Coming from a country - Portugal - which was very Catholic not that long ago, I would say that the children of Catholic parents went through a great process of “self-reflection and criticism” and dropped Catholicism.
The religion itself is pretty much as backwards as ever.
What happened is that the number of actual practicing Catholics (you know, people who actually go to church and spend time thinking about that stuff) has fallen steeply, even if there are still many who just because they got baptized (which is something one has no choice on), get counted as religious.
Even with the Christian sects dominant in places like the US and Brazil trying to get a foothold over here, there’s nowhere the level of dominance of religion in public life there seems to be in the US. It’s funny that a country which maybe 50 or 60 years ago was, IMHO, very socially backwards compared to the US, is now more socially evolved than it.
I’m from a Portuguese family, and have been back to the Acores a number of times to visit family, etc… Even when I was very very young I remember going into the local church to look around and seeing how much gold was wasted on its interior while the village around it was still very much in a semi-poverty state. It was mind-blowing that that ever seemed “okay”.
When my folks were growing up (dad was born in 49, mom in 52) there were people on the island that didn’t have access to indoor plumbing, and yet every village’s local church was laced in gold.
When did this happen? Because I still see a lot of self-righteous hate and bigotry from Christians all over the world.
Coming from a country - Portugal - which was very Catholic not that long ago, I would say that the children of Catholic parents went through a great process of “self-reflection and criticism” and dropped Catholicism.
The religion itself is pretty much as backwards as ever.
What happened is that the number of actual practicing Catholics (you know, people who actually go to church and spend time thinking about that stuff) has fallen steeply, even if there are still many who just because they got baptized (which is something one has no choice on), get counted as religious.
Even with the Christian sects dominant in places like the US and Brazil trying to get a foothold over here, there’s nowhere the level of dominance of religion in public life there seems to be in the US. It’s funny that a country which maybe 50 or 60 years ago was, IMHO, very socially backwards compared to the US, is now more socially evolved than it.
I’m from a Portuguese family, and have been back to the Acores a number of times to visit family, etc… Even when I was very very young I remember going into the local church to look around and seeing how much gold was wasted on its interior while the village around it was still very much in a semi-poverty state. It was mind-blowing that that ever seemed “okay”.
When my folks were growing up (dad was born in 49, mom in 52) there were people on the island that didn’t have access to indoor plumbing, and yet every village’s local church was laced in gold.
Shameful.