Religion is Everywhere

We are, as a matter of course, teaching in public schools. Schools that are funded by the government. Schools that are open to everyone to attend. I stress this because with amount of religious paraphernalia found in EVERY single one of said schools, you would think we were at the state equivalent of a private Catholic school.

Here, for example, is the four foot Jesus picture that adorns the main stairway:

 

This is the shrine that we keep in our back staircase:

And of course, there is the smaller iconography found in each one of the classrooms. Oh, and then there’s the daily Catholic prayer that is said over the loudspeakers at school, Pledge-Of-Allegiance style. (As a side note, I also know that there was a sighting of the Mother Mary by someone on my birthday some year, because every time I tell the teachers when it is, which is May 13th, someone starts singing this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Rk-EJ5nAk)

Overall, this is one of the more modest displays of religion found in our schools. One volunteer’s school had an entire DAY filled with religious “sharing time,” during which prayers and handholding commenced. At least two of our schools are run by nuns. 

There is a rule that states that no one is allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in schools. In a country which, for much of its history after the Spaniards arrived, has been almost strictly Catholic, there are very few deviations of religion. And certainly no acknowledged distinction between Religion and Everyday Life.

Evangelical Christians have taken root here as well—and so those who aren’t Catholic are mostly Evangelicals. (They are an interesting breed, of the Evangelical sort those in the US may be accustomed to, but also have Israeli-derived music and dances. But they don’t believe in parties or much public sorts of fun. I’m not really sure how it all works). People here don’t really understand what it means to have different “brands” of Christianity. And don’t even try to explain Judaism…Jesus exists. That is a fact.

There are, of course, some Jews/Mormons/ Jehova’s Witnesses, though contextually scarce…but I’ve yet to run into any other religion, not to say it doesn’t exist here. But religion itself is a deeply rooted concept of being. It is often one of the first questions a person is asked, after name and origin. Sometimes it precludes “Are you single,” but that and “What religion are you” are basically the interchangeable third “who are you” mandatory question. Coming from people you met two seconds prior.

When I was telling my counterpart, who is not Catholic, how we don’t allow religion as a taught belief in American schools, the concept didn’t quite stick. “I wish we could have that,” she said. “I mean, we’re not all Catholic. We should stick to neutral things, like just saying that God created the earth.”

And yet, it’s interesting, in a way, to experience group prayer in the school. Not that there’s much discord between the teachers, but with fifty people who possess a wide spectrum of personalities, the majority of them female, there is certainly a lot of noise. It’s actually quite calming when the prayer that starts each teacher meeting begins, and everyone puts away their catalogs and magazines, stops trying to sell each other the things they bought at the market that morning or food they made the day before, and yearning-filled discussions about the plastic surgery they want to have/other teachers have gotten cease.   Although the out-of-tune hymns and fervent “Our Fathers” aren’t really my style, to hear prayers for strength to give the students wonderful educations is, even for the agnostic, somewhat comforting. 

I’m not sure what has kept this country so religious. I haven’t experienced life in enough Latin/South America countries to know if this is generally the norm. I’m also not sure what has kept other churches outside of Evangelicalism from gaining much ground on Catholocism.  But I do know that, for the next two years, I will be experiencing more religion in my life, at least via proxy, than I have for the past five years. For the moment, I’m treating the prayers (sometimes the only slowly-spoken statement made by the teachers in an entire day), as a useful Spanish learning opportunity! And if anyone asks, I’m a Christian…which they believe means Evangelical, which is, in the Catholic’s book, at least one step up from being a heathen…