La teología de la liberación en prospectiva - Noticias más vistas

This was confirmed by another survey done in Toyohashi City, researchingthe daily lives of the Brazilian migrants outside of work. About 13.2% ofthe respondents answered they committed themselves to church activitieson their own time (Onai 2009: 94-95).For those hardworking Brazilians in Japan, the churches where theycan gather are havens of rest. Then, what kind of churches are those 13-15% of Brazilians going?nThe Catholic ChurchAs the Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in Brazil, it is naturalto assume the first place where Brazilian migrants would go is the CatholicChurch. According to statistics gathered in 2005, the number of foreignCatholics living in Japan is 529,452, for the first time outnumbering JapaneseCatholics, who total 449,925. There are certainly visible changes inchurches, with increasing numbers of foreign Catholics, especially Brazilians.In Nagoya Diocese, which has a large number of Brazilian Catholics,there are eleven churches out of fifty-three offering masses in Portuguese.Other than Portuguese, many churches nowadays offer services in otherlanguages, including English, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, andVietnamese. It is said that the churches are becoming revitalized by thenew international members (Tani 2008: 27-29).The influx of Brazilian Catholics is giving hope for the Catholic Churchin Japan, however, the situation is not fully satisfactory for the Brazilians.There are not many Portuguese-speaking priests, and the Portuguese servicesare offered only from one to three times a month.nThe Protestant Church1. The United Church of Christ in JapanUnlike the Catholics, the mainline Protestant churches seem less excitedabout the influx of foreign Christians into the country. The United Churchof Christ in Japan (uccj), which is the largest Protestant united church, hasnot a single church out of 1725 local churches, which provides a servicein Portuguese (Christian Year Book 2010).2. Seventh-day Adventist ChurchOn the other hand, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Japan has a coherentpolicy on supporting Brazilians. Not only do they provide Portugueseservices in eight churches, they have also founded two BrazilianCongreso Continental de Teología x 109