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ABSTRACT
The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), the Latin American church's largest and most dynamic lay movement, demands scholarly attention for its extraordinary appeal among Catholic laity and its unanimous approval by national episcopacies. If the church is finally using mass media and other Protestant techniques for evangelization, it is because of the Charismatics, whose missionary zeal rivals that of their chief competitors, the Pentecostals. This study uses the tools of religious economy to analyze the reasons for the Renewal's rapid growth and acceptance. In attempting to explicate the CCR's success, the study also examines the major ecclesial trends during the movement's three decades in Latin America.
While Base Christian Communities (CEBs) struggle to maintain a presence throughout Latin America, a contemporaneous Catholic movement easily fills soccer stadiums in the major cities of the region with tens of thousands of fervent believers. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) stands as the largest and most dynamic movement in the Latin American church. Even leaders of the liberationist wing of the Catholic church, who often view Charismatics as alienated middle-class reactionaries, admit that no other ecclesial movement has the CCR's power to congregate and mobilize the faithful.
In Brazil the CCR's popular appeal is not limited to the realm of the sacred. In 1999 the latest CD of samba-inspired religious music sung by the young star of the Brazilian CCR, Padre Marcelo Rossi, sold more copies than any other recording artist, including So Pra Contrariar, an immensely popular pagode band.1
The region's most vibrant Catholic lay movement nevertheless has received precious little academic attention. If the CCR's popular appeal has yet to register among students of Latin American religion, it is because liberation theology and CEBs have captured the hearts and minds of many North and Latin American social scientists during the past quarter-century. The notion of a "preferential option for the poor" and the attempts to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Latin American soil through political and social transformation proved far more appealing to many scholars than a socially disengaged movement dedicated to transforming individual lives through conversion. As Brazilian sociologist Maria das Dores Machado (1996) has pointed out, moreover, many scholars of Latin American religion are more...