Uma Missa no Rio: Catholicism in Brazil

While touring the downtown area of Rio last week, we made a short stop at the impressive Catedral de São Sebastião. Constructed between 1964 and 1979, the conical cathedral stands at a height of 96 meters with a diameter of 106 meters and has a capacity for 20,000 people. It is dedicated to Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of the city, and its four sides are decorated with dazzling stained-glass windows.

The group heads inside the cathedral

Three of the four stained-glass windows (Wikipedia)

One of my goals for my time in Rio de Janeiro was to attend a Catholic Mass. I did not have a chance to go to a ceremony at the cathedral, unfortunately, but in Brazil, it's never very hard to find a nearby church. I set my alarm clock a little earlier than usual this morning, got dressed, and walked a few blocks to the church of Nossa Senhora da Paz (Our Lady of Peace) for the 6:30 service.

The Church of Nossa Senhora da Paz (Our Lady of Peace)

A few things struck me about the Portuguese missa. It was hard to tell tourist from regular parishioner, but I was impressed by the collection of 40 plus people gathered so early in the morning on a Tuesday. The dress code was similar to that in the U.S., everything from button-up shirt and sports coat and dresses  to running shorts and a t-shirt. Everyone seemed friendly, and I received several hearty handshakes during the sign of peace, one a double-handed shake complete with a rosary in between. The priest followed the typical sequence. Of course, I did not understand much of the Portuguese, but the content of the liturgy is universal, and the English versions ran in my head as the priest went from prayer to prayer. The priest sat in a chair in front of the altar, something I had never seen in the United States before. There was also a handful of people who showed up to Mass only toward the last few minutes to take Communion, a phenomenon that seems to me to capture the spirit of Brazilian Catholicism.

The Church of Nossa Senhora da Paz (Our Lady of Peace)

With 123 million people who self-declare as Catholic, Brazil boasts the single largest community of Roman Catholics of any country in the world. The presence of religion is seen everywhere: statues of saints can be seen in bars, churches stand on every other street corner, feast days are widely celebrated, and people often respond to a farewell with "Se Deus quiser" or "If God so wills it." Carnival, the most important holiday in Brazil, is a final ostentatious celebration of drinking, eating, and dancing before Lent begins. Nonetheless, as author Larry Rohter writes, "those manifestations of what seem to be conventional religious belief mask a deeper and more complicated reality." Many of the approximately two-thirds of the Brazilian population who profess to be Catholic only attend services on major holidays such as baptisms, weddings, or funerals. In smaller towns, "it's not unusual for men to sit in the square playing dominoes or checkers or to be in the pool hall or tavern while their children and womenfolk are at religious services." Others who consider themselves nominally Catholic actually subscribe to syncretic Afro-Brazilian religions, such as macumba, candomblé, and umbanda. These faiths, spiritual cousins of Haitian voodoo or Cuban Santeria, combine pagan elements of Western African origin and Christianity.

The complex nature of religious faith in this country is another example of how, like the U.S., Brazil is a large country with an ever-changing confluence of cultures and ideas. Things are often not how they appear in Brazil and in Rio, and as the composer Tom Jobim said, "Brazil is not for beginners." Nonetheless, after more than two weeks here, we are moving beyond the status of beginners as we encounter elements of the culture that paint a deeper and more realistic picture of what life here is really like. As our final week flies by all too quickly, we can only hope that our love affair with this magnificent and mysterious country has only just begun.