Understanding the Catholic Church’s Behavior Under the Dictatorships of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil: Rethinking the Religious Economy Explanation

Abstract

During the 1970s’ military dictatorships in Chile and Brazil, the Catholic Church took the position of moral opposition to the authoritarian regimes, while in Argentina, the Church sided with the dictatorship. In his pathbreaking book utilizing the religious economy model, Anthony Gill theorized that the Church in Chile adopted a critical stance against the regime due to competition from Protestant Churches. Subsequently, Gill’s specific arguments and the religious economy model in general have been widely applied but also critiqued by sociologists of religion. Through a deeper analysis of the three case studies of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, we support and extend theoretical critiques of the religious economy model. We argue that that the religious economy model as applied by Gill is an insufficient predictor of church and state behavior because it lacks specificity on the amount of competition necessary to warrant taking progressive action, lacks specificity about the timing of Protestant competition, ignores the pre-existing position of the Catholic Church, treats the demand side of the religious market as inelastic, assumes the Catholic Church intentionally implemented progressive policies in response to competition, presumes the Church is a unitary actor, and disregards the impact of a perceived Marxist threat on both church and state actors. Our critique of the religious economy model points to refinements of the model and alternative approaches to understanding church and state behavior in Latin America and elsewhere.

1. Introduction

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the human rights violations of the military dictatorships in Latin America caught the attention of the international community as well as the Catholic Church. During this time, the Catholic Church famously took differing positions in response to the respective dictatorships. For instance, both the Chilean and Brazilian national Churches demonstrated a preferential option for the poor and opposed the dictatorships, while in other cases, such as Argentina, the Church sided with the military (Ruderer 2015, p. 469). The diverse responses of national episcopies attracted scholarly interest in attempts to explain the Catholic Church’s behavior.

One such attempt was Anthony Gill’s utilization of the theory of religious competition based on Finke and Stark’s (1988) religious economy model. Gill argued that religious organizations like the Catholic Church behave like firms in a market, assuming that demand for religion is constant (Bush 2010, p. 306; Finke and Stark 2003, p. 100). With more religious competition, religious firms will oppose the military regime to retain and expand membership (Gill 1998, p. 147). However, when there is low to no religious competition, the Church will side with the state because it does not have to compete with other firms for members (Gill 1998, p. 171). Gill’s approach thus predicted that in the case of Chile, where the Catholic Church faced greater competition from Protestantism, the Church would adopt an oppositional position, while in Argentina (where religious competition was lower), it would side with the state.

The religious economy model (REM) (Bush 2010) and Gill’s religious competition theory spurred new research and debate about the efficacy of treating religious institutions as unitary rational actors in religious markets. Penny Edgell (2012) summarizes some of the primary criticisms of the REM as:

its inability to account for the social embeddedness of religious choice (Edgell 2005; Ellison 1995; Young 1997) and the cultural construction of rationality (Smilde 2007), for mistakes in assessing foundational empirical claims about the relationship between religious pluralism and religious adherence (Chaves and Gorski 2001; Voas et al. 2002), for its lack of attention to relations of power in the supply side of religion (Bush 2010; Wilde et al. 2010), for an unwarranted assumption that religious identification or belief has a strong and unitary effect on social action (Chaves 2010; Smilde and May 2010), and for a definition of religious strength that uncritically mirrors historically specific features of contemporary Protestant Christian orthodoxy (Bruce 1999; Cadge et al. 2011; Edgell 2005).

(Edgell 2012, p. 249)

We utilize a critical case study approach, undertaking a political and historical analysis of the Catholic Church’s response across the cases of Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Our analysis confirms some critiques of the REM and extends others. Overall, our analysis raises six key points that intersect with and extend previous criticisms of the REM. First, the REM fails to specify the level of religious pluralism needed to elicit a progressive response by the Catholic Church. Second, the pre-existing position of the Catholic Church in the cultural context has a greater influence on its responses than the REM accounts for. Third, the REM does not account for the fact that the Catholic Church’s shift towards progressivism may not have been an intentional response to competition but rather was a response to an internal challenge, such as a priest shortage. Fourth, because the REM, as utilized by Gill, treats religious demand as inelastic, it ignores variations in demand, rendering it incapable of explaining why progressive policies were perceived as a successful competitive tactic in the first place. More recent iterations of the REM, such as Trejo’s (2009) analysis of religious competition and indigenous movements in Mexico and Chesnut’s (2007) analysis of the growth of Charismatic Catholicism, have reopened the demand side of the equation, providing a fruitful agenda for future research using a revised REM model. Fifth, the REM treats the Catholic Church as a unitary actor when it was divided in each case, which impacted the balance of power within the institution and who determined its overall institutional position. Lastly, the REM, as utilized in Latin American cases, assumes that the Catholic Church can rely on the state to oppose Marxism. However, as our cases indicate, there are instances where the state accepts Socialist influences, and the Church does not necessarily oppose them.

Morello et al. (2017) define an “enchanted modernity” as a landscape where religious affiliation is fluid and religion is incorporated into daily life (Morello et al. 2017, p. 318). While the REM, as utilized to explain church and state behavior in the Southern Cone, does factor in religious pluralism in formerly monopolistic markets, it does not sufficiently disaggregate actors, identify religious demand factors that impacted religious suppliers, or consider the blurred boundaries of religious participation in the Latin American context. In such a context, static conceptions of church and state actors and religious competition are limited in their explanatory power. A more critical reading of the history of the case studies, the influence of global trends in the context of the Cold War and Vatican II, religious demand variables, and a disaggregation of the multiple actors within both states and churches provides a more accurate view of the choices made by churches to support or oppose authoritarian states.

2. Background

There is widespread scholarly consensus that the Catholic Church’s global shift towards progressive policies stems from the Second Vatican Council of 1963 (Vatican II), held to discuss how to bring the Catholic Church into the modern era. To the Vatican, modernity meant that “the Roman Church not only [faced] the process of secularization” but also “the disestablishment [of the Catholic Church] at the hands of liberal government” (Escobar 1991, p. 27). To deal with this pressing issue as well as internal Church dynamics, Vatican II was called to order to discuss the Catholic Church’s policies. Vatican II stressed an “ecclesiastical renewal and change in Catholicism’s relationship to modernity” (Catoggio 2013, p. 140). The Vatican’s new doctrine emphasized a new pastoral commitment to the poor, becoming the voice of the voiceless, tolerance for alternative ideas, and greater activism (Gill 1998, p. 36; Mainwaring and Wilde 1989, p. 1). The doctrine demonstrated a prioritization of the needs of the masses over the state and elites.

