's Catholic faith was part of epic World Cup drama

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Soccer and God-talk: Lionel Messi's Catholic faith was part of epic World Cup drama

LUSAIL, Qatar — Soccer superstar Lionel Messi went out of his way to avoid a gaggle of French defenders throughout the World Cup final.

But Messi didn’t dodge the role that his Catholic faith played in Argentina’s epic win over France, praising God for his personal career success after the penalty-kick shootout in a World Cup final that will be remembered as the best in the tournament’s 92-year history.

“It’s just crazy that it became a reality this way,” Messi said. “I craved this for so long. I knew God would bring this gift to me. I had the feeling that this time was the one.”

Messi, a practicing Catholic, answered questions from reporters after Argentina’s victory at the 89,000-seat Lusail Stadium in the suburbs of the capital Doha. It was a game of ups and downs. Argentina twice squandered a lead (2-0 at halftime and 3-2 in extra time), but triumphed in the end on penalties after the game ended 3-3.

In leading Argentina to a third World Cup — after wins in 1978 and 1986 — Messi also replaced countryman Diego Maradona’s and even Brazilian legend Pele as the greatest player to have ever kicked a soccer ball.

Maradona, who died two years ago, is a global icon. In Argentina, he has enjoyed a status reserved for a deity. There’s even a church in which the faithful gather in his name. It’s impossible to avoid faith when talking about football in Argentina.

In an interview following the win against France, Messi, who typically makes the sign of the cross and points towards the sky after scoring goals, again mentioned God as the reason for the victory.

“I just said that God was going to give it to me,” Messi told TyC Sports, an Argentine sports TV channel, referring to the World Cup trophy. “I was sure I had a feeling that this was the moment. We suffered a lot — but now it’s time to enjoy it.”


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Axios looks at the hot political (of course) trend of Latinos becoming evangelical voters

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Axios looks at the hot political (of course) trend of Latinos becoming evangelical voters

It’s the question that I get all the time from frustrated, fair-minded people when I speak to civic or church groups: “Where can I go, these days, for unbiased news?”

There is, of course, no easy answer. We live in an age in which pretty much every news organization — even the Associated Press on moral and cultural issues — is preaching to choirs of believers huddled in digital bunkers on the left and the right.

I recommend that people get on Twitter and follow about 10-20 journalists and public intellectuals who consistently tick off people on both sides of the political spectrum. The goal is follow their tweets and retweets and see who THEY are reading and what articles they have found helpful or horrible. You know, people like David French, Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan (and, I would hope, moi).

I also advise listeners to look for newsletters and websites, even if they lean left or right, that provide lots and lots of direct links to other sources of information. This list includes, of course, Axios. This brings me to one of that websites quick-hit pieces with this headline: “Mapped: Power of Latino Protestants.”

One of the stories that everyone missed in 2016 — but we discussed it here at GetReligion (and CNN, for a fleeting moment, on election night) — was that Donald Trump never would have reached the White House without the support of a surprisingly high number of Latino voters in Florida. Many of them were in the Orlando suburbs, an area dotted with evangelical and Pentecostal megachurches popular. Here is the lede on this Axios piece (with its own must-see map):

The Latino exodus from Catholicism and toward more politically conservative evangelical faiths is one important reason for the rightward shift that could shape the future of the electorate.

Pause for a moment. Look at the phrase “politically conservative evangelical faiths.”

Now, name a moral or cultural issue on which the STATED doctrines of evangelicalism are more conservative than the PRINTED contents of the Catholic Catechism.


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Plug-In: Sexual-abuse reforms top Southern Baptist actions in dramatic annual meeting

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Plug-In: Sexual-abuse reforms top Southern Baptist actions in dramatic annual meeting

In terms of making history, 1979 was a highly consequential year for the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention.

So was 1985. And 2021, come to think of it. No doubt I’m missing other important years.

Where might 2022 rank? For the second year in a row, the high-profile annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination produced major news.

Five key takeaways from this week’s proceedings in Anaheim, California:

1. Sex abuse reforms

In response to last month’s bombshell report on sexual abuse in the denomination, delegates “voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms,” as The Associated Press’ Deepa Bharath and Peter Smith report.

See related coverage by the Houston Chronicle’s John Tedesco and Robert Downen, two of the journalists whose 2019 “Abuse of Faith” investigation spurred the reforms.

2. Apology to victims

A day after that important vote, the Southern Baptists “approved a resolution Wednesday apologizing to abuse survivors and asking for forgiveness,” as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and Adelle M. Banks report.

See related coverage by The Tennessean’s Liam Adams and the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Katherine Burgess.

3. New president

In “another win for abuse reform,” the Baptists elected Bart Barber, the pastor of a relatively small congregation in rural Texas, to lead the denomination’s crucial next steps, as Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt reports.

See related coverage by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Frank Lockwood and the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner, a former GetReligion team member.


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Could Hispanic-Americans, Protestants especially, shape the '22 and '24 elections?

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Could Hispanic-Americans, Protestants especially, shape the '22 and '24 elections?

