In the month since the country's senate voted to maintain a ban on almost all abortions, more than 3,700 people have submitted apostasy applications to the Argentinian synod, according to César Rosenstein, a lawyer and founding member of the Argentinian Coalition for a Lay State. [...]
“Apostasy is an important symbolic and political act,” said Rosenstein, who said that visits to the group’s website had shot up since the vote from 100 daily unique users to around 40,000 a day. [...]
In Argentina, 92% of the population describe themselves as Catholic – even though barely 20% practice their religion on a regular basis – and many express pride in a pope who once served as archbishop of Buenos Aires.
A constitutional reform in 1994 removed the requirement for Argentina’s presidents to be Catholic, but close ties remain between church and state. The Catholic church is financed to a large extent by the government. Bishops’ wages are paid by the state and Catholic schools receive state support, in accordance with a concordat signed in 1966 between the Vatican and Argentina’s 1966-70 military dictatorship and a decree passed by the country’s later 1976-83 dictatorship. [...]
But the vote has also galvanised women’s rights campaigners, and provoked a new discussion around the Catholic church’s role in the country. Hundreds of people had signed apostasy forms at Cael’s street corner stalls around the country, Rosenstein said.
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