The 1968 Second General Conference of CELAM (Episcopal Conference of Latin America), also known as CELAM II, applied the Vatican II doctrine to the Latin American context. CELAM II coined the term “preferential option for the poor” for this new praxis of prioritizing the common people. CELAM II noted that the poor have always had a preferential place in Catholic scripture; therefore, it was time the Catholic Church changed its policy to better reflect its scripture (Gill 1998, p. 37). Despite the conferences, not every Catholic episcopacy adopted the new doctrines. Some episcopacies, like those of Chile and Brazil, had a history of progressive tendencies and implemented the new policies; however, more conservative episcopacies, like Argentina, rejected the doctrine and were much slower at implementing progressive policies (Gill 1998, p. 37). The process of “modernizing” was complex, creating divisions within the Church and tension with repressive regimes that retaliated against the new doctrine (Mainwaring and Wilde 1989, pp. 1–2).

In addition to the progressive shift in the Catholic Church, this period also saw the growth of Liberation Theology. Gustavo Gutiérrez explains in the foundational work, “A Theology of Liberation”, that Liberation Theology argues that there are three areas in need of liberation: “(1) socio-political economic liberation from poverty, oppression, and dependency; (2) liberation in history of all dimensions of human freedom, with humans becoming responsible for their own destiny and living in solidarity; (3) liberation from sin, which is the ultimate root of injustice” (McGovern 2009, p. 10). Gutiérrez “challenged the church to accept the demands of God’s words and to become involved [politically] in the struggles of the poor”, citing biblical passages such as God’s liberation of the people from “misery and oppression in Egypt” through political action (McGovern 2009, pp. 10–11). Gutierrez explained that the Catholic Church should not remain apolitical, as there is precedent within the holy text indicating that the Church’s role is to take political action to liberate the people from suffering. While the messages of Liberation Theology reflected elements of Vatican II doctrines, critics believed it encouraged Marxist thinking and threatened Western hegemony over the periphery (Peritore 1989, p. 59). Therefore, Catholic policies connected to Liberation Theology were criticized for encouraging Marxism, placing the Church in danger of being labeled subversive and potentially at risk of being targeted by right-wing regimes throughout Latin America.

3. Military Dictatorship of the 1970s: The Cases of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil

3.1. Chile

On 11 September 1973, the military staged a coup to depose President Salvador Allende, marking the end of Chile’s democracy. The coup came three years after the 1970 presidential election, where Socialist candidate Allende won the plurality (Edwards 2022, p. 490). Allende’s socialist policies, such as “land reform and nationalization of industry,” were supported by working-class Chileans but were opposed by the upper and middle classes (Edwards 2022, p. 490). The military was anti-communist and supported the United States’ Cold War national security program, leading some top officers to believe military intervention was necessary to stop Allende’s socialist movement (Edwards 2022, p. 490).

Between US pressure and rising discontent, Allende became politically isolated, allowing the military and other militant groups to seize the government (Edwards 2022, pp. 491–92). After the coup, General Augusto Pinochet led the military government. Initial reception to the military government was positive, as the public and the Catholic Church believed the military intervention would end the growing Marxist influence and stabilize the country (Lowden 1995, pp. 2–3; Ruderer 2022, p. 326). However, as time passed, the public and the Catholic Church realized the Pinochet regime was not a temporary intervention, and the regime’s policies were becoming increasingly oppressive. The Pinochet regime used the Dirección de Intelligencia Nacional (DINA) to arrest and abuse political opponents. A Chilean commission investigating human rights abuses reported that there were at least 40,018 victims held prisoner, and of those, 3065 were killed or forcibly disappeared (Amnesty International 2013, para. 13; BBC News 2011, para. 6–7). Once the regime’s oppressive nature was apparent, the Chilean Catholic Church became a voice of moral opposition to the regime. The Catholic Church sided with the people and created religiopolitical organizations like the Vicaria de la Solidaridad, demonstrating its acceptance of the “preferential option for the poor” doctrine (Lowden 1995, p. 129). The Pinochet regime ended on 5 October 1988, after a national referendum voted to remove Pinochet from power (Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training 2014, para. 2).

3.2. Argentina

In 1976, the military overthrew President Isabel Peron, beginning the “long-term project of restructuring Argentine society, known as the Process of National Reorganization” or the PRN under General Videla (Burdick 1995, p. 222). The PRN believed that there were “subversives” who infiltrated Argentina, putting the nation in danger, and it was the responsibility of the military to “save” the country. The military’s concern about subversives led to a period of systematic oppression known as the Dirty War. It was estimated that as many as 30,000 people died due to the military’s terror tactics. The majority were kidnapped, held in clandestine detention centers, tortured, disappeared, and killed. In addition, an estimated 500 babies were born under confinement and were taken away to be adopted by families of military officials (BBC News 2020, para. 11–16; Knudson 1997, p. 2; Worboys 2007, p. 149). The PRN targeted the victims because they were lawyers, students, labor organizers, members of human rights groups, community activists, influential artists, and educators whose “voices of conscience deplored Argentina’s unjust social structure” (Knudson 1997, p. 2).

The Argentine Catholic Church largely welcomed the coup, believing it was worth the price to rid Argentina of the Communist threat against the Catholic Church (Ruderer 2022, p. 328). The Church supported the military dictatorship in the entirety of its regime, which included dealing with its human rights issues “privately” and actively cooperating with the military during interrogations (Gill 1998, p. 164; Ruderer 2022, p. 328). The dictatorship ended in 1983 when Raul Alfonsín was elected (Worboys 2007, pp. 149–52). However, blanket amnesty laws passed in 1987 by Alfonsín meant to appease the military prevented the “prosecution [of] all members of the military except [for] top commanders” but were overturned in 2005 after a Supreme Court ruling (Human Rights Watch 2005, para. 5).

