Religion in Colombia

Religion in Colombia is an expression of the different cultural heritages in the Colombian culture including the Spanish colonisation, the Native Amerindian and the Afro-Colombian.

Precolumbian period

Religious freedom

The Colombian Constitution of 1991 abolished the previous condition of the Roman Catholic Church as state church, and it includes two articles providing for freedom of worship:

• Art. 13: States that "all people are legally born free and equal" and that they will not be discriminated on the basis of "sex, race, national or familial origin, language, religion, politic or philosophical opinion".
• Art. 19: Which expressly guarantees freedom of religion. "Freedom of religion is guaranteed. Every individual has the right to freely profess his/her religion and to disseminate it individually or collectively. All religious faiths and churches are equally free before the law.

Catholicism

Las Lajas Cathedral in Nariño.

Catholicism was the official religion of the country since the Spanish colonization until the 1991 constitutional reform (National Constituent Assembly), which granted equalitarian treatment from the government to all the religions. However, Catholicism is still the main religion in Colombia by number of adherents, with an estimated of 75% of the national population in nominal Catholicism, from which about 25% are practicing Catholics. According to the CIA Factbook, 90% of the population identifies themselves as Catholic; 10%, other.^[1]

In the colonial period, the Catholic Church created and was in charge of most of the public institutions, such as teaching facilities (schools, colleges, universities, libraries, botanical gardens, astronomic observatories); health facilities (Hospitals, nurseries, leper hospitals) and jails. It also "inherited" a huge amount of land, approx. 1/4 of all the productive land, which was later expropriated by a liberal government.

Colombia is often referred as the "Country of the Sacred Heart", due to the annual consecration of the country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a Te Deum directed by the president of the republic. Colombia has been re-consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 2008, in a country-wide ceremony celebrated by the main bishops and with the presence of the Colombian president (also a Catholic).

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith in Colombia begins with references to the country in Bahá'í literature as early as 1916,^[2] with Bahá'ís visiting as early as 1927.^[3] The first Colombian joined the religion in 1929^[4] and the first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in Bogotá in 1944^[5] with the beginning of the arrival of coordinated pioneers from the United States and achieved an independent National Spiritual Assembly in 1961.^[6] By 1963 there were eleven local assemblies.^[7] In the 1980s institutions were developed in Colombia that have influenced activities inside and independent of the religion in other countries: FUNDAEC^[8][9] and the Ruhi Institute.^[10] The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying mostly on the World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 68,000 Bahá'ís (0.2% of the population) in 2005.^[11]

Islam

The Mosque of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab in Maicao.

Approximately .02% of the population adheres to Islam.^[12] There are a number of Islamic organizations in Colombia, including Islamic in San Andrés, Barranquilla, Bogotá, Guajira, Nariño, and Santa Marta. There are also primary and secondary Islamic schools in Bogotá and Maicao. Maicao plays host to the continent's second largest mosque, the Mosque of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab.

Other religious affiliations

Although the government does not keep official statistics on religious affiliation, a 2001 poll commissioned by the country's leading newspaper, El Tiempo, indicated that the religious demography is as follows:

Bogotá Latter-Day Saints Temple

• 81% Roman Catholic.
• 13.5% Protestants
• 1.9% No religious beliefs
• 3.6% Other faiths:
  • Seventh-day Adventist Church: about 180.000 members
  • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: about 130.000 members
  • Jehovah's Witnesses: about 120.000 members.

• • Bahá'í Faith: about 68,000^[11]
  • Judaism: between 5.000 and 10.000 members.

Currently, there seems to be no social controversy or problem arising from religious conflict. Freedom of religion is enforced by the State and well tolerated in the Colombian culture. Almost all cities and towns in Colombia have a church, but there are also temples, mosques and synagogues, especially in the largest cities.

A Colombian-grown Taoist movement has spread significantly in recent years. In the 2000s, temples and congregations were target of a paramilitary repression whose motivations are still unclear.^[13] Entire Taoist communities were massacred and leaders kidnapped.^[13] In 2008 Taoist communities organised and participated to various peaceful protests in many cities of Colombia.^[14]

Syncretism in Colombia

Some syncretic or native religious figures in the country are: The healing ghost of José Gregorio Hernández, the Purgatory souls (Animas del Purgatorio), the Lonely Soul (Anima Sola), the Powerful hand, the Black Christ of Buga, Valle del Cauca, the 20th July Baby Jesus (Divine Infant Jesus), Father Marianito (beatified Mariano de Jesus Euse Hoyos 1845–1926),^[15] the fertility rites of St Isidro and local variations of syncretism from other countries, such as Santería and Maria Lionza cult.^[16]

Gallery

• 

  The Black Christ Icon in the Basilica of Señor de los Milagros (Buga, Valle del Cauca) is visited by thousands of people every week

• 

  Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá (16th century). Virgin de Chiquinquirá is the patroness saint of Colombia. Chiquinquirá is a major point of religious pilgrimage

• 

  Virgin of Rosary in las Lajas Cathedral

• 

  Pilgrims visit Monserrate and the "Saint Christ Fallen by the whips and nailed into the Cross" Icon in Bogotá

• 

  The Anima Sola (lonely soul) often interpreted as a soul in purgatory

• 

  Virgin of Regla is the syncretic form of Yemaja

References

International Religious Freedom Report 2004 on Colombia, U.S. Bureau of Democracy