EDGS Graduate Lecture Series
Emilio Lehoucq, Sociology
Until the 1970s, Catholicism was the majority religion in Latin America, and the Catholic Church enjoyed institutional privileges. Since 1970, when Latin America was the battleground of Global Catholicism, this religion lost its uncontested dominance among the population, competing with Evangelicals, and the institutional position of the Catholic Church suffered. Why did the Catholic order break in some countries? Existing studies do not adequately explain the breakdown of the Catholic order. This article proposes an institutional theory of religious change that explains the breakdown of the Catholic order. It shows that where central Episcopates embraced liberation theology since the late 1960s and opposed the state, they motivated state repression. This activated a negative feedback loop of more church activism and state repression, leading to the breakdown of the Catholic order. Where central Episcopates did not embrace liberation theology, they kept a cooperative relation with the state, leading to Catholic hegemony.