Brazil is the second-largest consumer of cocaine after the United States, according to the U.S. State Department, and big cities across Latin America's largest nation are plagued by drug violence.

Driven by gangs that control street-corner dealing, the problem is particularly acute in the teeming slums of Rio de Janeiro, where gangs lure children into lives of violence and engage in near-daily shootouts with police that kill innocent bystanders.

Brazil's census shows the percentage of citizens characterizing themselves as Catholics plunged to 74 percent in 2000 from 89 percent in 1980, while those calling themselves evangelical Protestants rose to 15 percent from 7 percent.