Les oxymores religieux latino-américains. Étude sur l’enchantement et les processus de sécularisation au Pérou

Fervor, creativity and dynamism represent characteristic features of the Peruvian religious field (Catholic and Evangelical). Specialists consider it as corresponding to an enchanted worldview. Nonetheless, some of them, in particular Casanova and the Catholic hierarchy, have noticed signs of transformation and slowdown, which they consider a secularization process. This article aims to interpret those signs in context and show how they reveal a change in the relationship between faithful and religious institutions. Churches maintain their presence and their prestige and have a power which has been redefined in a weakened social and political environment in the process of transformation. However, they no longer structure the essential individual rhythms and community norms. Between the fervor very often out of institutional context and the confusions of spheres, a secularization process is not really adequate to reflect the religious transformations in process.