Word: espiritismo
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...course, recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. As is typical of the syncretic Catholicism of Latin America and the Caribbean, in Venezuela the faith openly accommodates non-Christian symbols and beliefs. The most prominent is Maria Lionza, the fertility goddess, proclaimed by the local belief system known as espiritismo. Her statue stands, quite literally, in the middle of one of Caracas' main highways...
...Lionza. Among the others are the Corte Medica, consisting of doctors believed to be responsible for healing miracles. Its best-known figure, Jose Gregorio Hernandez, is currently in the process of being canonized by the Catholic Church. But inclusion of the santos malandros has raised controversy among devotees of espiritismo (also known as santeros). That's because they are regarded as spirits with a "low light," who, in order to gain redemption in death, must undo the harm they did in life...
...Brazilian workers. The real wages of many workers in Rio shrank within the past five years, as beef soared from 9 cruzeiros a kilogram in 1950 to 46 today, butter from 34 to no. One of the odder symptoms of mass discontent is the mushroom growth of umbanda or espiritismo, a white-magic religious cult with elaborate African rituals. There were 75,000 registered espiri-tistas in Rio in 1949, 124,000 in 1950; today there are some 400,000, and the national total runs into millions...
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