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[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

--------------
CONTENT

MEXICO: Six million Mexicans participate in non Catholic religious communities
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Evangelicals seek to officiate civil weddings
ECUADOR: Neoliberal market lacks mind and soul, said Finance Minister
ECUADOR: 1,200 young people to participate in the 2006 Latin Congress
BRAZIL: Christian bodies request audience with Lula to demand ethics in
politics

----------------- MEXICO
Six million Mexicans participate in non Catholic religious communities

MEXICO, June 17 (alc).	More than six million Mexicans have embraced non
Catholic religious beliefs in the past 30 years, and the growth of new
Churches is five times higher than in past decades.

According to an article this week in the daily La Jornada de Mexico, the
Catholic Church has "lost its nearly monopolist position of privilege and
dominion" since the 1970s, marked by the reconfiguration of the religious
arena and the pluralization of beliefs.

The data gathered by the daily corresponds to the book "Religious Diversity
in Mexico" by the National Statistics Institute (INEGI) published last May.

The investigation demonstrates that in 1970 Catholics represented 96.2
percent of the Mexican population and 88 percent in the year 2000.
According to the daily "While the Catholic structure obtained a more
protagonist role and political advocacy, it lost spiritual leadership in
society."

The article emphasizes the surprising influence of different Pentecostal
religions that have some 3 million members, half of the faithful in the new
religious communities with a notable presence in the states of Campeche,
Chiapas, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Sinaloa and Tabasco.

Another interesting fact involves the migration to new religious
denominations that took place in different regions in the country, such as
the case of Chiapas where up until 1970, 91 percent were Catholics as
opposed to the current 63 percent, while 13 percent said they did not have
a religion.

The statistics quoted by La Jornada also point to other confessions, with
around 1,500 Muslims, 5,000 Buddhists and the presence of the Jewish
Community with 45,000 members.

The INEGI book analyzes 12 census studies, from 1895 to 2000 and includes
five chapters that address the religious history of the population, the
different religions and their insertion in the lives of Mexicans.

-------------------------------------------- DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Evangelicals seek to officiate civil weddings

SANTO DOMINGO, Jun 16 (alc).  Evangelical Churches grouped together in the
Dominican Confederation of Evangelical Unity (CODUE) and in the National
Evangelical Dominican Council (CONEDO) are seeking to ensure approval of a
legal Bill that will allow them to celebrate civil marriages.

The Central Electoral Board (JCE) opposed the Project through a document
issued last week which gathers questions formulated by the Dominican
Catholic Church.

Catholic Bishop Nicolas Lopez has opposed the initiative as he considers
that the Evangelicals Churches are so diverse and many do not have a solid
institutional structure or trained leaders, and therefore giving them the
authority to celebrate civil marriages will cause chaos.

The author of the Project, Senator Enrique Seijas, of the Revolutionary
Dominican Party (PRD) told the digital version of Diaro Hoy that the JCE
position seeks to avoid contradictions with the Catholic Church and
disorder in the Civil Registry.

If the Project is approved, the Evangelical Churches will have the same
authority as the Catholic Church which has been celebrating civil-religious
marriages after a Concordat was signed between the Vatican State and the
Dominican Republic.

Evangelical Churches can currently only bless religious marriages after
couples have been officially married, Pastor Moisés Quezada of the
Dominican Episcopal Church told ALC.

The initiative grants authority to Evangelical Churches that have a minimum
of 10 years of recognition by the Dominican State to officiate
civil-religious marriages in the country.

According to Pastor Rerinaldo Franco Aquino, president of CODUE, the
Project is the starting point of a broader Law on Worship and Religious
Equality.

However, some Evangelical sectors that are not affiliated with
representative organizations consider the Project to be "nonsense" that
darkens the struggle against the discriminatory religious hegemony that is
experienced in the country.

