In Latin America, the tightly-held grip of the Catholic Church’s belief systems are crumbling; as the Latin youth clamor for substance and real-life potentials. There are yoga studios, qi gong classes, and weekend meditation retreats sprouting up all over, as  “gurus” are finding a captive market of new thinkers ready to invest in new ideas. According to a Pew Research Survey, the population of Latinos who identify as Catholic has declined from 90 percent to now 60 percent. Even though a Latin Cardinal was named Pope, it appears that there has not been any significant swing of Loyalists. In the United States, twenty-four percent of Hispanic adults, raised Catholic, have left the faith. Nearly one-in-four Hispanic adults are now former Catholics. The reason most Catholics left the church was because they were seeking a more personal connection with God. Although many have flocked to the Protestant Church, many others have no religious affiliation. In the same study, those between the ages of 19-29 have had the highest percentage vacating the church with no affiliation.  

According to the Survey, the top two reasons Latinos left the church were that they simply drifted away from the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic religion and they now reject the veneration of saints and no longer trust priests. Other reasons: they no longer accept the doctrine of the church, they now hold a different view of the Bible, they found God’s love on their own and decided for themselves what to believe in. They also cited hypocrisy, corruption, deception and contradictions with religion in general. There is much disagreement with the church’s teachings on divorce and contraception. Most favor allowing priests to marry and allowing women to become priests. More than half of Latinos support changing the church’s positions.

There is also a re-emergence of the indigenous practices of their original Latin ancestors as they seek help from healers and make offerings to spiritual beings. The majority of Latinos say they believe that people can be possessed by spirits, while 3 in 10 say they make offerings to spiritual beings. Forty-four percent believe it is possible to communicate with the spirit world, and forty percent of Hispanics believe in curses or spells. Three out of ten Latinos also believe in astrology and reincarnation and  1 in 7 have visited a shaman with special powers. The interest that North American’s have in the Mayan and Incan cultures has spurred an emergence of seekers and piqued curiosity about their ancestral beliefs. Costa Rica is catering to a large expansion of growth for young millennials who want a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their children creating jobs they can perform anywhere and living in exotic locations much sooner than their retiring parents could have. In addition, the Indian culture, with its share of Eastern practices such as yoga and meditation, is gaining interest as well and has positively impacted  the resort communities that cater to balance and mindfulness.  

Even more telling is that Deepak Chopra, a well-known author and spiritual leader, recently presented a meditation class in Spanish and admitted selling more books in Spanish than English.  

So why the exodus? I recently stumbled on an interesting book written by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit who questioned the difference between spirituality and religion. After reading his views, which were unorthodox in the 1940’s, there was no doubt in my mind as to why Rome forbade him to write or teach on philosophical themes. Over the next few decades, however, there was a more approving view of his writings. Cardinal Casaroli, on behalf of Pope John Paul II, wrote on the front page of the Vatican newspaper about Chardin: “Be not afraid, open, open wide to Christ the doors of the immense domains of culture, civilization and progress”. These powerful and relevant words indicate that for now it may be time for religions to give up the manipulation of ideas and instead embrace a world of views.  

Here is a snapshot of Chardin’s view of the differences between religion and spirituality.  

Religion

There is no one religion, there are hundreds.
Religion is for those who are asleep.
Religion is for those who need someone to tell.
Religion has a set of dogmatic rules.
Religion threatens and frightens.
Religion speaks of sin and guilt.
Religion represses everything and in some cases is false.
Religion speaks of a god; It is not God.
Religion invents.
Religion does not tolerate any questions.
Religion is human, it is an organization with rules of men.
Religion is the cause of divisions.
Religion seeks you to believe.
Religion follows the precepts of a sacred book.
Religion feeds on fear.
Religion lives in thought.
Religion deals with doing.
Religion feeds the ego.
Religion makes us renounce the world to follow a god.
Religion is a cult.
Religion fills us with dreams of glory in paradise.
Religion lives in the past and in the future.
Religion creates cloisters in our memory.
Religion makes us believe in eternal life.
Religion promises life after death.

Spirituality

Spirituality is one.
Spirituality is for those who are awake.
Spirituality is for those who pay attention to their inner voice.
Spirituality invites us to reason about everything, to question everything.
Spirituality encourages inner peace.
Spirituality says, “learn from error”.
Spirituality transcends everything, bringing you closer to your truth!
Spirituality is everything and, therefore, it is in God.
Spirituality finds.
Spirituality questions everything.
Spirituality is Divine, without human rules.
Spirituality unites.
Spirituality you seek to believe.
Spirituality seeks the sacred in all books.
Spirituality is nourished by trust and faith.
Spirituality lives in Consciousness.
Spirituality has to do with Being.
Spirituality drives to transcend the ego.
Spirituality makes us live in God, without renouncing ourselves.
Spirituality is meditation.
Spirituality makes us experience glory and paradise in the here and now.
Spirituality lives in the present.
Spirituality frees our Consciousness.
Spirituality makes us aware of Eternal Life.
Spirituality is to find God within us during life and death.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column]

We are not human beings who go through a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings that go through a human experience.

I feel encouraged that spirituality is appealing more and more to people who are ready to take a different leap of faith, the leap into the inner self. This is the place of peace and presence and can contribute to bridging the gap that religion has created in loving ourselves and others.

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