Brazilian Ex-Catholics: Pope Visit Won’t Win Us Back

July 26,2013

A weeknight prayer service at the Nations United Baptist Church outside Washington has everyone on their feet. As one of many Portuguese-language evangelical churches that have popped up in the United States in recent decades to serve the Brazilian diaspora, as might be expected, it’s not hard to find former Catholics here.

A weeknight prayer service at the Nations United Baptist Church has everyone on their feet. The enthusiasm of these Brazilian immigrants is testament to the exponential growth of evangelicalism in the country that hosted Pope Francis this week.

A generation ago, Brazil was 90 percent Catholic. Now it’s around 65 percent.

Pastor Samuel Rozolem says many Brazilians felt the Catholic Church was out of touch.

"The evangelical church in Brazil grew extensively because also it started to reach out to the needs of people, to the poor, to the drug addicts," he said.

Brazil is exporting its own Evangelical brand — influenced by the deeply emotional charismatic worship style.

For Franco Rossetti, a neuroscientist, his native faith did not answer his questions.

"When you’re born Catholic in Brazil you go to the church to be baptized, you don’t know, and after that you go to the church every Sunday, but you don’t know why you go to church every Sunday," he said.