Santiago de Chile, Mittwoch.
Bald ist Ostern und hier in Lateinamerika dominiert das christliche Element, obwohl sich langsam neue Traditionen durchgesetzt haben, die scheinbar nichts mit dem Christentum zu tun haben, wie das Osterei mit Schokoladenstückchen darin.
Aber keine Hexen, es wäre eine übermäßige Verletzung der Kirche und des Glaubens.
Aus meiner Kindheit in Chile I remember that Easter was days of restraint and respectful silence. One would not laugh a weekend when Jesus was crucified. We did not play ball with the boys in the neighborhood and house parties were forbidden. However, a lot of movies about Jesus went on TV, the same movies year after year.
Es gibt heute nicht mehr so viele, die der strengen Variante der Osterfeier folgen.
In the 80s, the tradition of Easter eggs came from outside. Today they are part of the celebration. But as I said, no witches.
Als die Halloween-Feier vor einigen Jahren globalisiert wurde, sagte die lateinamerikanische Kirche: Hör auf, Kinder sollten keinen Spaß daran haben, sich als Hexen, Monster und Dämonen zu verkleiden, die alle das Böse repräsentieren, sagten die Würdenträger der Kirche.
Aber der Markt war stärker und das vollständig kommerzialisierte Halloween-Wochenende wird heute in Lateinamerika gefeiert, wie es an vielen anderen Orten der Welt getan wird, und die Kirche musste nachgeben.
Allerdings liegt die Grenze bei Ostern, das hier Semana Santa, die Karwoche, genannt wird.
When Spaniards and Portuguese came to Latin America more than 500 years ago, the indigenous peoples, like most peoples of the world at the time, had many gods. Actually, the spirits were in the objects, in the water, the trees and the ground.
Die brutale Kolonisierung, where entire peoples were exterminated, went hand in hand with the task of making the wild Indians, as the Spaniards called them, good Catholics. Monotheists and God’s good children.
For 500 years, the Catholic Church has dominated the religious area here in the region. It has had the ability to both adapt to new realities and to hold together, under the same umbrella, ultra-conservatives and revolutionaries.
Lateinamerika ist die Region der Welt mit den meisten Katholiken, eine teilweise Erklärung dafür, dass die Welt heute einen Papst aus Argentinien hat.
Doch die katholische Kirche verliert immer mehr an Boden.
New evangelical currents, such as the Pentecostal movement, have gained more and more followers. Some of the new churches have great financial support from the brothers and sisters in the United States, which makes them serious competitors to Catholicism.
One of the explanations for the decline of the Catholic Church is the church’s own crisis, with corruption and pedophile scandals. But the competitor also has its own merits behind its success:
A large presence among the poor and an extensive social work. When I was in Nicaragua on a reportage trip in the early 90’s, a sociologist explained the success of the evangelical churches in the country as follows: Women are forced to have sex at the age of 12-13, they have children and men disappear, those who do not disappear drink and abuse .
Es sind die neuen Kirchen, die sich dann anstellen, und viele Frauen konnten die Transformation erleben, die die Männer durchmachten, als sie gerettet wurden – sie wurden einfach auch zu Hause zu besseren Menschen.
Die Kirche wurde zur Rettung der Familien.
Dies geschieht heute Across the continent, in Brazil, the evangelical churches are very large and they are an important social base for the ultra-conservative President Jair Bolsonaro. The same element can be seen in other leathers, such as Venezuela and Nicaragua.
When it comes to the celebration of Easter, the evangelicals offer completely different possibilities for the believers. The Catholic Church has very strict rituals, where the pastor is the main person, and the congregation listens quietly and concentrated and confines itself to saying amen in the choir from time to time. A crying child in the middle of the fair is not seen with kind eyes.
It is different in an evangelical congregation, where feelings are expressed outwardly and where the pastor leads and allows himself to be led by the congregation, sometimes the whole congregation ends up in ecstasy and it is crying and laughing. Nothing that would fit in the Catholic church room, where Easter equals suffering, the suffering of Christ.
But witches during Easter, it allows neither Catholics nor evangelicals. At least not yet.
Quelle: ISLAND-NACHRICHTEN