Latin America: Between pluri-confessionalism and laicity

Abstract

In Latin America, as in many countries with a Catholic religious hegemony, the building of a lay (secular) regime required of a militant laicism to generate a space for freedoms, in a context of clash between the principles of political liberalism and the doctrinal intransigence of the Catholic hierarchy. The new independent countries of Latin America would be caught almost since the beginning of their lives in a tendency of confrontation additionally rooted in royalist and jurisdictionalist traditions. Two Centuries later, although this trend has not completely disappeared, it is been replaced by a regulation of the religious, more inclined to the recognition of a plurality of beliefs, the need to respect human rights, freedom of conscience, and a more democratic political life. Nevertheless, this transition does not necessarily goes from confesionalism, jurisdictionalism or laicism to a secular regime of laicity. In fact, the old tendencies and the new trends appear now as a crossroad for political regimes in Latin America: laicity or pluri-confessionality. Or, it is not clear which one of this contradictory regime proposals will prevail.