POPE BLOGGING=PLOGGING? In addition to our own contributions on the Pope's visit to Brazil, be sure to read Mr. Trend and Randy Paul. Observes Trend:
However, what's the most intersting to me is those individuals who are left out of the discussion altogether - the non-practicing (of any religion) in Brazil. I can't tell you how many people from my generation and younger I've talked to who completely refuse any religion. They almost always attribute this at least partly, if not fully, to their Catholic upbringing. And this isn't some teenage rebellion thing - the strictness, devotion, and fanaticism (I doubt Bill Donohue is going to be coming after little old me anyways) of the church has not only driven them away from Catholicism, it's driven them away from religion altogether....Yet the tendency to view the Pope's visit as a mission to reconcile the growing presence of evangelicals in (still) dominatingly-Catholic Latin America ignores the complexity of and problems posed by those who have left the church and not gone to any other church.
--Robert Farley
