Read down for an insight into religion in Argentina.
Throughout Spanish America the Catholic Church played an important role in the conquest. From the start of the colonial period Spanish control in South America was authorized by the Papacy; in return the colonial powers were to support the conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism. This close identification of Church and state helps to explain why the main centres of Church power and activity were usually (though not always) close to the main centres of Spanish settlement. While present-day Argentina, a border territory on the outskirts of empire, was therefore of relatively minor importance to the Church hierarchy, it became a focus for work by missionary orders, particularly the Jesuits. Jesuit activity in Argentina was centred in two areas: around Córdoba, where they established a training college for the priesthood, and in Misiones and adjoining areas of present-day Paraguay and Brazil, where an extensive network of reducciones was set up to convert and protect the indigenous population.
As in much of Spanish America, the Church lost most of its formal political power at independence. Although today over 90% of Argentines are officially Roman Catholics, the Church's political and social influence is much less significant than in neighbouring Chile or in most other South American countries. One reason for this is the introduction of a system of non-religious state schools in the 19th century. The great waves of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also affected the position of the Church; while the majority of immigrants were Catholics, significant minorities were not, including the large numbers of East European Jews and the Arab immigrants from Lebanon and Syria. Both of these communities have a strong presence especially in Buenos Aires; the largest mosque in South America was opened in the capital in September 2000 and there are estimated to be 800,000 Muslims in the country. And Buenos Aires has the eighth largest Jewish population in the world.
Yet the Catholic Church's power and influence should not be underestimated. The support of the Church hierarchy was important in bringing Perón to power in 1946 and the rift with the Church played a key role in the overthrow of the latter in 1955. The strongly conservative nature of the Catholic hierarchy became particularly apparent during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship; unlike its Chilean counterpart, the Argentine hierarchy was silent on the issue of human rights violations and gave little support to relatives of the disappeared. According to Nunca Más, the official report on the disappeared, military chaplains attended some torture sessions and even assisted in the torture! Yet the Church was not untouched by the violence of the dictatorship: at least 15 priests who were working among the poor were victims of the military regime.
The lingering influence of the Church can be seen in several ways: in the continuing legal ban on abortion (divorce was finally legalised in 1986) and in the constitutional provision (removed in the 1994 amendments) which required the President to be a Catholic (and which necessitated Carlos Menem's conversion). The extent to which the Church relies on state support was revealed in a 1993 report which estimated that the Church received annual payments of US$400 million to help it maintain Catholic schools and universities and to fund the salaries of senior clergy.
As in some other parts of Latin America, this close identification of the Catholic Church with the state has, in recent years, provided opportunities for evangelical churches, including the Baptists and Mormons, to recruit followers, particularly among newcomers to the large cities.
