Religiosity and Catholic approval of the political intervention of the Catholic Church and its leaders in Peru

Abstract

Despite the progressive increase in Protestantism, Peru remains one of the countries with the highest percentage of Catholics in Latin America. Due to this, and the degree of legitimacy that it maintains in society, it could be expected that the Catholic Church, its leaders and representatives will have a great political influence in the community that calls itself Catholic, making it relatively easy for them to obtain majority support and consent from this sector. However, the present work suggests that religious affiliation is an insufficient analysis variable to approach the political and mobilizing potential of the Church, its authorities and leaders in Peru. It is argued that, in a context where religious competition has increased, it is necessary to consider at least religiosity as a mediating variable between religious affiliation and the political potential of the Church. Through a quantitative methodology, the sociodemographic profile of each sector of Catholics is described, differentiated according to their self-perception of commitment to religion. In addition, through logistic regression analysis that considers sociodemographic variables, the weight of religiosity in the probability of agreeing with three forms of intervention of the Catholic Church in the political arena is also evaluated. The results indicate that religiosity has a considerable weight in the probability of supporting political interventions by the Church, its authorities and people with strong religious beliefs, allowing a new critical reading to be given to the majority percentage of Catholics in the country.