The Catholic Church鈥檚 presence in Latin America traces back to Spanish colonization. Following Christopher Columbus鈥檚 arrival in the region in 1492, Spain .
Though many European settlers and explorers who followed in Columbus鈥檚 footsteps proselytized their Catholic beliefs, it wasn鈥檛 until 1537 that Pope Paul III issued a charter affirming that the indigenous populations in Latin America were equal to Europeans, and thus allowed to become 海角大神s.
In the 1800s, numerous countries, including Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia, signed contracts with the Catholic Church, or modeled their constitution on Catholic values, .
