Brazil contains approximately 123 million Catholics as of the 2010 census, making it the country with the largest absolute Catholic population globally. The proportion dropped from 73.6 percent in 2000 to 64.6 percent in 2010. Evangelical Protestants numbered 42.3 million in 2010, rising from 15.4 percent to 22.2 percent of the population in the same decade. The 2022 census showed Catholics at 50.5 percent and evangelicals at 31.0 percent, marking the first time Catholics dropped below a majority. These shifts represent the fastest large-scale religious demographic change in Latin America during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
The Santuário Nacional de Aparecida in Aparecida, São Paulo state, receives approximately twelve million pilgrims annually, making it the second most visited Catholic shrine in the world after the Vatican. The basilica covers 18,000 square meters and holds 45,000 worshippers. The feast day of Nossa Senhora Aparecida on October 12 is a national holiday established in 1980. On this date in 2017, an estimated 238,000 pilgrims visited the sanctuary. The devotion centers on a terracotta statue recovered from the Paraíba River in 1717 by fishermen Domingos Garcia, João Alves, and Filipe Pedroso. Pope John Paul II visited the shrine in 1980 and elevated it to basilica status, while Pope Francis visited in 2013.
Candomblé practitioners in Salvador maintain approximately 2,230 registered terreiros, which are houses of worship led by mães de santo or pais de santo. The religion arrived with enslaved Yoruba, Fon, and Bantu peoples between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Each terreiro dedicates itself to specific orixás, deities corresponding to natural forces and human qualities. The Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká, founded around 1830 in Salvador, claims status as the oldest continuously operating terreiro in Brazil. Federal law 11.635, passed in 2007, established January 21 as National Day of Candomblé and Umbanda. The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística recorded 167,363 Candomblé adherents in 2010, though researchers estimate practitioners number between two and three million when counting those who identify as Catholic but attend Candomblé ceremonies.
The Igreja do Nosso Senhor do Bonfim in Salvador attracts participants for the Lavagem do Bonfim each January, when Candomblé practitioners wash the church steps with scented water while wearing traditional white clothing. This event, occurring on the second Thursday after Epiphany, draws approximately 800,000 people according to Salvador municipal estimates. The Catholic Church officially stopped participating in the lavagem in 1889 due to syncretic practices blending Catholic saints with African orixás. Senhor do Bonfim corresponds to Oxalá in Candomblé cosmology. Visitors tie colored ribbons called fitinhas around their wrists, making three knots while stating three wishes. The practice originated in the 1960s and now involves an estimated forty million ribbons sold annually near the church.
Evangelical megachurches concentrate in São Paulo, where the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God operates the Templo de Salomão, a replica of Solomon's Temple inaugurated in 2014. The structure cost approximately 685 million reais and seats 10,000 worshippers across 74,000 square meters. The church uses twelve stones imported from Israel weighing 1,100 tons total. Bishop Edir Macedo founded the Universal Church in 1977 in Rio de Janeiro. The denomination operates in eighty countries and owns Record TV, Brazil's second-largest television network acquired in 1989. Sunday services at major Universal Church temples routinely draw 15,000 to 20,000 attendees across multiple sessions. The church teaches prosperity theology, asserting that faithful tithing produces financial blessings.
The Assemblies of God constitute Brazil's largest evangelical denomination with 12.3 million members recorded in 2010. Swedish missionaries Gunnar Vingren and Daniel Berg founded the first congregation in Belém in 1911. The denomination operates in decentralized fashion with no single national authority. The Convenção Nacional das Assembleias de Deus no Brasil, founded in 1930, represents one major organizational branch. Ministério Madureira, established in 1958 in Rio de Janeiro, forms another significant grouping. Wednesday and Sunday services typically last ninety minutes to two hours. Members practice glossolalia, divine healing through prayer, and strict behavioral codes prohibiting alcohol, tobacco, and revealing clothing.
Spiritism, based on Allan Kardec's writings, claims 3.8 million adherents according to the 2010 census, with highest concentrations in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais. The Federação Espírita Brasileira, founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1884, coordinates approximately 10,000 spiritist centers nationally. Spiritist centers offer free medical consultations, psychological counseling, and charitable assistance alongside religious instruction. The practice incorporates belief in reincarnation, communication with spirits, and healing through spiritual energy called passe. Chico Xavier, who died in 2002, claimed to psychograph 490 books dictated by spirits, selling an estimated fifty million copies. Major spiritist centers in São Paulo like the Hospital Espírita de Marília, founded in 1955, combine conventional medicine with spiritual treatments, serving approximately 30,000 patients annually.