Something is afoot when two New York Times columnists, Charles Blow on the left and Ross Douthat on the right, both make the identical observation in Monday's edition.

Blow, who fears a "Biden blood bath" in the November midterms, underscored that Quinnipiac polling shows President Joe Biden's approval rating is even lower among Hispanics than whites, partly because "Hispanics hew conservative on some social issues." Douthat wrote that to win, Democrats need to do better with two groups from the Barack Obama coalition that have drifted rightward since, "culturally conservative Latinos and working class whites."

The 2020 election was a landmark for this community with an estimated 16.6 million voters, a record proportion of the electorate. There are a number of good analyses of the 2020 Hispanic vote online to consider. A Bloomberg piece reminds us "the Latinos of the United States have no single identity, no shared world view."

This article notes that Donald Trump won 53.5% in majority Hispanic precincts in Miami-Dade County on the way to carrying all-important Florida with its 29 electoral votes. Understandable aversion to any hint of "socialism" by those from Cuba, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela, no doubt helped. In Arizona's populous Maricopa County, Trump improved his showing over 2016 in 61% of Hispanic-majority precincts. Exit polling said Trump improved over 2016 in Nevada by 8%. Other reports cited similar shifts in southern border areas of Texas. In 2004, George W. Bush proved Republicans can obtain a handsome number of Hispanic-Americans.

GetReligion's own tmatt has more than once proposed that the news media have neglected the religion aspect of recent Republican inroads and, in particular the growth of Hispanic Protestant churches. This is a big religion beat story in its own right. Or it could provide a strategic political analysis leading up to November 8 focusing either on politics nationally or on a specific regional audience.

The essential starting point for background is religion data from Pew Research Center's major survey of 5,103 U.S. Hispanic adults, in a report compiled in 2014.


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What do the latest statistics really tell us about the worldwide Catholic Church?

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What do the latest statistics really tell us about the worldwide Catholic Church?

THE QUESTION:

What do the latest statistics tell us about the worldwide Catholic Church?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

The Vatican's Central Office of Church Statistics issued a summary report in February that says as of December 31, 2020, Catholicism had 1.36 billion adherents worldwide. That equals an impressive 17.7% of the world's people and keeps pace with over-all population growth. The church's gain of 16 million members over 2019 exceeds the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The Guy would note, however, that the church counts as members all baptized infants, who as adults will not necessarily be active parishioners.

John L. Allen Jr., the editor of CruxNow.com and a go-to guy on Catholic trends, writes that these numbers counter western perceptions that "the church is shrinking" in the wake of sexual abuse scandals and other problems. Also see this tmatt post here at GetReligion on this topic: “Thinking about world Christianity, as Crux digs deep into many overlooked Catholic details.”

But Catholic expansion is centered in Africa and Asia, not western nations, and the church faces a personnel problem. The Vatican office admits that yet again there's an "obvious imbalance" in the geographical distribution of the slowly decreasing ranks of priests, currently totaling 410,219 worldwide. There's also declining enrollment in seminaries, now totaling just under 112,000, with only Africa showing an increase. Remarkably, Africa plus Asia produce 60% of the globe's seminary students. Here is another tmatt post on that trend: “Thinking about the Catholic vocations 'crisis': The Pillar asks if this is truly a global problem.”

Let's drill down on the numbers.


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Thinking about the Catholic vocations 'crisis': The Pillar asks if this is truly a global problem

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Thinking about the Catholic vocations 'crisis': The Pillar asks if this is truly a global problem

When journalists are covering a truly global religion — take the Catholic Church, for example — it really helps to pay attention to the fine details in statistics.

What is true in America may not be true in Africa. What’s true in the shrinking churches of Western Europe may not be true, literally, anywhere else.

I brought this up in a recent think piece — “Thinking about world Christianity, as Crux digs deep into many overlooked Catholic details” — pointing readers to an interesting Crux essay by John L. Allen, Jr. (of course). Here’s a key bite of commentary from Allen:

… Catholicism added 16 million new members in 2020, the latest year for which statistics are available. Granted, that meant the church did no more than keep pace with overall global population growth, but it’s still significant at a time when most western perceptions are that the church is shrinking due to the fallout from the sexual abuse crisis, various scandals at senior levels, bitter political infighting, increasing irrelevance to younger generations, and any number of other alleged failures.

For sure, if you live in western Europe or in some parts of the United States, where parishes are closing or consolidating and Mass attendance seems in free fall, those perceptions are understandable. Yet the reality is that on a global level, Catholicism enjoyed the greatest expansion in its history over the past century, more than tripling from 267 million in 1900 to 1.045 billion in 2000 and 1.36 billion today.

Basically, Catholicism is growing wherever it’s churches, to be blunt, have plenty of children, converts and clergy.


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'God bless those who weep': Brilliant OSU lineman leaves football, after fighting suicidal thoughts

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'God bless those who weep': Brilliant OSU lineman leaves football, after fighting suicidal thoughts

Athletes of all ages say all kinds of wild things on Twitter that make headlines.

