With pope’s support, basic ecclesial communities in Brazil show signs of revival
Some 1,000 basic ecclesial communities leaders from all parts of Brazil gather to discuss the most pressing issues in the nation, including the need to bring more young Catholics to join them
By Eduardo Campos Lima | Brazil
July 28, 2023
Once a powerful force in the Brazilian Church (and in Latin America as a whole), the basic ecclesial communities – known as CEBs in Portuguese and Spanish – saw a continuous decline in the country since the 1990s. Now, with Pope Francis’ support and a fresh interest from the younger generation, their members want to grow again.
Last week, some 1,000 CEBs leaders from all parts of Brazil gathered in Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso state, for a national encounter, in which they discussed the most pressing issues in the nation – from deforestation in the Amazon to unemployment – and set up a strategy for the next few years. The need to bring more young Catholics to join them was a central element in the debates.
CEBs and Liberation Theology
The first CEBs began to grow strong in Brazil in the 1970s, when a military junta ruled the country and suppressed the people’s basic rights. In rural and urban communities, peasants and poor workers would form small groups to read the Bible together and discuss their problems.
Those little clusters were frequently accompanied by priests and nuns driven by the reformist spirit of the Second Vatican Council. The CEBs would play a central role in numerous communities all over Brazil, not only inspiring a direct participation of Catholics in church life but also encouraging them to organize and act to improve their living conditions.
Liberation theology was the theoretical counterpart of the CEBs from the start. With the fierce persecution that many liberation theologians suffered in the 1980s – including Leonardo Boff, the most notorious of such thinkers, who was silenced for a whole year by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and ended up leaving priesthood in 1992 –, the CEBs ended up losing their vigor as well.
“Attacks on Liberation theology were attacks on the CEBs. That process was very strong during the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI,” affirmed Celso Carias, a professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and a long-time CEBs leader
International Church Reform network 