Patterson: Militant Secularism and Religious Repression in Latin America

October 25, 2019

In a recent article in The Catholic Thing, Eric Patterson, RFI Executive Vice President, highlights the often overlooked reality of anti-religious trends in Latin America: 

Looking at the religious landscape of Latin America today, there are examples of outright persecution. This repression is usually at the hands of the old secularists: authoritarians steeped in the anti-faith, secular, materialist dogma of the twentieth century’s hard Left.

After providing examples of a growing militant secularism in Latin American countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Mexico, Patterson turns to the ways in which this ideology:

…seeks to push religious people, religious institutions, and religious ideas entirely out of the public square. This is typically a lawfare strategy, to weaponize new regulations in ways that deny religious people their livelihoods as well as their religious rights.

Read the full article: Militant Secularism and Religious Repression in Latin America.