3.3. Brazil

On 31 March 1964, a coup removed Brazilian President João Goulart from office. Goulart’s removal resulted from a coup comprising high-ranking military officers, Congress members, governors of the wealthiest states, and the Catholic Church. The coup resulted from long-term tension over Goulart’s instatement into office. While Goulart was neither a communist nor a radical, he was perceived as being indecisive during periods of economic inflation. In addition, the military officers claimed that Goulart was putting Brazil on the path of a “Communist revolution” (Napolitano 2018, p. 3). While the coup was a successful seizure of power by the civil and military sectors, the coalition soon collapsed. The civil sector wanted to swiftly remove Goulart from office, repress the left, and hold a general election in a “sanitized political environment”. Meanwhile, the military saw all politicians as “agents of political and institutional instability” (Napolitano 2018, p. 4). From 1964 to 1968, the two sectors clashed until only an authoritarian and bureaucratic military regime was left in power (Napolitano 2018, p. 4).

During the power struggle, the Brazilian Catholic Church began to change its stance. Initially, the Catholic Church hoped that the new government would be able to control the social turmoil created by the Goulart administration and stabilize the economy (Smith 1979, p. 79). However, the new regime’s actions did not meet the Catholic Church’s expectations, as it became apparent that the regime was using terror tactics. The Brazilian Truth Commission found that at least 434 people died or disappeared during the regime (Human Rights Watch 2014, para. 4). Similar to the Chilean case, once the regime’s violent policies became apparent, the Catholic Church changed its stance and took an antiauthoritarian stance in opposition to the military’s actions (Pope 1985, pp. 429–31). The São Paulo archdiocese was the most antiauthoritarian, establishing entities like the Justice and Peace Commission, which helped victims of human rights violations and informed the general population of the violations. Utilizing its influence, the São Paulo archdiocese mobilized “public opinion against the regime, thereby helping to corrode its legitimacy” (Pope 1985, p. 430).

4. Potential Explanations of Church Behavior

Gill notes that previous literature has attempted to find explanations for the differences in the behavior of the Catholic Church in these and other cases. The most common explanations emphasized the impact of chronic poverty, political repression, and internal church reform on the Catholic Church’s policies (Gill 1998, pp. 42–46; Mainwaring and Wilde 1989, p. 14).

The chronic poverty explanation argues that the Catholic Church had an awakening of its sense of social responsibility as its understanding of the impact of widespread poverty evolved. If this were the case, there should be a correlation between poverty levels and the Catholic Church’s progressiveness. The logic is that the parishioners would pressure the Catholic Church to act on social issues in areas with widespread poverty. The conclusion would be that impoverished dioceses would have more progressive bishops. However, as Mainwaring and Wilde explain, “confronting social injustices [had] been central to the mission of the progressive Church since Medellin,” but the increases in poverty “were not so dramatic as to move the Church from its historical conservatism.” Social inequalities and injustices were also not found to be “notably greater in countries where Church progressives [had] exercised great sway” (Mainwaring and Wilde 1989, p. 14). Simply put, there was not a strong correlation between the presence of poverty and progressive Church policies, making poverty levels an inadequate explanation of the Catholic Church’s behavior.

The explanation of political repression argues that in atmospheres of repression, churches become essential actors in the struggle for human rights, giving them no choice but to denounce repressive rules (Gill 1998, pp. 43–44; Smith 1979, p. 90). The Catholic Church’s unique position as one of the few organizations left with some freedom gave it the capacity to serve as a “reliable [source] of information to the outside world” and use its international network to provide financial and material support to the people (Smith 1979, p. 116). This ability made the Catholic Church an ideal institution for the people to pressure into denouncing the authoritarian regimes. However, this explanation is also insufficient to explain the variation in outcomes between Argentina and Chile, since both countries experienced state repression. According to this explanation, the people should have pressured the Catholic Church to intervene, motivating it to denounce both regimes. Yet the Argentine Church took the opposite position.

The internal church reform explanation states that the Catholic Church’s opposition to authoritarianism resulted from internal reform due to Vatican II, CELAM II, and liberation theology. While the messages of Vatican II, CELAM II, and liberation theology did affect the Church’s behavior to an extent, this explanation fails to consider why the Catholic Church went through these reforms in the first place, nor does it explain why the acceptance of these doctrines was not uniform across national episcopies. Mainwaring and Wilde state, “… if changes in the international Church were an adequate explanation for the character of ecclesiastical change, then we would not expect sharp differences across national borders” (Mainwaring and Wilde 1989, p. 12). In other words, if internal reformation had been the cause of the variation in policies, then the Argentine and Chilean Catholic Churches should have adopted similar policies. Instead, other factors must have caused cross-national differences in Catholic Church policies.

5. Religious Economy Model and the Theory of Religious Competition

Based on the religious economy model, the theory of religious competition argues that the discrepancies in the Catholic Church’s policies across cases resulted from the varying levels of religious competition that each country’s Catholic Church faced. The presence of other religious institutions, mainly Protestantism, forced some Catholic episcopacies to change their “marketing strategy” to better compete for membership (Gill 1998, p. 7). A brief overview of the religious economy model provides a window into Gill’s analysis.

The religious economy model states that religious institutions approach membership like a business firm and implement strategies to attract the most customers. As Finke and Stark state,

…the religious economy [consists] of all the religious activity going on in any society, including a ‘market’ of current and potential adherents, a set of one or more organizations seeking to attract or maintain adherents, and the religious culture offered by the organization(s). Just as a commercial economy can be distinguished into elements of supply and demand, so too, can a religious economy.

(Finke and Stark 2003, p. 100)

In other words, “religion” is supplied just like a good in the commercial economy. Each firm or religious institution wants to “sell” its religion to as many consumers as possible. Competition arises when the religious market is unregulated, just like in the commercial economy. Finke and Stark state that the nature of the religious economy encourages religious groups to “cater to the special interests of specific market segments” (Finke and Stark 1988, p. 42). Pluralism in the religious economy naturally happens because there are various preferences that no single religious firm can meet within the religious market (Finke and Stark 2003, pp. 100–01). The religious competition theory is based on the religious economy model’s assumption that religious institutions want to maximize membership while dealing in a pluralistic market.

In Anthony Gill’s work, Rendering unto Caesar, he uses the religious economy model to conclude that the difference between the Catholic Church’s actions in Argentina and Chile is due to the differing levels of competition from Protestant churches within each country. Gill explains that areas with higher levels of competition developed progressive policies such as antiauthoritarianism to maintain their position in society. Gill argues that in the 1970s, Protestantism was Catholicism’s biggest competitor and that the competitive threat was more significant in Chile than in Argentina. In Chile, Protestantism experienced growth among native-born Protestants and the establishment of Protestant churches, while in Argentina, Protestantism was considered a foreign problem as the episcopacy believed that most Argentine citizens were Catholic (Gill 1998, pp. 130–33; Gill 1998, p. 149). Thus, Gill argues that to be competitive in a pluralist religious market, the Chilean Catholic Church had to side with the people as a “marketing strategy”. The Argentine Catholic Church did not have to implement progressive policies because its hegemony was not threatened.

