In a Pandemic Are We More Religious? Traditional Practices of Catholics and the COVID-19 in Southwestern Colombia

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Abstract

The relationship between times of crisis (natural disasters, pandemics) and religious behaviour has been the subject of long debate. Theoretical models of religious coping propose that adversity caused by adverse and unexpected events instigates people to use religion more intensively. This research explores this hypothesis, comparing the effects of religious practices among people who declare themselves Catholics in the Department of Nariño, Colombia, during the coronavirus pandemic. I found that gender, the type of religious practices and the frequency of pre-pandemic participation are significant predictors of religious intensification. These findings, as well as the description of the ideas and reactions that the people of Nariño have about COVID-19, contribute to a more nuanced understanding of religious behaviours and the significant implications for the future of Catholicism in this region.

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Jeanet Sinding Bentzen (2019)

Religious beliefs potentially influence individual behaviour. But why are some societies more religious than others? One possible answer is religious coping: individuals turn to religion to deal with unbearable and unpredictable life events. To investigate whether coping can explain global differences in religiosity, I combine a global dataset on individual-level religiosity with spatial data on natural disasters. Individuals become more religious if an earthquake recently hit close by. Even though the effect decreases after a while, data on children of immigrants reveal a persistent effect across generations. The results point to religious coping as the main mediating channel, but alternative explanations such as mutual insurance or migration cannot be ruled out entirely. The findings may help explain why religiosity has not vanished as some scholars once predicted.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Diego Meza:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4221-0343

diegomegav@gmail.com

Journal

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Int J Lat Am Relig

Title: International Journal of Latin American Religions

Publisher: Springer International Publishing (Cham )

ISSN (Print): 2509-9957

ISSN (Electronic): 2509-9965

Publication date (Electronic): 31 August 2020

Pages: 1-17

Affiliations

GRID grid.449289.a, ISNI 0000 0001 2168 9431, Assistente, Facoltà di Scienze Sociali, , Pontificia Università Gregoriana, ; Piazza della Pilotta, 4, 00187 Roma RM, Italy

Author information

Diego Meza http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4221-0343

Article

Publisher ID: 108

DOI: 10.1007/s41603-020-00108-0

PMC ID: 7458357

SO-VID: 863d89ef-9389-4dc6-b524-56c5dee9c8a8

License:

This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

History

Date received : 22 June 2020

Date accepted : 10 August 2020

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