---------------
ECUADOR
Neoliberal market lacks mind and soul, said Finance Minister

By Nilton Giese

QUITO, June 16 (ALC).  Ecuadorian Finance Minister Rafael Correa was
harshly critical of the terms of the foreign debt imposed by creditor
nations against impoverished countries in the region and said that the
neoliberal market "lacks mind and soul."

Correa said that the "best guarantee" that the foreign debt is paid is to
not impede the development of debtor nations, however, he said that the
excessive conditions that are imposed on those nations condemn them to
stagnation and poverty.

The Finance Minister spoke at the inauguration of the II Ecuador Encounter,
held this Wednesday in this city with the participation of more than 100
local representatives from different organizations and Churches.

According to Pastor Israel Batista, secretary general of the Latin American
Council of Churches (CLAI), the event aims to profoundly address the issue
of the foreign debt to find consensus-based solutions."

The event is part of CLAI's Faith, Economics and Solidarity Program,
coordinated by economist Franklin Canelos, with the participation of the
Latin American Institute of Social Investigations (ILDIS), the Ebert,
Foundation, Jubilee 2000 - Guayaquil Network and the financial support of
the Swiss Bread for All Organization.

Minister Correa said that in Ecuador, for every dollar that is spent in the
national budget, 34 cents correspond to the foreign and national debt
service payments. He said that his country spends 6 percent of its gross
domestic product making interest payments.

He said that the figure is equivalent to 43 percent of the current income,
which is counterproductive "while some other studies warn that to use more
than 3 percent of the GDP for foreign debt payments means condemning the
country to socio-economic stagnation."

"Prioritizing the foreign debt payments means cutting social investment,"
he said. According to Correo, Ecuador spends a tenth of what countries like
Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil earmark for social spending.

The economic figures presented during the event speak for themselves.
Ecuador currently has the same GDP it did in 1980. Ten percent of the upper
class enjoys 45 percent of the wealth while the 10 poorest percent have
access to 1 percent. Worker salaries have remained frozen since 1998.

Sixty percent of the Ecuadorian population lives below the poverty line
with little or no access to education, adequate nutrition and signified
housing. Eighty-seven percent of the indigenous population is poor and of
those 50 percent are extremely poor. Each year more than 100,000 children
cannot go to school because there are no schools.

"If there is no social investment, these figures will not improve," said
economist Alberto Acosta of ILDIS. "In 2005 the foreign debt payments
represented 109 percent of social spending," he concluded.

Correa's proposal, shared by many speakers at the event is to apply a new
strategic vision to the economy, with fiscal transparence and a new set of
priorities, placing investment in health and education before the foreign
debt payments and diversifying funding sources.

-------------
ECUADOR
1,200 young people to participate in the 2006 Latin Congress

QUITO, June 15 (alc). The 2006 Latin Congress expects to receive some 1,200
young people next January from different Latin American countries who will
be challenged to proclaim the Gospel, promote Christian values and impel
missionary tasks in society.

Jesús Londoño, executive director of the Iber-American Missionary
Commission (COMIBAM International) and president of the coalition of
ministries that will sponsor Latina 2006 maintains that research carried
out in recent decades shows a need to intensify work with Latin American
Christian young people so that they actively participate in the Kingdom of God.

The theme of the event, to be held on the South American Seminary Campus
(SEMISUD), in Quito January 3-7, 2006, is "Embracing your Call". Speakers
will include Humberto Aragão, of Brazil, Latin American director of
Operation Mobilization (OM); Daniel  Salinas, of Colombia, of the Latin
American Mission and a member of the Evangelical Students Community and
Jorge Gómez, of Costa Rica, director of the International In-Depth
Evangelism Institute.

Miguel Angel De Marco, of the coordinating team said that the community
value of conferences like Latina 2006 is incomparable. "In every new
Congress that we organize we see the great potential of inter-personal
relations, as opposed to just hearing valuable concepts about the Word of
God and Christian service, he said.

For this reason, he added, we want every new Congress to be better than the
previous one, that it help young people to better understand the challenge
of God's call for their lives. I do not think we can do the work of
discipleship through conferences, but I have seen many lives changed by the
congresses and for good. "In other words, the congresses do not form men
and women but do radically change them," he said.

