Catholicism
Catholicism was the official religion of the country since the Spanish colonization until the 1991 constitutional reform (National Constituent Assembly), which granted equalitarian treatment from the government to all the religions. However, Catholicism is still the main religion in Colombia by number of adepts, with an estimated of 75% of the national population in nominal Catholicism, from which about 25% are practicing Catholics. According to the CIA Factbook, 90% of the population identifies themselves as Catholic; 10%, other.
In the colonial period, the Catholic Church created and was in charge of most of the public institutions, such as teaching facilities (schools, colleges, universities, libraries, botanical gardens, astronomic observatories); health facilities (Hospitals, nurseries, leper hospitals) and jails. It also "inherited" a huge amount of land, approx. 1/4 of all the productive land, which was later expropriated by a liberal government.
Colombia is often referred as the Country of the Sacred Heart, due to the annual consecration of the country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a Te Deum directed by the President of the republic. Colombia has been re-consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 2008, in a country-wide ceremony celebrated by the main Bishops and with the presence of the Colombian President (also a Catholic).
Read more about this topic: Religion In Colombia
Famous quotes containing the word catholicism:
“Protestantism has the method of Jesus with His secret too much left out of mind; Catholicism has His secret with His method too much left out of mind; neither has His unerring balance, His intuition, His sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)