6. Re-Examining Factors Impacting the Catholic Church

Despite some correlation between the growth of Protestantism and Catholic Church behavior in the Chilean case, we argue that other factors besides Protestant growth concurrently impacted Church behavior. In the following sections, we examine each factor and evaluate how it impacted the Catholic Church’s response to the authoritarian regimes of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. We conclude with suggestions for a revised REM approach that incorporates variations in religious demand and the blurred boundaries of religious participation in the context of Latin America.

6.1. Lack of Specificity in the REM and Issues with the Timeline of Protestant Competition

One critique of the REM is that it fails to specify the degree of religious pluralism needed for religious institutions to feel threatened and adopt progressive strategies to combat competition (also see Philpott 2007, p. 513). Relatedly, there are contradictions with the timeline proposed by Gill and the timeline of events implied by the REM. According to Gill, Protestantism was practiced freely in Chile since 1818 and became a competitive force in the 1930s (Gill 1998, p. 131). While there was a Protestant boom involving several Protestant churches from the 1930s to the 1960s, the issue with claiming the 1930s as the beginning of serious Protestant competition is that the percentage of Protestant membership in Chile was meager compared to that of the Catholic Church at that time (Gooren 2015, p. 208). Split across several churches, Protestantism grew from 63,400 to 418,380 adherents between 1930 and 1960, while the Catholic Church grew from 4.2 M to 7.19 M within the same timespan (Gooren 2015, p. 198). In other words, the total Protestant membership across several churches grew from 1.5% of the size of the Catholic Church to 5% of its size. Given how small Protestantism remained compared to the Catholic Church by the 1960s, it is difficult to discern whether the Protestant churches were large enough to concern the Catholic Church at that time for it to begin implementing progressive policies.

Furthermore, the timeline implied by the REM contradicts the timeline of events in Chile. Starting in the 1920s, the Catholic Church had already allowed for the development of progressivism, such as collective pastoral planning and the organization of national conferences (Adriance 1992, pp. S52–S53). However, according to Gill, Protestant competition became an issue in the 1930s, yet the REM implies that Protestant competition became a threat in the 1970s, as marked by the Catholic Church’s antiauthoritarian position (Gill 1998, p. 131). If the 1930s marked the start of serious competition, then the REM fails to explain why the Chilean Catholic Church would wait 50 years to respond. Similarly, if the 1970s were indeed the beginning of serious Protestant competition, then the REM also fails to explain why progressive practices began as early as the 1920s in Chile.

In the case of Brazil, Protestant missionaries arrived in the mid-19th century, and Protestant churches experienced modest growth between 1940 and 1980, increasing from 2.6% to 6.6% of the population. Protestantism later experienced a boom in the 1990s, with the proportion of Protestants reaching 15.4% in 2000 (Potter et al. 2014, p. 126; Wood et al. 2007, p. 406). While individual priests were concerned about Protestantism in Brazil since the 1920s, the institutional Brazilian Catholic Church did not adopt an official anti-Protestant stance until the 1950s. In the 1950s, the Brazilian Catholic Church created the National Secretariat for the Defense of Faith and Morality to combat Protestantism and Spiritism as well as to watch over “the march of false religions, condemns movements, and false ideas” (Helgen 2020, p. 90; Mainwaring 1986, pp. 38–39). Similar to the Chilean case, the REM implies that the Catholic Church’s antiauthoritarian stance in the 1970s was a result of Protestant competition in the 1970s; however, the Church had officially recognized a Protestant threat twenty years earlier in the 1950s. Furthermore, the Brazilian Catholic Church began adopting progressive policies such as Catholic Action in the 1920s, thirty years before what is suggested by the REM (Romero 2014, pp. 23–24).

In both cases, the REM fails to specify the adequate level of pluralism necessary for religious institutions to adopt progressive policies as a form of competition. In Chile, the first Protestant boom and adoption of progressive policies occurred around the same time, but the size of the competitive threat was small and did not necessarily warrant a shift in policy by the Catholic Church. In Brazil, the Catholic Church officially recognized a Protestant threat in the 1950s; however, it did so thirty years after it began adopting progressive policies. In both cases, Protestantism held roughly the same proportion of the religious market; however, for some reason, the Brazilian Church explicitly viewed it as a threat, while the Chilean Church did not. In Argentina, the Catholic Church officially requested the assistance of the state in the face of Protestant competition, but the Argentine Church never adopted progressive policies as a form of competing.

These discrepancies highlight the need for religious economy approaches to more specifically define the degree of competition that should trigger changes in church strategy. The differences across cases also suggest that there were other factors influencing when a religious institution feels sufficiently threatened by competition to change policy direction.

6.2. The Pre-Existing Condition of the Catholic Church

Another critique of the REM is that it fails to account for the influence the social context had on the policy options available to the Catholic Church. Previous literature has noted that the model is unable to account for the cultural construction of rationality (Smilde 2007) and “the social embeddedness of religious choices” (Edgell 2005, 2012; Ellison 1995; Young 1997). In other words, the REM does not account for how the social climate within a given country or region may impact Catholic Church policies. Mantilla (2010) explains that the Catholic Church’s actions must be understood in terms of cultural frames where the pro-democratic and pro-social justice frames of Vatican II and the Medellin meetings were a “necessary condition for pro-democratic activism” because it inclined the Catholic hierarchy to oppose the dictatorship (Mantilla 2010, p. 557). Simply put, Mantilla argues that the Catholic Church’s behavior can partly be explained by accounting for the cultural context in which it was operating. The Vatican II doctrine’s pro-democratic and pro-social justice frames encouraged antiauthoritarianism while legitimizing the episcopacies’ actions, thereby increasing the likelihood of the Catholic Church opposing the regimes (Mantilla 2010, p. 558).

