May 12, 2007 7:51 am US/Pacific
Pope Visits Brazil Drug Treatment Center
GUARATINGUETA, Brazil (AP) ―
Pope Benedict XVI arrived Saturday at a rural drug treatment center that gives addicts spiritual guidance while they milk cows, tend apple orchards and work as beekeepers.
The center founded by a Franciscan friar claims an 80 percent success rate, and is a short distance away from the shrine city of Aparecida, where Benedict on Sunday will open a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops aimed at finding ways to reverse the erosion of the church in the region.
About 6,000 people gathered on a sprawling lawn outside the "Fazenda de Esperanca," or "Farm of Hope," treatment center cheered the pope's arrival. They said the visit was important because Brazilian addicts are often ostracized and left to beg on the streets for drug money.
"We are excluded from society, but we are the ones the pope is coming to see," said Diego Cleto, a 19-year-old who said he started taking drugs at age 13.
Big cities across Latin America's largest nation are plagued with drug violence driven by gangs that control street-corner dealing. The problem is particularly acute in Rio de Janeiro, where gangs in teeming slums lure children into lives of violence and engage in near-daily shootouts that kill innocent bystanders.
The drug treatment center in Garatingueta was founded by Friar Hanz Stapel in 1983. There are now 31 similar farm/treatment centers in Brazil and 10 more in countries such as Russia, Mexico and Mozambique.
Before traveling from Sao Paulo Friday night to the hallowed Catholic religious site of Aparecida, Benedict lamented "difficult times for the church" in Brazil amid "aggressive proselytizing" by born-again Protestant congregations.
Brazil's census shows the percentage of citizens characterizing themselves as Catholics plunged to 74 percent in 2000 from 89 percent in 1980, while those calling themselves evangelical Protestants rose to 15 percent from 7 percent.
The backdrop to the bishops' conference is Aparecida, 100 miles east of Sao Paulo, and home to the mammoth Basilica of Aparecida — as well as the three-foot-tall statue of a black Virgin Mary, called "Our Lady Who Appeared," the patron saint of Brazil.
The statue was pulled from a river in the 18th century by poor fishermen who were not catching any fish, and then caught loads in their nets. Miracles were subsequently attributed to the statue, and so many pilgrims flocked to Aparecida that the church built the basilica and inaugurated it as a shrine in 1955.
On Friday, the pope canonized Brazil's first native-born saint in a Mass before about a million people. He held up 18th century Friar Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao as a model of rectitude and humility "in an age so full of hedonism."
Benedict was cheered by flag-waving crowds in the world's largest Catholic nation as he canonized the new saint, continuing a push for saints in the developing world that began under John Paul II, who sought role models as part of the church's worldwide reach. John Paul canonized more saints than all of his predecessors combined.
Benedict also called on Catholics to "oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage."
It may be too late for that in Brazil, where sex before marriage is common.
Scantily clad actresses are the norm on hugely popular TV soap operas, and women on the beaches wear bikinis that leave little to the imagination. Plastic surgery to reshape breasts and buttocks is nearly as popular as orthodontia.
The pope may be popular among Brazilian Catholics but most probably will not heed his call when it comes to sex, said David Gibson, author of "The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World."
"This is enormously frustrating to Benedict or any pope; they want to have more impact," Gibson added. But "how do you go against a culture like that? It's tough."
While polls show Brazilians oppose expanding access to abortion, they overwhelmingly support using condoms to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases — in firm opposition to church doctrine. The government, in fact, hands out millions of condoms for free every year, especially ahead of the debauchery that is an integral part of Brazil's pre-Lent carnival.
"Nothing could be more countercultural than his message in Brazil, the land of the thong," said Gibson, a former Vatican Radio reporter.
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
