Puerto Rico mixes politics and religion

I tend to think of Puerto Rico as predominantly Catholic territory. But like many parts of Central and South America, evangelicals have made huge strides in converting the Catholics to "true" Christianity. Their influence in Puerto Rican politics is apparently huge, as demonstrated by the surprising part they played in assisting the government in the resolution of a budget crisis. Mayra Montero is a Puerto Rican author. After getting no help from the United States or the Territories' labor unions, the religious groups got involved. In the New York Times, she comments:

Instead, religious groups stepped in. At their urging, a commission was created last week to develop a plan to resolve the deficit, and the governor and leaders of both legislative houses agreed to abide by its recommendations.

Serious debates over taxes, public spending and government bonds were held amid prayers and hymns. Although San Juan's Roman Catholic archbishop took part in the negotiations, the messianic tone of evangelical and Pentecostalist churches predominated. Each session began and ended with a "prayer circle." The speaker of the House told reporters that he was consulting with God about the budget. San Juan's mayor led a mystic march accompanied by a woman with a title like "director of spiritual affairs."

At the Capitol, legislators surrounded a singer of religious music, a "holy man" with miracle-working pretensions who walked around laying on hands. The governor himself joined his opponents to murmur praises, and he was "anointed" by the leaders of evangelical churches who wandered through the Capitol and the executive mansion, La Fortaleza, advising, instructing and eating snacks. If anyone complained about their presence, they threatened to put "100,000 Christians" inside the Capitol to apply pressure.

It worked: on Monday, public employees returned to work after a resolution was reached, though not without a mini-crisis last weekend that was once again resolved thanks to mediation by religious leaders, who declared their work a "great victory of Jehovah, king of kings." The crisis, however, has left behind a bad taste that this country will not forget for a long time.

Although Puerto Rico has always been thought of as Catholic, evangelical churches have flourished recently to the point that there seems to be one on every corner. The evangelical pastors enjoy tax-free church-provided mansions and expensive cars and have received unimaginable privileges from successive administrations. In this crisis, they took advantage of the ineffectiveness of other forces in society and made off with the prize.

This is not to say that evangelicals, Catholics and other religious groups shouldn't help out when there's a crisis — though it is a shame that the governor and the Legislature needed an intercessor to come to an agreement.

But at what price? There is little doubt that one day these religious groups will send an invoice: when Puerto Rico has to decide on matters like gay rights and abortion, they will surely seek restrictions. And then we will find ourselves asking if divine intervention was really worth the cost.

This is most definitely not the direction we want to go.