While Vatican II’s influence cannot be downplayed, it is also important to note that it did not significantly change the political leanings of each national episcopacy’s policies. Gill recognizes that “if all Latin American bishops were exposed to the progressive ideas of Vatican II, Medellin, and liberation theology, and if these ideas were of central importance in determining the Church’s new political strategy, then change should have occurred uniformly across the nation” which was not the case due to the differing social contexts (Gill 1998, p. 46). Despite noting the effect that differing social contexts have on the Catholic Church’s policies, Gill does not delve into the significance that each Church’s respective history had on its decision-making, thus leaving the national social context (other than Protestant competition) out of the model. In each case, we found that the episcopacy’s approach to their respective dictatorship reflected an extension of their pre-existing policies prior to Vatican II, prior to the dictatorship, and prior to Protestant competition.

In Chile, the Catholic Church has historically held a relatively weak position in society compared to the Catholic Churches of other Latin American countries since the colonial period (Pike 1968, p. 99). One reason was the limited opportunities for wealth and prestige; hence, the Chilean Church failed to attract as many churchmen as other countries. The Catholic Church’s position continued to decline during the independence movement as it split between Spanish loyalists and patriots (Pike 1968, p. 99). After independence, the Church struggled for its position as the National and Liberal Parties pushed anticlerical programs meant to “curtail the wealth and eliminate the temporal influence of the Catholic Church” (Pike 1968, p. 100). The Catholic Church gradually lost its special privileges until, finally, in 1925, the Chilean constitution established the separation of church and state, ending the close relationship between the church and state (Pike 1968, p. 100; Ruderer 2015, p. 472). The separation did not lead to the persecution of the Catholic Church as some feared; instead, it “improved the bargaining position of the Church, reducing the control of an anticlerical bureaucracy over it” (Pike 1968, p. 103). In other words, the Chilean Catholic Church had greater independence from the state as it no longer needed governmental approval from an increasingly unfavorable state. The separation of church and state in the 1920s allowed for the development of progressivism, such as the implementation of collective pastoral planning and the organization of national conferences 13 years prior to Vatican II in the 1950s. During Vatican II, the Chilean bishops’ experience with progressive policies allowed them to provide “input into conciliar document, particularly those concerned with social and economic development” and were instrumental in organizing CELAM II (Adriance 1992, pp. S52–S53). The Chilean episcopacy was also sensitive to the social concerns of the poor due to the shift left in the political system in the 1960s. Under the Frei and Allende administrations, the Catholic Church focused on issues concerning the poor and established base ecclesial communities, CEBs, as a “means of evangelization and as a vehicle for social action” (Adriance 1992, p. S57; Smith 1979, p. 92). By the time of the dictatorship, the Chilean Catholic Church had ample historical experience, cultural frames, and resilience to oppose the dictatorship well before Pinochet came to power. During the Pinochet regime, these experiences would culminate in the Church’s anti-authoritarianism and engagement in numerous activities such as the Comité Por la Paz Chilean (Committee for Chilean Peace (COPACHI)) and the Vicariate of Solidarity (Mantilla 2010, p. 562).

In Argentina, the Catholic Church had been intertwined with the military for much of its history, to the point that this relationship was known as the “sword and the cross”, together serving as the “guardians” of the Argentine Catholic identity. Since the 1930s, this relationship has “[legitimized] various military coups and governments throughout the century” (Ruderer 2022, p. 328). In return, the military protected the Catholic Church’s position in society. For example, during the first Peron regime, the Peronist military government suspended radio program broadcasts from Protestant denominations on behalf of the Catholic Church. The Peron government claimed that since the radio waves belonged to the state and Catholicism was the state religion, the radio could not be used to spread views contrary to the state religion, regardless of freedom of worship. Later, a communications director explained that the radio programs’ suspensions were “in response to the petitions and protests of the Roman Catholic archbishop” (D’Amico 1977, p. 493). Towards the end of the Peron government, there were tensions between the Catholic Church and the Peronists, which led to issues with the Partido Justicialista, the political party behind the Peron government. In addition, the Catholic Church also had troubles with the other political party, the Unión Cívica Radical, due to the party’s progressive position. Ultimately, the Catholic Church lacked institutional political allies, further reinforcing its relationship with the military (Mantilla 2010, pp. 565–66). In addition, the Church did not accept progressive doctrines like Vatican II and CELAM II. While the Argentine Church leaders signed decrees and constitutions, they did not participate in the deliberations (Deiner 1975, p. 74). Similarly, when a progressive moment known as the “Movement of Priests for the Third World” (MPTW) began arguing that the role of the Catholic Church should be to “awaken the conscience of the masses” and aid the poor in defense of “their rights to life and justice,” the Argentine Catholic hierarchy staunchly opposed it. By late August 1970, the Argentine episcopacy issued declarations condemning the MPTW for being incompatible with Catholic belief and practice, as it called for a brand of socialism that was contrary to the teachings of the Church and called for a social revolution (Deiner 1975, p. 81). By issuing the declaration of condemnation, the Argentine Catholic hierarchy demonstrated an intolerance for progressive ideas that called for the Church to take a more active role in social issues. This history of conservatism, especially by the hierarchy, and the existence of such strong church–military ties meant that the Argentine Catholic Church lacked both the motivation and the means to oppose the military, even in the presence of a recognized threat from Protestant competition.

Finally, in Brazil, like Chile, the Brazilian Catholic Church had a history of independence from the state and progressiveness from before Vatican II and CELAM II. The creation of the Brazilian Republic in 1889 marked the separation of church and state and the beginning of the Catholic Church’s independence from the political elites (Romero 2014, p. 23). While this allowed the Catholic Church independence in policy, it lost influence due to various factors, such as a shortage of priests (Cleary 1997, p. 256; Neuhouser 1989, p. 241). Dom Sebastião Leme da Silveira Cintra, the first Latin American cardinal, would begin to remedy this shortage in the 1920s. Dom Leme focused on “reorganizing the laical association” and “developing a Catholic intelligentsia” (Romero 2014, p. 23). The reorganization of the Brazilian Catholic Church led to the Church adopting progressive policies such as Catholic Action, which called lay people, young students, and workers to have a “more active role in the conservation and expansion of the Church” (Romero 2014, p. 24). By the 1950s, Catholic Action grew to the point that it resulted in “a generation of lay persons who would become a force for change in the church” and “[produced] a new breed of bishops. In the 1960s, those members of the episcopate who encouraged pastoral and social experimentation were most frequently former Catholic Action chaplains” (Adriance 1992, p. S55). This pattern of progressiveness demonstrates that before the dictatorship in the 1960s, the Brazilian Catholic Church was already implementing progressive policies that it would continue to implement during the dictatorship.

