"The church became like the evangelicals, focusing on individuals instead of collective society," Lancelotti said. "But that's because in the past the church decided to give the preferential option to the poor, and the poor took the option and chose the evangelicals."
When most Brazilians say "evangelicals," they are referring to a variety of Protestant churches including Baptists, Pentecostals, the Assembly of God and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Throughout many of Sao Paulo's poorer neighborhoods, where abandoned industrial buildings are tattooed by graffiti and surrounded by patchwork fences, newly built evangelical churches rise from the ruins in walls of mirrored glass.
Thousands attend an open-air Mass in Sao Paulo led by the Rev. Marcelo Rossi, who uses aerobics, films and rock music to reach the young.
(Alexandre Meneghini -- AP)
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Sometimes, the churches have expanded faster than their surroundings allow, requiring creative solutions. At the Agua Branca Baptist Church, the congregation outgrew its rented brick facility, so it bought a giant blue-and-white-striped tent from a circus, big enough to accommodate the crowds of 1,500 it attracts most Sundays. Some of those who attend come from extremely poor neighborhoods, called favelas, where both evangelicals and Catholics have sought to make inroads.
Alexandre Ferreira, 21, rose at 3 a.m. last Wednesday and began pushing a two-wheeled cart through the streets, loading it with scraps of newspaper and whatever else he might be able to sell to a recycling company. At 2 p.m. he returned to the favela for a few hours of sleep. Then at 6:30, his white shirt stained and wrinkled, he arrived at Agua Branca, which means white water.
Four nights a week, Ferreira sits in a classroom with 15 other adults, learning to read and write. Like the vast majority of Brazilians, he was born and nominally raised as a Catholic, but he came to the Baptist church when a neighbor told him about its free literacy programs.
"I'd like to get a better job and I'm not choosy. Any job would be better," said Ferreira, who said he was never able to keep up in school because his family could not afford to rent a home and moved from place to place.
Getting people like Ferreira to visit the church regularly has helped the Baptist church grow steadily in Brazil, even though the newcomers might not formally join the church and perhaps turned to it initially only as a way to better themselves.
"I think we are closer to the needs of the people," said Ed Rene Kivitz, the pastor of Agua Branca, comparing his church to the Catholic tradition. "We try to talk in a contemporary language and make a connection between the spiritual life and real life. Here, we don't talk about God in heaven. We talk about God on Earth."
It's that kind of practical dialogue that the Rev. Euclydes Pizzamiglio, a Catholic priest at the Santo Antonio Church in a residential section of the city, has been trying to incorporate into his services. His church looks nothing like Rossi's stripped-down warehouse or the brightly lit, simply decorated worship halls of the evangelists. There are angels in the architecture, gold-leaf doors, stained glass and a Gothic tabernacle. Candles and dim lights flicker amid the shadows.
Pizzamiglio places himself on the conservative end of the Catholic spectrum, and he is clearly uncomfortable with the looser ecclesiastical style. But every fourth Sunday, Pizzamiglio keys up his usually restrained Mass for a more emotional service. It wasn't his idea; the congregation requested it.
Pizzamiglio clearly isn't eager to completely embrace the charismatic movement. Once, he recounted, some of the fourth-Sunday attendees wanted to institute "spirit baptisms," but a bishop intervened, reminding members of the congregation that they had already been baptized once.
Still, Pizzamiglio acknowledges that the turnout for his charismatic services is always a bit larger than the crowds for traditional Mass. So, on those Sundays, he moves his body a little more, speaks a little more informally and sings along with the other voices.
"It's not a big adjustment," he said. "In the same way I alter the Mass for children on Saturdays, I alter it a little on the fourth Sunday of the month."
