Economic decline means rise in Dominican church problems

Published: 2006-03-28

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (CNS) -- As economic conditions decline, church problems mount in the Dominican Republic. Challenges range from fighting the temptation of easy money from drug trafficking to trying to promote vocations in a country where many children do not get a high school education. In a nation where 95 percent of the 9 million inhabitants profess Catholicism, the church is in a double bind: It must figure out how to survive institutionally as the economy shrinks while providing moral guidance to Catholics facing increasing social problems. Remittances from Dominicans abroad are the country's second-largest source of foreign income, said Archbishop Ramon de La Rosa Carpio of Santiago, president of the Dominican bishops' conference. Remittances are only topped by the tourist trade, he told a visiting group of U.S. bishops and officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on a fact-finding trip in March.

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