From ............... National Catholic Reporter

March 8, 1996

page 8

GROUP PREDICTS A PROTESTANT MEXICO

A Mexican evangelical group says Chiapas soon will be the first state in Mexico in which the majority of the population is Protestant. A statement released by the National Confraternity of Evangelical Christian Churches also said that in about 25 or 30 years the entire country of Mexico will have a majority evangelical population.

The statement said the reason Pope John Paul II visited Latin America in February was to stop the spread of evangelical Protestant groups.

"Using highly intolerant and offensive language toward the Christian Latin American churches, which are always referred to as 'sects,' the European ecclesiastical hierarchy is trying to stop the preaching of the pure gospel in these lands," the statement said.

"We are sure that it is a completely vain call: Defrauded by 500 years of Roman Catholic syncretic paganism, Latin Americans are looking for the answer in the Bible, not in human traditions," it said.

Arturo Farela, president of the confraternity, said that 17 percent to 20 percent of Mexico's population is Protestant. Other sources list the [Roman] Catholic population at 89 to 95 percent of the population.

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