Table Of ContentBoundaries of Religious Freedom:
Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies 6
Juan Marco Vaggione
José Manuel Morán Faúndes Editors
Laicidad and
Religious
Diversity in
Latin America
Boundaries of Religious Freedom:
Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies
Volume 6
Series Editors
Lori G. Beaman, University of Ottawa, ON, Canada
Anna Halafoff, Deakin University, Vic, Australia
Lene Kühle, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
Processes of globalization have resulted in increasingly culturally and religiously
diverse societies. In addition, religion is occupying a more prominent place in the
public sphere at the turn of the 21st Century, despite predictions of religious decline.
The rise in religious diversity, and in the salience of religious identity, is posing both
challenges and opportunities pertaining to issues of governance. Indeed, a series of
tensions have arisen between state and religious actors regarding a variety of matters
including burial rites, religious education and gender equality. Many of these
debates have focused on the need for, and limits of, religious freedom especially in
situations where certain religious practices risk impinging upon the freedom of
others. Moreover, different responses to religious pluralism are often informed by
the relationship between religion and state in each society. Due to the changing
nature of societies, most have needed to defi ne, or redefi ne, the boundaries of
religious freedom refl ected in laws, policies and the design and use of public spaces.
These boundaries, however, continue to be contested, debated and reviewed, at
local, national and global levels of governance.
All books published in this Series have been fully peer-reviewed before fi nal
acceptance.
More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/11839
Juan Marco Vaggione
José Manuel Morán Faúndes
Editors
Laicidad and Religious
Diversity in Latin America
Editors
Juan Marco Vaggione José Manuel Morán Faúndes
Researcher of the National Council of Post-doctoral fellow of the National Council
Scientifi c and Technical Research of Scientifi c and Technical Research
Law and Social Research Centre of the Law and Social Research Centre of the
National University of Córdoba National University of Córdoba
Córdoba , Argentina Córdoba , Argentina
ISSN 2214-5281 ISSN 2214-529X (electronic)
Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies
ISBN 978-3-319-44744-5 ISBN 978-3-319-44745-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44745-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957573
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017
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Foreword
A s the public face of religion changes in many parts of the world and traditional
religion is transforming, sometimes becoming “culture” or “heritage” as new play-
ers enter the scene, it is vital to have an understanding of local transformations and
how those can be made sense of, as well as how they fi t into a more comprehensive
analysis. Categories that resonate in some locations are nonsensical in others. No
matter how things are changing, the reality in Latin America is that Roman
Catholicism has been the historically hegemonic religion and it continues to shape
social institutions and their responses to social issues.
T he contributions included here shed important light on some of the most
pressing issues related to the intersection of religion with day-to-day life and
social institutions in Latin America. The chapters capture the dynamic conversa-
tion that is happening around religion and public life. Many of the authors have
identifi ed sexuality and reproductive freedom as key sites of confl ict, debate, and
contention against the backdrop of the Catholic Church. There is a great deal to be
learned from the contributions here. It is our hope that this volume provides a
beginning place for ongoing conversation and a context for learning more about
the similarities and differences between the countries included in this volume, as
well as with each other.
This volume represents, in tangible terms, the commitment of all of the editors
involved (Juan Marco Vaggione, José Manuel Morán Faúndes, Lene Kühle, Anna
Halafoff, Lori G. Beaman, and Cristina Alves dos Santos) to the transmission of
knowledge from scholars whose work is not always accessible to an English-
speaking audience. In the case of Latin America, it was important to us to present a
volume that is written by scholars who are living and working in the Global South.
Juan Marco Vaggione and José Manuel Morán Faúndes committed themselves to
the task of collecting the high-quality and insightful refl ections that follow, and
thanks are owed to them for their commitment to this volume and for taking up the
v
vi Foreword
daunting task of ensuring that not only the content but also the translations were of
high quality. Thank you also to Marianne Abou-Hamad, who has brought her sharp
editorial eye to bear on this project.
We are delighted to include this volume in the Springer series B oundaries of
Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies .
Lori G. Beaman
Contents
1 Introduction: L aicidad and Religious Diversity:
Themes in the Debates on the Regulation of Religion
in Latin America ..................................................................................... 1
Juan Marco Vaggione and José Manuel Morán Faúndes
2 The Problem of the P laza : Religious Freedom,
Disestablishment and the Catholic Church in Latin America’s
Public Square .......................................................................................... 21
Julieta Lemaitre
3 Laicism: Exclusive or Inclusive? ........................................................... 43
Faviola Rivera-Castro
4 “It Takes Two to Tango”: The Religious and the Secular
in Argentina’s Political Dance, 1860–1960 ............................................ 57
S. J. Gustavo Morello
5 Laicidades in the Andean Sub-region: L aicidad , Sexuality,
and Reproduction in Bolivia’s and Ecuador’s Constituent
Assembly Debates .................................................................................... 73
Marco Huaco Palomino
6 Religious Actors and Discourses in the Public Sphere:
Controversies Around Sexual Education in Argentina ........................ 101
Juan Cruz Esquivel
7 Poverty, Sexuality, and Human Rights: Pluralism
or Hegemony? Discourse of the Peruvian Catholic
Church on LGBT Human Rights Within the City of Lima ................ 123
Martín Jaime
vii
viii Contents
8 Evangelicals Within Contemporary Argentinean
Politics: Logics and Political Actors Around Sexual
and Reproductive Rights ........................................................................ 141
Daniel Eduardo Jones , Marcos Andrés Carbonelli ,
and Santiago Luján Cunial
9 Radiography of a Confessional State: The Religious
Spectrum in Costa Rica .......................................................................... 157
Laura Fuentes Belgrave
Index ................................................................................................................. 181
Chapter 1
Introduction: L aicidad and Religious
Diversity: Themes in the Debates
on the Regulation of Religion in Latin America
Juan Marco Vaggione and José Manuel Morán Faúndes
Both the theoretical proposals and the empirical approaches prioritized for con-
sidering the relation between p olitics and religion respond to a complex alchemy
between localized temporalities and experiences with transnational infl uences.
While the nation state continues to be the privileged context in debates about the
political role of religions (and their diverse regulations), circumstances that tran-
scend these limits have had a growing impact on academic agendas.1 In the case
of Latin America, the debates about the regulation of religion refl ect the particu-
larities of each country, as well as regional processes, and the forms in which
diverse international situations impact the region. The cumbersome historical
connection between religion and politics , which recognizes as antecedents the
Spanish colonization built on the image of the sword and the cross and the deci-
sive role of the C atholic Church in the processes of conformation of Latin
American nations, has stamped a particular logic on the region. Catholicism
formed a cultural and social fabric (a matrix of meanings) that, beyond the differ-
ences among the countries, permeates discussions and public decision-making.
Latin America is therefore a region that is heir to a decisive religious tradition, in
which confessional beliefs, discourses, and practices continue to play an impor-
tant role in public life.
A s such, regional academic agendas have tended to focus strongly on the ways
in which the Catholic inheritance penetrates political processes, permeates cultural
1 Perhaps a clear example of this are the geopolitics that occurred after the attack on the Twin
Towers in New York City, leading to different ways of thinking about the links between religion
and politics at both the national and international levels. Another example is the migratory fl ows
that have been a relevant vector in the debate on the connections between religion and politics .
J. M. Vaggione (*) • J. M. Morán Faúndes
National University of Córdoba/National Scientifi c and Technical Research Council
(CONICET), Córdoba , Argentina
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 1
J.M. Vaggione, J.M. Morán Faúndes (eds.), Laicidad and Religious Diversity in
Latin America, Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in
Diverse Societies 6, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44745-2_1
