Bolivia’s Catholic bishops, despite government opposition, advocate that the question of faith be included in the national census to ensure that the size of the devout formation of the rest of the people is not ignored.
“As the Catholic Church, we ask once again that the consultation of the faith professed by each and every one of the users be included,” reads the Episcopal Conference of Bolivia.
The Catholic bishops’ convention calls for “an inclusive census” scheduled for November 2022.
The bishops said that an assembly was held with the technical staff of the National Institute of Statistics, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also with the presence of evangelical churches, to evaluate whether it comes with the consultation on the faith that other people profess.
“We were surprised because we were informed that the resolution had already been made not to come with this in the census and we had the opportunity to do a survey,” they said.
The reasons for the decision, according to state authorities, were that the duration of the census would be accumulated more as well as the physical extent of the naire.
Likewise, that the theme of faith does not apply because it would not help in any way to the implementation of public policies to know the faith that is practiced.
“We that these arguments are not convincing and rather seem pretexts to exclude the knowledge of the devout faith, a facet that has a meaning not only personal but also public,” the bishops said.
They said that the census would be disadvantaged from a basic element, since its objective is to be an objective reflection of the Bolivian truth at the demographic, economic, social, cultural and cultural levels.
“To forget these data is to violate the right to public practice and organization guaranteed by article four of the Political Constitution of the Plurinational State,” the bishops said in their statement.
The integral human dimension and formation also includes the non-secular facet of other people, children, adolescents and young people who have the right to be formed in the faith or lay entrustment to which they belong, they said.
According to the United Nations World Population Outlook 2019, Bolivia is projected at 11. 83 million, 1. 37% more than the 11. 67 million in 2020.
An estimated 70 percent of the population is Catholic, but Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and members of Pentecostal denominations are expanding in the club among the poor.
The Bolivian Constitution establishes freedom of faith and separation between Church and State and prohibits discrimination.
However, Christian teams have alleged that the government shows a preference for indigenous equipment and practices.
In addition, hostility has been reported in rural areas of the country from indigenous communities opposing Christian missionaries, according to the International Religious Freedom Report, U. S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Religious organizations are obliged to register with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the exception of the Catholic Church, whose registration is suppressed by an agreement between Bolivia and the Holy See.
Some smaller churches in the evangelical Christian network have refused to register with the government, raising considerations about their privacy.