Religion in the Dominican

Religion is perhaps the simplest topic we will cover throughout this journey of learning about the Dominican Republic. Religion in the Dominican Republic is so simple because the OVERWHELMING amount of the population practices Roman Catholicism. It is estimated that over ninety-five percent of the population considers themselves to be Roman Catholics, even if attending church is not part of their weekly routine. Catholicism was introduced to the Dominican Republic when Christopher Columbus discovered it in 1492. Christopher Columbus was on an expedition funded by the Spanish crown, so inherently the Spanish religion was adopted to the newly discovered island. Since 1492, missionaries have traveled to the island in hopes of converting and baptizing the local people. Oftentimes the native people did convert or pick up certain aspects of the religion being taught by the missionaries but not in its entirety, this lead to a blending of native religious practices with the more formal teachings of the Catholic Church. Every since the Dominican gained its independence in 1844 Roman Catholicism has been considered the official religion of the country. The Concordat of 1954 with the Vatican established this naming of an official religion in writing. A concordat is a written agreement between the Holy See of the Catholic Church and a sovereign state on religious matters. This agreement benefits the Catholic Church because it allows them to be exempt from certain taxes and other legal matters.

Although Roman Catholicism has the monopoly over religion in the Dominican other smaller denominations of religions are certainly present and welcome due to the fact the Dominican is a place of religious freedom. Toward the end of the twentieth century the uncontested dominance of the Catholic Church began to dwindle because of less funding and a smaller supply of new priests. People turned to the Protestant religion to fill the void. The Protestant faith is similar to Catholicism but directs more emphasis to personal conversion, biblical authority and economic entrepreneurship.

In addition to these strictly Christian faiths practiced by people of the Dominican Synchronistic faiths are practiced. These faiths mix two or more casually unrelated events in a meaningful matter. Meaning, certain aspects of their native religion are kept while picking up certain beliefs of other religions from those around them.

Beliefs of the Dominican population mirror those of Rebecca’s because many of the native people also converted to strain of Christianity and became Roman Catholics like their conquers. Missionaries who traveled from Spain on a quest to spread the word of God converted most of the population in the Dominican. Rebecca experienced this conversion first hand and was baptized as an young adult into the Protestant faith.

Sources:

Wikipedia. Accessed October 1, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat.

Countries and Their Culture. Accessed October 1, 2011. http://www.everyculture.com/Middle-America-Caribbean/Dominicans-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html.

About. Accessed October 1, 2011. http://atheism.about.com/library/world/AJ/bl_DominicanIndex.htm.