In each case, the Catholic Church’s response to the dictatorships (progressive antiauthoritarianism or conservatism) was reflective of the pre-existing position of the Catholic Church created by the cultural context in which it existed at the time. The Catholic Church of Chile and Brazil, which are widely recognized for progressive policies during the dictatorships, already had the long-standing practice of favoring the poor and being sensitive to social issues. At the same time, the Argentine Catholic Church had a history of conservative policies and strong relations with the state and military. Each Catholic Church’s response to the dictatorships aligned with a long-followed trend. According to the religious economy model, the Catholic Church’s antiauthoritarian response in Chile and Brazil were caused by the growth of Protestantism that was occurring at the same time as the dictatorships in the 1970s. However, as we have demonstrated, all three Catholic Churches’ responses to the dictatorships were continuations of policies that existed prior to the 1970s. The Catholic Church in Chile had begun implementing progressive tactics since the 1930s, the Brazilian Catholic Church began during the 1920s, and the Argentine Catholic Church continued its conservative practices from prior to the dictatorship. Since each national episcopacy followed a policy that existed well before the dictatorships, the notion that anti-authoritarianism was a strategy developed strictly due to Protestant competition in the 1970s appears questionable. Instead, as Mantilla (2010) has argued, the Catholic Church’s actions must be understood in terms of its specific national cultural frame (Mantilla 2010, p. 554).

6.3. Church Reforms to Address Internal Weaknesses

Our third critique of the REM is that the model does not account for the fact that the Catholic Church’s progressive shift may not have been an intentional response to Protestant competition but rather was an attempt to respond to an internal weakness, such as the priest shortage. The Catholic Church’s greater attention to the lay people began, in part, as a by-product of it addressing an internal failure by using the resources available to it rather than being an intentional adoption of progressive practices. As Gill acknowledges, during the 1910s and 1920s, the Chilean and Brazilian Catholic Churches recognized a priest shortage in the rural areas of the state (Gill 1998, p. 85; Neuhouser 1989, p. 241; Yeager 2007, p. 233). In 1916, Dom Leme sent a pastoral letter to the northeastern dioceses of Brazil, recognizing that they were suffering from a priest shortage. In the letter, Dom Leme was concerned about the “insufficient religious instruction and the scant influence religious faith exercised on public life” due to the inability to match the growing population with the small number of men entering the priesthood (Cleary 1997, p. 256). The Chilean episcopacy recognized a similar shortage in the 1920s when it found several towns “over a thousand square kilometers with 10,000 parishioners to be ministered by a single priest” (Yeager 2007, p. 207). Bishop Rafael Edwards Salas created the Asociación de la Juventud Catolica Feminina de Chile (AJCFFCh) in Chile in 1921, which was an organization of young women who helped organize community worship in a way that “resembled prototypes of Christian Base Communities” and existed in rural towns that lacked a parish (Yeager 2007, pp. 209, 231). In Brazil, Dom Leme’s solution was to begin organizations meant to revitalize Catholicism (Catholic Action), educate the poor, and implement church reforms (Cleary 1997, p. 257). In both cases, the Catholic Church recognized that there were internal deficiencies and sought to address them by relying on the lay people, because that was the primary resource available to them. By incorporating lay people into the Church structure through these programs, the Catholic Church also encouraged interaction between the lay people and the institution. These interactions would help lay the foundation of the Catholic Church’s increased social awareness and create the prototypes of progressive programs used leading up to and during the dictatorships. In each case, the recognition of the lack of priests and attempts to address it predate fears about Protestant competition, which began in the 1930s in Chile and the 1950s in Brazil (Gooren 2015, p. 198; Helgen 2020, p. 90). In other words, the Catholic Churches recognized internal issues preventing them from efficiently carrying out their duties. The national episcopies utilized the lay people because they were an easily accessible resource that could be repurposed. This had the potentially unintentional consequence of bringing the Catholic Churches into closer contact with the issues of the lay people and ultimately influenced Church policy prior to major upswings in competition from Protestantism. Again, the timeline is contrary to the REM, which posits that the Catholic Church’s shift towards progressivism and adoption of progressive programs was intentionally for the primary purpose of counteracting Protestant competition.

6.4. Variations in Demand

A fourth weakness of the REM, as applied by Gill, is the assumption that religious demand is inelastic. By closing the demand side of the equation, REM provides little explanation for why progressive policies were becoming popular with large numbers of Catholics in Latin America in the first place. In her critique of the REM, Evelyn Bush (2010) explains that the inelastic demand assumption is contradictory because supply-side explanations assume that varying demand preferences lead to market segments (Bush 2010, p. 306). Chesnut (2007) expands the critique by explaining that while religious producers “can create demand for their new products through marketing”, it is “consumer taste and preferences [that] often determine the development of new goods and services” (Chesnut 2007, p. 76). Religious consumers dictate what goods and services will be successful in the religious market. As previously mentioned, Vatican II occurred because the Catholic Church recognized a shift in religious demand that the Church needed to address to survive the modern era (Gill 1998, p. 37). This shift towards policies addressing the religious and material needs of the poor was prevalent throughout this period, from movements such as charismatic renewal,1 liberation theology” and progressive policies like Catholic Action (Stoll 1990, p. 27). The REM’s reliance on supply-side explanations fails to explain why progressive policies were deemed a successful competitive tactic in the first place, particularly given that they did not appear to improve Catholic market share in any of the cases. In the 1980s, 6.6% of Brazilians were Protestant, and by the 1990s, 1.3 M Chileans were Protestant, while Protestantism was beginning to “make inroads” in Argentina (Gill 2004, p. 47; Gooren 2015, p. 198; Wood et al. 2007, p. 406). Regardless, by treating the demand side as inelastic, the REM ignores religious demand variations that directly impact the Catholic Church’s decisions, providing an incomplete explanation of its actions.

