Catholic Exodus in Argentina
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:55 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... n-apostacy
Thousands of Argentinians – most of them women – have started formal proceedings to abandon the Catholic church, in protest of the church’s campaign against efforts to legalise abortion in the country.
In the month since the country's senate voted to maintain a ban on almost all abortions, more than 3,700 people have submitted apostasy applications to the Argentinian synod, according to César Rosenstein, a lawyer and founding member of the Argentinian Coalition for a Lay State.
The figure is a tiny percentage of Argentina’s population of 44 million, but apostasy activists say that the movement’s growing profile indicates a cultural shift in what has always been an overwhelmingly Catholic nation.
“Apostasy is an important symbolic and political act,” said Rosenstein, who said that visits to the group’s website had shot up since the vote from 100 daily unique users to around 40,000 a day.
Thousands of Argentinians – most of them women – have started formal proceedings to abandon the Catholic church, in protest of the church’s campaign against efforts to legalise abortion in the country.
In the month since the country's senate voted to maintain a ban on almost all abortions, more than 3,700 people have submitted apostasy applications to the Argentinian synod, according to César Rosenstein, a lawyer and founding member of the Argentinian Coalition for a Lay State.
The figure is a tiny percentage of Argentina’s population of 44 million, but apostasy activists say that the movement’s growing profile indicates a cultural shift in what has always been an overwhelmingly Catholic nation.
“Apostasy is an important symbolic and political act,” said Rosenstein, who said that visits to the group’s website had shot up since the vote from 100 daily unique users to around 40,000 a day.