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The Pope also touched on some particularly Brazilian problems. As many as 40 million Brazilians mingle their Roman Catholicism with spirit cults, the most popular being Candomblé, brought from West Africa by slaves. At a Mass in Candomblé country, John Paul repeated a theme of his African tour: Christianity can accept the "cultural expressions of any people," but must not "mutilate" its own teachings. The Pontiff also sought to heal breaches within the church itself, advising the hierarchy to compromise and avoid squabbling.
It remains to be seen whether soothing words will help ease the Brazilian church's other chronic problem: a manpower shortage. There are only 13,000 priests—40% of them foreigners—in a nation of 120 million people. Because many of the most outspoken activist priests are foreigners, the regime is proposing a tougher immigration law that could cause serious trouble for the missionaries. Though many Brazilians contend that the celibacy requirement is to blame for the difficulty in recruiting priests, the Pontiff believes that a loss of priestly identity is at the root of the problem. With his visit, the Pope offered a stunning demonstration of how he envisions the priestly role: one in which political involvement is carefully limited and thus is all the more effective. As one government official acknowledged last week, "Brazil is not likely to remain the same."
—By Richard N. Ostling.
Reported by George Russell and Wilton Wynn/Rio de Janeiro