Once a powerful force in the Brazilian Church (and in Latin America as a whole), the basic ecclesial communities – known as CEBs in Portuguese and Spanish – saw a continuous decline in the country since the 1990s. Now, with Pope Francis’ support and a fresh interest from the younger generation, their members want to grow again.

Last week, some 1,000 CEBs leaders from all parts of Brazil gathered in Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso state, for a national encounter, in which they discussed the most pressing issues in the nation – from deforestation in the Amazon to unemployment – and set up a strategy for the next few years. The need to bring more young Catholics to join them was a central element in the debates.

CEBs and Liberation Theology

The first CEBs began to grow strong in Brazil in the 1970s, when a military junta ruled the country and suppressed the people’s basic rights. In rural and urban communities, peasants and poor workers would form small groups to read the Bible together and discuss their problems.

Those little clusters were frequently accompanied by priests and nuns driven by the reformist spirit of the Second Vatican Council. The CEBs would play a central role in numerous communities all over Brazil, not only inspiring a direct participation of Catholics in church life but also encouraging them to organize and act to improve their living conditions.

Liberation theology was the theoretical counterpart of the CEBs from the start. With the fierce persecution that many liberation theologians suffered in the 1980s – including Leonardo Boff, the most notorious of such thinkers, who was silenced for a whole year by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and ended up leaving priesthood in 1992 –, the CEBs ended up losing their vigor as well.

“Attacks on Liberation theology were attacks on the CEBs. That process was very strong during the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI,” affirmed Celso Carias, a professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and a long-time CEBs leader.

Clericalism and lack of democracy

At the same time, the Church became more and more centralized in Brazil, with the clergy taking control of most of the parish life, Carias said.

“The community, which used to be central when the CEBs were strong, was gradually driven away from the decision-making spaces of the parishes,” he said. The separation between faith and concrete life was motivated, and the kind of spirituality directly connected to social causes stimulated by the CEBs was combated.

At the peak of the CEBs’ presence in the Brazilian Church, they numbered at least 50,000, Carias said. Now, he estimates there are around 20,000 of them.

He does not consider that the CEBs will recover their relevance in the Brazilian Church in the next few years. “We have to make a daily effort in our dioceses to rebuild the CEBs, despite the resistance we will face. But we have a great ally in Pope Francis,” Carias said.

Pope Francis and the outgoing Church

Indeed, the pope is frequently mentioned by the CEBs leaders as an important supporter. During the encounter last week, he sent a video to motivate  the CEBs members in which he urged them to keep working for an outgoing Church.

“The Church is like the water. If the water in the river does not flow, it stagnates and becomes unhealthy. When the Church goes out [to meet the world], it walks and it feels stronger,” Pope Francis told the CEBs activists in his message.

Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa of Cachoeiro do Itapemirim, in Espírito Santo state, was one of the 50 members of the Brazilian episcopate who attended the gathering in Rondonópolis. He celebrated the fact that so many bishops and priests took part in the meeting, but emphasized that “there is a huge resistance among many in the Church to accept the CEBs model.”

“Many people continue to prefer a closed Church, a Church that only looks to itself. We have many barriers to overcome,” he told La Croix International. One of the ways to do so, he argued, is to keep working side by side with popular movements and community organizations. “Pope Francis already had four meetings with popular movements. After learning about their needs, he created the slogan land, housing, and shelter. We need to follow his way,” Lisboa added.

A new beginning

In the meeting, there were members of Indigenous groups from different parts of Brazil. Some of them led the liturgy for one day.

“A person who was seeing the celebration by my side and was not an enthusiast of the CEBs was very moved with the Indigenous rite and told me that ‘only in a Church like that the Indigenous and other traditional peoples had a place’. It was a moment of conversion,” Lisboa said.

Marilza Schuina, one of the coordinators of the meeting, said that members of the Youth Pastoral Ministry from different regions were invited to plan the encounter, side by side with veteran CEBs leaders. “Our goal was to make an assembly that could be a milestone in the rebuilding of the CEBs. We brought community leaders and young Catholics that will work to reorganize them throughout the country,” Schuina said.

Young Catholics

One of them was Marcos Abraão, a 28-year-old Catholic activist from Santarém, in the Amazonian state of Pará. He was a member of the archdiocese’s Youth Pastoral Ministry for several years and, at the same time, played a role in his local CEB. “Since childhood I have been part of a CEB because my mother has always been a member too,” he told La Croix International.

His neighborhood, called Esperança (hope), was formed in the 1970s after a seminary was built in the region. Families from the countryside and nearby cities that moved to Santarém would settle there. They soon realized that they would have to struggle for their right to sanitation and electricity. “A priest helped the families to organize and the CEB was created. It played a fundamental role in improving the living conditions in our neighborhood,” he said.

Nowadays, Abraão leads the CEBs coordination in the Archdiocese of Santarém. He said that the participation of young Catholics in those communities has been “natural” in the city. “The younger generations will continue the work of the founders of the CEBs,” Abraão said.

Rural challenges

In the rural world, the CEBs have been facing the challenges presented by the agribusiness, which invests in monocultures that occupy vast territories and uses pesticides that are contaminating the water and soil. “Even here in our region, where most farms are small and led by families, people have been using drones to throw pesticides over the crops,” affirmed Edson Canchilheri, an educator and CEB leader in the city of Mimoso do Sul, Espírito Santo state.

He was born at a farm which his family did not own, so they had to give half of their production to the owner. “I had great mentors who helped me to question that kind of situation. I began to study about it in order to understand how things worked,” he said.

The CEBs always promoted solidarity among the local farmers. If one of them was ill, people would gather to help him during the harvest season, for instance. They also promoted the creation of rural associations that struggled for better conditions for the farmers.

Canchilheri said that social conservatism has been growing and that some of the local farmers “do not want to hear us talk about environmental issues, for instance.” “Some people want us only at the altars, and not dealing with social problems,” he affirmed.

Despite the hardships he has been facing, Canchilheri is excited about resuming the Bible circles in the region and bringing young people to join them. “We have to educate and form new leaders. That is how we will change things.”