Latin America visit will show how pope defends flock
Leaders where Francis is traveling say Catholic membership waning
QUITO, Ecuador — Pope Francis has turned heads with bold stands on climate change and income inequality. He helped broker a historic thaw between the United States and Cuba. He has shaken up the stodgy brand of the Roman Catholic Church.
But for all his forays into international diplomacy and deftness at imagemaking, his trip to South America, which begins Sunday, will test his skills in what could be a much more difficult task: putting parishioners in pews and keeping them there.
In Argentina, Francis’ native country, the director of a Catholic association said that while the pope had personally ignited excitement and interest, attendance at church services and the number of Catholic marriages had barely increased.
“There is an asymmetry,” said the director, Justo Carbajales, 56, a car- diologist. “Argentines have strengthened ties with the figure of the pope, but still not at all with the church.”
Here in the capital of Ecuador, where the pope will begin his visit to Latin America, Archbishop Fausto Trávez acknowledged concern over what he called the church’s decline in recent decades, in- cluding a dwindling number of priests.
But he said he thought that the pope’s influence could be seen through increased attendance at Mass, increased collections and a recent rise in the number of seminary students studying to become priests.
Latin America and the Caribbean have 425 million Catholics, 39 percent of the world’s total, according to the Pew Research Center. But like a multinational corporation facing slumping sales, falling market share, rising competition and a fatigued brand, the church is vulnerable.