CHRISTIANITY IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

The Introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere from 1492 to 1740



The Introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere from 1492 to 1740

Christianity in the Western Hemisphere from 1492 to 1740

By most Europeans accounts the settlement of the western Hemisphere brought civilization with Christian values to an uncivilized people. What they failed to understand was that the Indians had their own beliefs and ways of life that benefited their native population. The Native Americans for example were skilled hunters, farmers and used everything in their environment for survival or for essential necessities. Christianity brought harmony in the society. It helped building a society based on values, standards and norms. Christianity brought discipline and order in that society from 1492 to 1740. People were usually living the lifestyle of a jungle. Christianity made them to re-structure their lives in modern civilized patterns.

The Introduction of Catholicism into Latin America and the Southwest of North America, especially Texas and California

Latin American Catholicism is quite different in its history from North American Catholicism. The form that Catholicism took in Latin America contributed to a widely diffused Anglo-Saxon stereotype of the black legend: an evil authoritarian church exploiting the peasants, in league with the landowners and the military. This stereotype, in turn, was spawned by earlier religious rivalries between Catholics and Protestants (Baker, 2000).

The Protestant view of Catholicism as a completely authoritarian church in which all power is concentrated in its infallible pope was reinforced by the reaction of the Catholic Church to the Reformation and to the Enlightenment. That view is a stereotype and, in fact, I will argue—I have often argued in my own writing in the last 40 years—that there are many currents in Catholicism and that those currents help to explain the dramatic changes in Latin American Catholicism which one sees today (Baker, 2000).

The Church's commitment to human rights, religious freedom, and democracy was fixed in a way, in Catholic doctrine by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. The Catholic commitment to human rights and democracy was a change for official Catholicism, which had been battling anticlerical liberalism all through the 19th century. That new strong commitment to human rights and democracy became very important in the period of military rule in Latin America which except for Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico and California. Costa Rica was under military rule for varying periods from the middle sixties to ...