Julieta Ramos a young Colombian and member of the logistic team in Quito
said "For me, the experience of having participated in Latina 2003 in
Panama was something that profoundly touched my life. I have seem the same
thing happen to different young people who traveled then and for this
reason I want to work so that others can experience the depth of the
challenge of being part of the Kingdom of God.

Bruna Lorena Gherbaz, de Venezuela, affirmed that what she learned in
Latina 2003 was an efficient took in the process of the growth of her
ministry. I can only say that Latina 2006 is one more step toward God's
vision for my life," she said.

-------------- BRAZIL
Christian bodies request audience with Lula to demand ethics in politics

SALVADOR, June 13 (alc). The Ecumenical Service Coordinator (CESE) and the
National Council of Christian Churches of Brazil (CONIC) requested an
audience with president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva to give him the document
"Ethics in Politics," demanding efficient measures to combat corruption and
calling on the Partido de los Trabajadores (PT) government to return to its
campaign promises.

The document, approved in the XXXII CESE Assembly, that met in Salvador
June 8 - 9 under the theme "City of Peace: a society for all - just,
democratic and fraternal," calls for an "ethical shock" in the country,
indicates the urgent need for political reform and expresses profound
concern about the crisis "that the powers of Brazilian democracy are going
through."

A video tape showing an official from the Brazilian Mail and Telegraph
Company (EBCT) receiving a bribe from alleged businessmen to facilitate the
business, unleashed a wave of denouncements in communication media.

Congressman Roberto Jefferson Monteiro Francisco, then president of the
EBCT and also president of the Partido Laborista Brasileño (PTB) denounced
a type of monthly contribution of around $12,000 that the PT treasurer
Delúbio Soares de Castro, was supposedly paying to Partido Liberal (PL) and
Partido Progresista (PP) so that they support the government.

"This caused great disenchantment and fed the loss of credibility in
democratic institutions regarding their capacity to present the "Rule of
Law," states the "Ethics in Politics," also signed by Caritas Brazil and
the Regional Secretary for Brazil of the Latin American Council of Churches
(CLAI-Brazil).

The document emphasizes the "progressive imposition of the neoliberal
agenda within government," that is manifested in the prevalence of the
agro-business over family farming, slow agrarian reform, acceptance of the
"free trade" rather than "fair trade," the limited attention placed on
hydro resources as well as the passive acceptance of mechanisms of public
debt without any restrictions on financial speculation.

CESE, CONIC and CLAI-Brazil and Caritas Brazil demanded a rigorous
investigation into the acts of corruption in some state and public bodies
and within the national Congress.

Throughout Brazil Evangelical-Lutheran Churches will pray for ethical
integrity in politics and in the public life of the country on June 18-19.

In a pastoral letter addressed to workers, and leaders from congregations
and institutions that form part of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran
Confession in Brazil (IECLB), Pastor President Walter Altmann announced the
intercession in these days for ethics in politics and the prayer "God, in
your grace, transform the world," the theme of the IX General Assembly of
the World Council of Churches (WCC) to be held in Porto Alegre, in February
2006.

According to Altmann, corruption has damaged national life for a long time
and its pernicious effects have been felt in different sectors of society.

The Pastor President of the IECLB also manifested concern about the
repercussion of the denouncements on cases of corruption. "The scandals
generate adverse reactions in the population, that go from cynicism to
despair, from indifference to indignation and more organized protest," he added

In the letter, Altmann said that he hopes that the authorities carry out a
decisive investigation into the denouncements. He reminded the Lutheran
people that the prayer is a reaffirmation of the faith that transformation
comes from God in the final analysis but that the supplicant is also
committed to being an instrument of God in the transformation of the world.
---------------
Latin American and Caribbean
Communication Agency (ALC)
P.O. box 14-225 Lima 14 Peru
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org
http://www.alcpress.org

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