Recent scholarship in the REM school has started to more systematically address the role of religious demand. Trejo (2009) explains that the creation of a religious market empowers parishioners as there is now an exit option from their original religion. Religious membership is no longer a guarantee, and parishioners can now demand a new religious contract—a new interpretation of the scriptures to satisfy the needs of the people. Trejo argues that the Catholic Church’s primary competitive strategy (at least in the case of Mexico, where he conducted his research) would focus largely on material rewards to maintain parishioners, as the Catholic Church cannot easily match the Protestant provision of ecclesiastic rewards (Trejo 2009, pp. 326–27). In short, the demand for a religious product that intersects with indigenous identity, local leaders, and material benefits is high. Religious producers such as Protestant missionaries and the Catholic Church will both innovate to meet this demand in such contexts, which can also lead to mobilization around ethnic identity (Trejo 2009). Trejo’s approach of reopening the demand side of the equation in REM opens the door to revised and more accurate predictions from the REM approach that not only address sub-state level variations in Catholic Church actions but also better explain the rapid growth of the charismatic renewal in Latin America.

6.5. Internal Church Divisions

The fifth problem with the REM explanation is that it takes a unitary actor approach when the Church faced internal divisions over its perception of a Marxist threat, which influenced its position on the dictatorship (Mackin 2003, p. 502). While Gill acknowledges the divisions within the national episcopies, he does not systematically incorporate such divisions into his REM model, instead preferring to focus on the Catholic Church’s institutional position (Gill 1998, pp. 5–6). By focusing on the Catholic Church as a unitary actor, the REM misses how the perception of a Marxist threat interfered with the particular balance of power within each national episcopy, allowing one party to majorly influence the national Church’s overall response.

In all three cases, the Cold War and concerns about Marxism influenced both the military and the Catholic Church. While the three militaries believed in their duty to eliminate Communism regardless of the violence, the Catholic Church was divided in its approaches to a Marxist threat. The militaries of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil were heavily influenced by the Cold War and believed their duty was to protect their nation from subversives. In Chile, the Pinochet regime thought that it was imperative that the military launch a “holy war” on the subversives (which included any Catholics close to liberation theology) to maintain the “purity of faith” (Aman 1986–1987, p. 460; Catoggio and Breña 2011, p. 28; Ruderer 2020, p. 7). Similarly, in Argentina, the PRN believed there were “subversive Communists” hidden in Argentinean society” (Soprano 2023, p. 4). The PRN believed that Argentina was facing a large-scale communist invasion, necessitating the indiscriminate neutralization of any person or institution attempting to overthrow its Catholic national identity (Morello 2015, p. 59; Ruderer 2015, p. 468; Scharpf 2018, p. 212). Similar sentiments were shared by the Brazilian military, which was influenced by both the Cold War and the United States’ National Security Doctrine2 (Napolitano 2018, p. 8; Romero 2014, p. 43). The Brazilian military believed that Communism would be spread by “brainwashing the people, particularly the youth,” and that they could be found within universities, factories, and families (Romero 2014, p. 43). In all three cases, the military strongly believed it was only by indiscriminately neutralizing “subversives” that they could protect their nation. In addition to having motive, all three militaries had the experience and resources to carry out their repressive tactics (McSherry 1999, pp. 144–50; Romero 2014, pp. 43–44). In the end, all three military states believed in the need to eliminate Communism while having the experience and resources to do so.

The national episcopies, on the other hand, were not universally convinced of a Communist threat like the state was. In Chile, a minority of the Catholic Church did support the regime, such as the military clergy, who were military chaplains responsible for providing pastoral care to soldiers, and a minority of the bishops, such as Archbishop Emilio Tagle and Bishop Augusto Salinas of Linares, who provided the military with moral legitimacy. They praised the military for liberating the state from a Marxist government and even justified the civilian deaths as necessary “sacrifices” (Allen 2009, p. 78–80; Ruderer 2015, p. 483; Ruderer 2015, p. 481). The state media provided this sector with wide coverage while limiting coverage of the more critical voices within the Church, which was the more influential party within the Catholic Church (Allen 2009, p. 78). One of the most influential critics within this party was Cardinal Raul Silva Henríquez of the Santiago archdiocese. Under Silva Henríquez, the Catholic Church created the Vicaría de la Solidaridad and COPACHI, helping the relatives of the disappeared and sharing the human rights abuses with the press and international organizations (Aguilar 2003, p. 724). The programs were so successful that they received international recognition and honor from the United Nations (Aguilar 2003, p. 727). Due to the strength of the Santiago archdiocese and Cardinal Silva Henríquez compared to the small and isolated military clergy, the Chilean Catholic Church ultimately adopted an antiauthoritarian stance overall.

In contrast, the majority of the Argentinean Catholic Church shared the regime’s belief in a communist invasion. It served as a religious–political justification for the repressive regime, and those who did not share this belief largely kept quiet out of fear or complicity (Andersen 1993, p. 185). The Argentine Catholic Church went so far as to discipline its clergy members through arrests, ecclesiastical sanctions, institutional decommissioning, or suspension of ministerial licenses (Catoggio 2013, pp. 143–45). The Argentinean Church also ignored the deaths, disappearances, and imprisonment of clergy and lay people accused of being “subversives” (Andersen 1993, p. 185). Through these methods, the military and the Catholic Church were able to silence any dissenting clergy members, making it so there was not much possibility for progressive policies.

Finally, in Brazil, the Catholic Church was divided into conservative and progressive wings (Napolitano 2018, p. 10). The conservatives created institutions such as the Tradição, Família e Propriedade (TFP), which was financially supported by the elites of São Paulo and the political circles of the ESG (Romero 2014, p. 46). The TFP propagandized on behalf of the regime, making campaigns that claimed that Western Christian civilization was in danger of communism, inciting a red scare and rallying support for the regime (Romero 2014, p. 46). On the other hand, the progressives were concerned about Marxism but prioritized social reform, social programs, and anti-authoritarianism. As Adriance explains, “Brazilian bishops sought to defend the church against Marxism and against the proselytizing of evangelical Protestants by concentrating their main efforts in Catholic Action, rural organizing, and evangelization efforts in both urban and rural areas” (Adriance S55). Tension arose between the two sides when the progressive programs like Catholic Action placed the church in contact with students and other groups labeled “dangerous by conservatives” (Romero 2014, pp. 32, 40, 51). In other words, while both groups were concerned about Marxism, the progressive and conservative wings did not agree on the best method to combat Marxism, resulting in division in the Catholic Church. Despite the division, a slight majority of progressives allowed for the progressive policy of anti-authoritarianism to prevail in Brazilian Catholic Church policy (Napolitano 2018, p. 10).