It’s the digital age in which we live. Every now and then, these snarky quips and social-media pronouncements are actually newsworthy.

But that painful and haunting letter that Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller posted on Twitter was something else altogether. It was an appeal for public awareness of box-cutter scars and mental health issues that, far too often, can be hidden with muscles, bandages and layers of athletic gear. Here is the top of a Bleacher Report story — “Ohio State OL Harry Miller Retires From Football; Details Mental Health Struggles” — about this 5-star level football prospect:

Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller announced his medical retirement from football. … In a message posted to Twitter, Miller said that he had suicidal thoughts and went to Ohio State head coach Ryan Day to seek help.

"Prior to the season last year, I told Coach Day of my intention to kill myself," Miller wrote. "He immediately had me in touch with Dr. Candice [Williams] and Dr. [Joshua] Norman, and I received the support I needed."

Miller played for Ohio State from 2019-21. He was named an OSU Scholar-Athlete in 2019 and 2020. Miller also started seven games at left guard for the 2020 team, which won the Big Ten and the Sugar Bowl. He played two games in 2021. OSU recruited Miller, a 5-star recruit, out of Buford High School in Georgia.

"A person like me, who supposedly has the entire world in front of them, can be fully prepared to give up the world entire," Miller wrote. "This is not an issue reserved for the far and away. It is in our homes. It is in our conversations. It is in the people we love."

Miller is an unusual young man for several reasons. A long-time GetReligion reader (a professional writer with decades of experience) put it this way in an email to me this weekend:

He is straight A student in engineering and got a 1600 on the SAT. His mom was physically abused by her first husband and abandoned by Miller's father.

Yet, he has lived for others while becoming a five-star recruit. Now, the guts to do this.

So many religion ghosts, so little time.


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Thinking about world Christianity, as Crux digs deep into many overlooked Catholic details

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Thinking about world Christianity, as Crux digs deep into many overlooked Catholic details

It’s hard to believe that it has been two decades since historian Philip Jenkins published his groundbreaking essay “The Next Christianity” in The Atlantic Monthly.

It contained key material from the first of three books that Jenkins published on the future of world Christianity and, thus, of the changing face of world religion — period. The first book was entitled: “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity.”

This piece of the Atlantic subtitle is crucial: “We stand at a historical turning point, the author argues — one that is as epochal for the Christian world as the original Reformation. Around the globe Christianity is growing and mutating in ways that observers in the West tend not to see.”

Sure enough, many reporters didn’t see what Jenkins was describing, even though clashes between the chilly, declining Christian West and the blooming Christian South and East are easy to see looming in the background of many major stories. As the Anglicans and United Methodists about that.

Understanding Jenkins’ work is a crucial first step to understanding the importance of a new Crux think piece by the omnipresent John L. Allen, Jr. The headline: “In new Catholic numbers, an ‘imponderable’ movement shaping history.”

First, consider this from Jenkins:

If we look beyond the liberal West, we see that another Christian revolution, quite different from the one being called for in affluent American suburbs and upscale urban parishes, is already in progress. Worldwide, Christianity is actually moving toward supernaturalism and neo-orthodoxy, and in many ways toward the ancient worldview expressed in the New Testament: a vision of Jesus as the embodiment of divine power, who overcomes the evil forces that inflict calamity and sickness upon the human race. In the global South (the areas that we often think of primarily as the Third World) huge and growing Christian populations — currently 480 million in Latin America, 360 million in Africa, and 313 million in Asia, compared with 260 million in North America — now make up what the Catholic scholar Walbert Buhlmann has called the Third Church, a form of Christianity as distinct as Protestantism or Orthodoxy, and one that is likely to become dominant in the faith.


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Wall Street Journal: Catholics are losing ground -- rapidly -- in Brazil. What else is new?

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Wall Street Journal: Catholics are losing ground -- rapidly -- in Brazil. What else is new?

I’ll always remember a Spanish-speaking woman I interviewed years ago when I was doing an article for the Houston Chronicle on why Catholic immigrants from Latin America switched over to Protestantism soon after they immigrated to the United States.

The answer, this woman told me, was the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart and his radio broadcasts into Central and South America. “Before, we didn’t know we had a choice on who to believe,” is approximately what this woman told me. “But once we heard Jimmy Swaggart on the radio, we knew there was something else out there other than the Catholic Church.”

In the past 40 years, much of the population of Latin America has likewise realized they have faith options and a recent Wall Street Journal piece claims that this trend of mass conversions to Protestantism — and specifically Pentecostalism — has reached a tipping point.

This is news all of a sudden?

RIO DE JANEIRO—Tatiana Aparecida de Jesus used to walk the city’s 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.

“The pastor hugged me without asking anything,” 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. “When you are poor, it makes so much of a difference when someone just says ‘good morning’ to you, ‘good afternoon,’ or shakes your hand,” she said.

This has been a huge advantage that the Protestants have pressed home.

These emerging Protestant flocks don’t have a shortage of priests as does the Catholic Church does –- where parishioner-to-clergy ratio mean there’s one priest per several thousand parishioners. Let’s keep reading:

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.


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