Brazilian Indigenous religions continue among groups including the Yanomami, Kayapó, and Guarani peoples. The 2010 census recorded 896,917 people identifying as Indigenous, with 63.8 percent professing Christianity and 26.5 percent maintaining traditional beliefs. The Guarani, numbering approximately 85,000 across Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, follow the leadership of spiritual guides called pajés or karaís. The nhe'e concept describes a divine soul portion that requires proper ritual maintenance through prayer, dance, and dietary restrictions. The opy, a communal prayer house, serves as the central religious structure where communities gather for nightlong ceremonies involving tobacco smoke, maize chicha, and collective chanting. The Brazilian government's Fundação Nacional do Índio recognizes Indigenous religious practices as protected cultural heritage under the 1988 Constitution's Article 231.
Judaism in Brazil numbers approximately 107,329 adherents according to 2010 census data, concentrated in São Paulo with an estimated 60,000 Jews. The Israelita Paulista congregation, founded in 1936, maintains the largest synagogue in Latin America with capacity for 1,042 worshippers. Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe arrived primarily between 1920 and 1942, while Sephardic communities trace presence to the Dutch occupation of Recife from 1630 to 1654. The first synagogue in the Americas, Kahal Zur Israel, operated in Recife from 1636 to 1654 before the Portuguese expelled the Dutch and banned Judaism. The site reopened as a museum in 2001. Ultra-Orthodox communities in São Paulo neighborhoods like Bom Retiro maintain separate schools, kosher markets, and mikvaot. The Associação Religiosa Israelita operates fifteen synagogues across São Paulo state serving Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform denominations.
Islam in Brazil counts between 35,000 and 1.5 million adherents depending on methodology, with the 2010 census recording 35,167 Muslims. The earliest Muslim presence involved enslaved West Africans who organized the Malê Revolt in Salvador in 1835, when approximately 600 Muslims attacked government installations before suppression killed seventy participants. Lebanese and Syrian immigration between 1870 and 1940 established the current Muslim community structure. The Mesquita Brasil in São Paulo, inaugurated in 1960, was the first purpose-built mosque in Brazil. The Mesquita do Brás, completed in 1960, accommodates 300 worshippers. The Centro Cultural Beneficente Islâmico de Foz do Iguaçu, built in 1983 near the triple border with Argentina and Paraguay, serves a community of approximately 10,000 Muslims. Friday prayers typically draw between fifty and two hundred attendees at major urban mosques.
Buddhism claims 243,966 adherents in the 2010 census, primarily among Japanese immigrant descendants concentrated in São Paulo. Japanese immigration began in 1908 with 781 passengers aboard the Kasato Maru arriving in Santos. Soka Gakkai International maintains the largest Buddhist presence with approximately 150,000 practitioners, operating 85 community centers nationwide. The organization built the Templo Zu Lai in Cotia, São Paulo in 2003, covering 10,000 square meters as the largest Buddhist temple in Latin America. Zen Buddhist centers number approximately thirty-five, including the Mosteiro Zen Morro da Vargem founded in Espírito Santo in 1974 by Portuguese monk Narita Seisho. Tibetan Buddhism arrived through Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, who established Khadro Ling temple in Três Coroas, Rio Grande do Sul in 1996, featuring a thirty-five meter stupa inaugurated in 2000.
Religious syncretism operates openly in daily practice. A 2007 survey by the Centro de Estatística Religiosa e Investigações Sociais found that 59 percent of Catholics in Salvador also participated in Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies. The identification of Catholic saints with Candomblé orixás follows established patterns: Nossa Senhora Aparecida corresponds to Oxum, São Jerônimo to Xangô, and São Jorge to Ogum. The Festa de Iemanjá on February 2 draws approximately 600,000 participants to Rio de Janeiro beaches according to municipal tourism department counts, where they offer flowers, perfume, and mirrors to the ocean deity syncretized with Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes. Umbanda, formalized in Rio de Janeiro in 1908 by Zélio Fernandino de Moraes, explicitly combines Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, and African traditions. The 2010 census recorded 407,331 Umbanda practitioners operating approximately 40,000 terreiros nationally.
The Festa de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré in Belém attracts approximately two million participants annually during the second Sunday of October, making it Brazil's largest Catholic procession. The celebration centers on a 28-centimeter statue found near Igarapé Murucutu around 1700 by caboclo Plácido José de Souza. The rope used in the procession, called the berlinda rope, extends 400 meters and engages approximately 2,000 people pulling the carriage. The festival runs fifteen days with 185 hours of programmed events. The Círio de Nazaré generates approximately 1.2 billion reais in economic activity for Belém according to 2019 Pará state government estimates. UNESCO inscribed the celebration on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013.