In all three case studies, the Catholic Church was divided in its perception of a Marxist threat; however, the overall perception of its policy depended on which wing of the Catholic Church had the more significant influence and which allies were available. As Mantilla explains, “the political opportunity represented by democratization depended on the type of political parties operating in the political arena” (Mantilla 2010, p. 557). When churches face weak political allies and strong opponents, they are more likely to accept authoritarian rule; however, they tend toward antiauthoritarian tendencies when they have stronger allies (Mantilla 2010, p. 557). In the cases of Chile and Brazil, the progressive sectors had a majority influence and could oppose the regime. In Argentina, the conservatives had the majority and military support and could silence any clergy that opposed such a position.

6.6. State Acceptance of Socialism

A final critique of the REM arising from our case studies is that it primarily assumes that the Catholic Church will only distance itself from the state when the state refuses or fails to eliminate a potential Marxist threat (Gill 1998, pp. 73–78). However, this is not always true, as there are instances when the state embraces Socialist principles and the national Catholic Church maintains relations with them. For example, Chile began to embrace socialist policies with the election of President Allende. While elements of the Chilean Church expressed concerns about President Allende and distanced themselves, they also sought “peaceful coexistence” with the Allende government (Gill 1998, p. 140). For example, Cardinal Raul Silva Henríquez of the Santiago Archdiocese attended several public events with President Allende, including a Chilean national holiday where workers and left-wing political parties held a public rally. In addition, before the coup, “the Cardinal had tried to bring together President Allende and opposition leaders at his house” to try to “persuade them to find a political solution to all division and hatred within a national political climate of increasing verbal violence and abuse” (Aguilar 2003, p. 718). Silva Henríquez’s actions are significant because he was the Cardinal who led the progressive policies of the Chilean Catholic Church with his antiauthoritarian stance and the creation of the Vicaria de la Solidaridad (Aguilar 2003, p. 726). While the Cardinal cooperated with Allende, it was not without criticisms from those who called him the “Red Cardinal” for his sympathies with socialism (Aguilar 2003, p. 718). The example demonstrates that it is not always the case that religious institutions distance themselves from the state because of Marxist influences. While the center of gravity within the global Catholic Church historically remained opposed to socialism, as evidenced by the critiques of liberation theology by Pope John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger, the Chilean case demonstrates that the realities of the national level religious landscape are more complex than described by the REM.

7. Conclusions

When applied to cases that should have validated the religious economy model’s predictive accuracy (Chile, Argentina, and Brazil), our analysis supports and extends theoretical critiques of the REM. In particular, a careful overview of the cases suggests that the way REM has been applied in some cases suffers from a lack of specificity on amount of competition necessary to warrant taking progressive action, a lack of specificity about the timing of Protestant competition, a failure to account for the influence of the national Catholic Church’s previous ideological and practical positions, an assumption that the Catholic Church always intentionally implemented progressive policies in response to competition, downplaying variations in religious demand, a treatment of the Catholic Church as a unitary actor, and an assumption that the state and church will always ally together against Marxist influences.

While we focused on Latin American authoritarian regimes and the Catholic Church, further studies should focus on other government types, regions, and religious institutions. As Taylor Boas explains, many of the theoretical claims of the religious economy model are “less applicable to religious newcomers like Evangelicals in Latin America,” therefore the core assumption that churches are sensitive to competitive threats and will collude with the state work “much better for dominant religions” like the Catholic Church due its long history with the state “than it does for upstarts” (Boas 2023, p. 18). In the same vein, religious institutions may behave differently under a democracy than in an authoritarian regime, as a dictatorship can influence the religious market in a way that a democracy cannot, thereby affecting the options available to religious institutions (Mantilla 2010, p. 554).

In the context of the Latin American religious landscape, the static unitary actor and inelastic demand assumptions of the religious economy model should also be relaxed. As Gooren (2007) explains, many individuals spend their lifetimes moving in and out of religious affiliations and mixing beliefs and practices from several ideologies into their daily lives (Gooren 2007, p. 54). Similarly, Smilde (2007) describes an “imaginative rationality” which is how individuals approach “lived experiences with innovative responses that imagine a desired future and orient action”, resulting in a conversion narrative that evolves over time in addition to engaging with the larger Latin American narrative (Edgell 2012, p. 254). The fluidity of religious affiliations in the Latin American context complicates the model’s strict approach to membership, as any individual may identify as Catholic, for example, while incorporating components of other religions and beliefs in a relatively short period of time. The REM’s strict unitary rational actor approach restricts the model’s capacity to interpret the actions of providers or consumers of religion in such a context of blurred religious boundaries.

Moreover, as Morello explains, the fluidity of the Latin American religious market and incorporation into daily life via perspectives of lived religion departs significantly from predictions of the religious economy model and secularization theory (Morello 2019, pp. 4–6; Morello et al. 2017, p. 316; Steigenga and Cleary 2007, pp. 13–14; Wilcox et al. 2008, p. 874). Morello posits that Latin America’s religious landscape exists as an “enchanted modernity” requiring that we “[acknowledge] Latin America’s history, the influence of global trends of modernization, and interest in the Latin Americans’ daily life.” (Morello et al. 2017, p. 318). These are precisely the types of factors we have identified in our case studies as impacting church behavior. In Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, the Catholic Church’s actions were influenced as much by its history in the region and its previous relationship with each state and by the global context of the Cold War and anti-communism as they were by religious competition from Protestantism. Furthermore, each case was characterized by divisions rather than unity over approaches to the communist threat to Catholic Church prerogatives.

A revised REM approach should more carefully take these historical, timeline, cultural, and boundary factors into account for developing hypotheses on church and state behavior. As demonstrated by Trejo (2009, p. 326), the Catholic Church has multiple options for addressing competition and for meeting different types of religious demands. The choice to adopt strategies that mobilize poor or indigenous communities around their identities through religious institutions, practices, and beliefs is simply one option among many potential responses (state policies of religious restriction, coercion, material rewards, etc.). Greater specificity regarding the level of Protestant competition, when it occurs relative to responses, and what types of religious products are in demand in the first place, will strengthen the predictions of the REM for future studies.

In Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, the Catholic Church’s policies (progressive and conservative) impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. As Morello points out, secularization theory continues to be disproved as “religion is still important and relevant for the majority of the world’s population, and it seems likely to remain so for the near future” (Morello 2019, p. 9). While supply-side approaches still have a role in our toolkit for understanding church–state relations, a careful reevaluation of key case studies, such as those in this analysis, will point us to additional explanatory factors that predate religious competition and contribute additional layers of understanding of church behavior.