Brazilians are moving away from Catholicism. Today, less than 50 percent of Brazilians determine as Roman Catholic, down from 92 percent in1970 But after 500 years in South America, the Catholic Church stays deeply enmeshed Brazil’s economy and society.
Among its lotsof grips is a obscure custom called the Movimento das Capelinhas, or “small chapel motion.” This phenomenon, which takes location in hundreds of cities and towns throughout Brazil, centers on the flow amongst Catholic homes of little sanctuaries consistingof a Virgin Mary statuette.
Alternative economies on the increase
The Movimento das Capelinhas is an example of a circulation-based collective network, a kind of hyper-local economy that is popping up throughout the world, from one London district’s option currency to the time banks of New Zealand.
Such systems appeal since they exchange a narrow focus on financial worth (only cash matters) for a morecomprehensive meaning of what has worth to individuals. By flowing dear items in a particular pattern, these collective networks disperse their advantages to all included, and the “profit” goes well beyond the little financial bump neighborhoods might see.
The little chapel motion kinds part of a long history of Roman Catholic routines including spiritual antiques and statues sentout out to trip the world’s parishes.
Protected by their wood homes, Brazil’s moving Marys pay one-day “visits” to different parishioners’ homes in a semi-formal procedure figuredout by next-doorneighbors, parishes and lay volunteers. Most chapel groups consistof about 30 households, such that each household gets one goto a month. Local clergy manage the Marys’ development around town.
In doing their rounds, our researchstudy discovered, these peripatetic chapels do more than simply physically flow – their takesatrip really produce revenue and worth for individuals. The end outcome is a de facto regional Catholic “economy,” one based on shared worths rather than cash.
Rituals and antiques
To comprehend the financial effect of the popular little chapel custom, we invested 2 years studying the Marys’ bloodcirculation in 2 southern Brazilian cities: Curitiba, which has 1.76 million citizens; and Campos Novos, a little town southwest of there.
Our researchstudy, which was released in February in the Journal of Macromarketing, discovered distinctions in the size and organizational level of each city’s little chapel motions. But in both locations, everybody in this routine gets some kind of advantage, be it financial, spiritual or social – producing what’s called “hybrid worth systems.”
Curitiba’s system is well-coordinated by the church, with roughly 100 volunteer mensageiras (messengers) who steward an approximated 10,000 little chapels from family to home.
In Campos Novos, which has 32,800 occupants, the market was less robust. Approximately 100 Marys flow amongst regional Catholics, supervised by about the exactsame number of mensageiras.
For takingpart neighborhoods in both cities, the result of the moving chapels is to produce an option economy, one based not on conventional capitalist worths however on involvement, neighborhood and faith.
Money does, of course, play some function. Households make financial contributions to the Catholic Church for the honor of hosting a chapel. Some little capelinhas even come gearedup with their own coin slot.
In Curitiba, we discovered that these little contributions make the church about 1.5 million Brazilian reals (approximately UnitedStates$500,000) per year. In Campos Novos, the church’s revenue was substantially less, mostlikely amassing the regional archdiocese simply anumberof thousand reals.
Money can’t buy you faith
Host households and neighborhood members see less concrete however similarly important advantages from the takingatrip Marys.
For lay mensageiras, it’s social status: Working as your area’s agent of the church is a distinguished function. Likewise for the households, parishes and neighborhoods interconnected by the routine visitation of these little chapels.
There is a spiritual worth, too. For Catholics, Mary, as the mom of Jesus Christ, is one of the most effective holy figures, and receivers of the little chapels that home her feel blessed by their gainaccessto to divinity, assistance and excellent luck.
The Brazilian Catholic church thoroughly handles this element of the chapel checkouts, presenting them as a source of convenience. The Marys “move,” states Church teaching, and in doing so sustain their fans mentally.
The capelinhas frequently endedupbeing a