Pope heads to Brazil on rescue mission

But many Brazilians still follow the liberation theology movement Benedict moved to crush when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and they remember well that he labeled their work a Marxist heresy.

While the church's hierarchy in Rome has pressured Catholic priests around the world to stay out of politics, these Brazilians have remained defiant: more than 60,000 ecclesiastic base communities have been instrumental in educating poor people, union organizers and most of the leaders of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement, Brazil's most radical squatter group.

In the lawless Amazon rainforest, Catholic priests, nuns and lay people work tirelessly to organize poor settlers to stand up for their rights. The most prominent was Dorothy Stang, an American nun killed in 2005 while trying to settle poor farmers on an area ranchers wanted for development.

Brazil's bishops have tried recently to promote a middle ground _ lobbying the government for better working conditions for sugarcane cutters and to eliminate the virtual slavery of workers in the Amazon. But many Brazilian Catholics remain bitter over the Vatican's treatment of the movement's leaders.

Activism vs. community
The conservative Protestant churches don't engage in social activism, but religious experts say they do better than the traditional Catholic church at meeting the basic needs of poor Brazilians.

The Protestant congregations "tend to generate a very strong sense of community with a much higher percentage of Pentecostals who participate in small activities like Bible study, outreach, providing financial help, finding jobs," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

At a Sunday service in the massive God and Love Pentecostal Church that looms over several elevated Sao Paulo highways, thousands of blue-collar workers and their children waved their hands, shouting "Hallelujah!" and spontaneously speaking in tongues as pastors promised Jesus would solve their earthly problems and guarantee them passage to heaven.

Hundreds stuffed money into small envelopes, checking boxes requesting prayers to give them jobs, prosperity or health.

Less than a mile away, several hundred mostly middle-aged and elderly Catholics sat in the Our Lady of Consolation church amid ornate stained glass windows and pews hewn decades ago from Brazilian hardwood.

They dutifully rose to recite the rosary and sing hymns, then sat in silence as a priest urged them to seek salvation by being obedient sheep in God's flock.

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