The local and national believe systems perspectives of my country

Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion and the constitution recognizes it as the official religion of Bolivia.Statistics in 2001 showed that the Catholic religion had a vast majority with a 77.99% of Bolivia's population but a much smaller portion of the population participates actively.

The religions that coexist besides Roman Catholicism are Evangelical Methodists, Mennonites, Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Seventh day Adventists, Jewish, Buddhists, Hinduists, Baha’i, Hare Krishna, and others. There are also evangelical groups, a Muslim community with a mosque in Santa Cruz and a Jewish community with a synagogue in La Paz.Also there is is a Mormon temple in Cochabamba , small Buddhist and Shinto communities. There is a variaty of religions in Bolivia apart from the official one.

Bolivia have many Saints that are the protectors of the villages and cities and the Virgin Mary of Urkupina is the protector of Bolivia. There are sanctuaries of the Virgin like the Virgin Guadalupe in Sucre and Mamita of Cotoca. Evangelic religion is against these rituals or sanctuaries but there are slowly more members of this believe each year. But even if people have differents belief they are very tolerant with others beliefs or religions.Here, in Santa Cruz as my point of view this is a deeply religious community.People does not practice their faith or devote.There are also people who follows the rules of the Catholic Church like baptizing their children, first communion, confirmation and marry in a churth even if they have not a stronger belief in God. These fakes actions are because claiming in public that one is atheist might be strange or weird as the catholic religion is the official one.

The church often mediates conflicts between the government and the population. The Church in my community helps people who live in the street, poor people, in orphans and old people.Many schools are owned by the church and that’s why the religion is an obliged subject in this type of schools.The opinion of the Catholic Church is very strong in many ways, for example the laws and general behavior. It isalso dominating peoples beliefs by the church's point of view like abortion and homosexuality.These are a very extense theme, in my community people hide when doing this since both subjects are considered a crime.