Pilgrimage routes replicate European models with adaptations. The Caminho da Fé extends 453 kilometers from Águas da Prata in São Paulo to the Santuário Nacional de Aparecida, established in 2003 following the Camino de Santiago format. Approximately 8,000 pilgrims complete the route annually according to the Associação dos Amigos do Caminho da Fé. The Caminho de Anchieta runs 150 kilometers from São Paulo to the beach town of Anchieta in Espírito Santo, following the colonial path used by Jesuit José de Anchieta in the sixteenth century. Municipal albergues provide accommodation for five to fifteen reais per night. Pilgrims collect stamps in credential passports at churches and rest stops. The Caminho da Luz in Rio Grande do Sul covers 240 kilometers connecting fourteen Jesuit mission ruins from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Television programming integrates religious content across networks. Record TV broadcasts approximately forty hours weekly of religious programming produced by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. The daily program "The Love School" addresses marriage counseling from evangelical perspective, reaching approximately 1.8 million viewers according to 2020 IBOPE ratings. TV Aparecida, owned by the Archdiocese of Aparecida, operates as Brazil's third-largest religious broadcaster with signal covering approximately seventy million people. The network's 2005 launch followed a 50 million real investment. Rede Vida, a Catholic network founded in 1995, reaches approximately forty million viewers. Evangelical broadcaster Rede Gospel, established in 2013, operates in forty cities. The morning slot from 5:00 to 7:00 on weekdays concentrates religious programming across multiple networks, targeting viewers before work hours.
Work schedules accommodate religious observation inconsistently. The 1988 Constitution guarantees freedom of worship and prohibits discrimination based on religion under Article 5. No federal law requires employers to provide prayer time during work hours. Individual employers negotiate arrangements. Evangelical employees commonly request Wednesday evening schedule modifications to attend midweek services, typically 19:30 to 21:30. The Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho, Brazil's labor code updated in 2017, does not specify religious accommodation requirements beyond the general anti-discrimination framework. Seventh-day Adventist workers, numbering approximately 1.6 million according to church statistics, negotiate Saturday work exemptions on individual basis. The Superior Tribunal de Justiça ruled in 2019 that employers must accommodate religious observance when possible, citing Constitutional Article 5, but did not mandate specific adjustments.
Public schools allow religious education as an optional subject under the 1996 Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional, Article 33, revised in 1997 to prohibit proselytizing. Implementation varies by state. Rio de Janeiro state law 3,459, enacted in 2000, permits confessional religious education taught by representatives of specific faiths. The Supreme Court upheld this model in 2017 by six votes to five, ruling that confessional teaching does not violate constitutional secularism. São Paulo maintains non-confessional religious education covering multiple traditions comparatively. Approximately 63 percent of municipalities offered religious education classes as of 2015 according to Ministry of Education data. Teachers require specific certification defined by state education departments. The standard allocation provides one fifty-minute class weekly. Students may opt out with parental authorization.
Afro-Brazilian religions face persistent discrimination despite legal protections. The federal law 11.635 of 2007 recognizes Candomblé and Umbanda as legitimate religions deserving equal treatment. Police raids on terreiros in Rio de Janeiro state numbered 137 between 2017 and 2019 according to documentation by the Comissão de Combate à Intolerância Religiosa, a non-governmental organization founded in 2008. Officers frequently classify ceremonies as disturbances or animal sacrifice violations. Municipal law 4.733 in São Paulo, passed in 2014, prohibits noise complaints against religious establishments unless sound exceeds 55 decibels in residential zones. Evangelical expansion correlates with reports of vandalism against terreiros and practitioners. The Disque 100 human rights hotline recorded 697 cases of religious intolerance in 2019, with 35 percent targeting Afro-Brazilian religions despite comprising approximately 0.3 percent of census respondents.
Dietary practices reflect religious identity with varying strictness. Evangelical denominations generally prohibit alcohol, with Assemblies of God enforcing total abstinence as membership requirement. The prohibition extends to cooking wine and rum-soaked desserts. Seventh-day Adventists follow kosher-similar restrictions avoiding pork and shellfish, with approximately 40 percent adopting complete vegetarianism according to church surveys. The denominational health food company Superbom, founded in 1943, produces meat substitutes and whole grain products sold in specialty stores and major supermarkets. Adventist dietary counseling emphasizes whole foods, minimal processing, and plant-based proteins. Catholic fasting during Lent involves abstaining from red meat on Fridays, with fish consumption increasing measurably. The Brazilian Association of Fish Farming reported a 23 percent increase in fish sales during Lent 2019 compared to other months.
Clothing marks religious affiliation visibly. Evangelical women in Pentecost denominations typically wear skirts below the knee and avoid pants, makeup, jewelry, and cut hair, following interpretations of 1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3. The Congregação Cristã no Brasil, founded in 1910 with approximately 2.3 million members, enforces these standards strictly. Women cover heads with veils during services. Men wear long pants and closed shoes. Assembly of God dress codes vary by congregation, with some permitting contemporary clothing and others maintaining traditional restrictions. Candomblé practitioners wear white clothing on Fridays, dedicated to Oxalá, and specific colors corresponding to their orixá. Iniciates wear ritual necklaces called fios de contas in color patterns indicating their spiritual lineage and protecting deity. The all-white clothing requirement for ceremonies involves hand-sewn garments made from natural fabrics.